New medical breakthrough suggests babies possible without female egg

For roughly 200 years, scientists have been operating under the belief that to spawn life, one needed an egg cell.

Researchers at the University of Bath have found a workaround, creating baby mice by injecting sperm into an embryo.

Using chemicals, the process involved tricking non-fertilized eggs into becoming embryos.

While such creations typically perish in days, adding sperm to them results in a 24% chance of full development.

According to a press release about the study, "The baby mice born as a result of the technique seem completely healthy, but their DNA started out with different epigenetic marks compared with normal fertilisation. This suggests that different epigenetic pathways can lead to the same developmental destination, something not previously shown."

It also notes, "...in the long-term future it could be possible to breed animals using non-egg cells and sperm. Although this is still only an idea, it could have potential future applications in human fertility treatment and for breeding endangered species."

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