The web site ManNotlncluded.com (MNI) has announced the birth of the world’s first baby conceived with sperm from an Internet sperm bank. The baby boy was born to a heterosexual couple in southeast England who wish to remain anonymous and bring up the child as their genetic own. Interestingly, the couple is the first heterosexual couple to have consulted MNI, with the remainder of the company’s customers comprised of lesbian couples or single women who desire to have children.
Although the fertility industry in Britain is very regulated, MNI does not fall under the authority of the country’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) because it distributes fresh sperm, which is not covered by the Parliamentary act granting HFEA its authority.While there are other companies that offer sperm donor information via the Internet, MNI claims to be the first full-fledged Internet sperm bank.
MNI began operations in Britain in July 2002 and will soon be expanding to Spain, Germany, and The Netherlands. Its web site claims that the company has 5,500 anonymous sperm donors and over 3,000 registered female recipients. MNI is expecting the birth of its first child born to a lesbian couple in a matter of weeks.
Hui Zhen Sheng of Shanghai Second Medical University has published a report indicating that she has successfully created human-rabbit chimeras. Sheng performed the experiment in hopes of finding another method of creating human embryonic stem cells that could be used in experimental treatments.
According to the report published in Ce/I Research, an obscure scientific journal published by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Sheng produced 400 embryos by fusing human skin cells obtained from the foreskins of two five-year-old boys and two men and from the face of a 60-year-old woman with New Zealand rabbit eggs. Of the 400 embryos, 100 reached the blastocyst stage and were allowed to develop for several days before being destroyed in order to harvest their stem cells.
While some scientists hailed the announcement, others were skeptical and indicated frustration at the lack of details in the published paper. In fact, press reports indicate that the manuscript has been around for two years and that the journals Science, Nature, and the National Academy of Sciences have refused to publish it due to the lack of standard data. Some stem cell researchers have been working for some time to produce human-animal embryo chimeras in hopes of creating a new method of obtaining embryonic stem cells. They argue that using chimeras would be less morally objectionable because chimeras are not believed to be able to survive past the embryonic stage.
A 40-year-old male schoolteacher lost all improper sexual urges after an egg-sized tumor in his right frontal lobe was removed. The man had been arrested after making sexual advances toward his stepdaughter. After failing a 12-step rehabilitation program due to repeated requests for sexual favors, the man was sentenced to jail. The night before he was scheduled to begin his prison term, he arrived at the hospital complaining of headaches. At the hospital, he continually leered at the female nurses and commented about wanting to rape his landlady.
Doctors discovered the tumor while doing a brain scan to determine the cause of his headaches. After the tumor was removed, his vulgar behavior and pedophilia ceased.A year later the man again began collecting pornography, and a second brain scan indicated that the tumor had partially re grown. After removal, the man’s offensive behavior once again disappeared.
There have been similar reports of people whose brain tumors have caused them to lie, damage property, and even bill, Incidents such as these raise questions regarding the extent to which a damaged or otherwise impaired frontal lobe may cause certain types of criminal behavior.
British professor Kevin Warwick believes that in the future people mill be able to communicate telepathically, down load new skills directly to their brain, and control the environment around them due to having cybernetic implants in their bodies. In fact, Warwick has made it his life quest to become a cyborg himself—part human, part machine.
The professor has undergone two operations to add electronic components to his body. “Project Cyborg 1.0” commenced on August 24, 199B when a doctor implanted a silicon chip transponder into Warwick’s arm, allowing a computer to monitor him as he moved through the Department of Cybernetics at the University of Reading. According to Warwick’s web site (www.kevinwarmick.org), he was able to “operate doors, lights, heaters and other computers without lifting a finger."
“Project Cyborg 2.0” began in March 2002 when a one hundred electrode array was surgically implanted into the median nerve fibers of Warwick’s arm. The array allowed him to move a mechanical hand simply by thinking about it and also measured his nerve signals by creating artificial sensations of its own that Warwick could sense. For example, he could feel the tension of a mechanical hand pressing down 5000 miles away.
Warwick’s next plans include implanting a cybernetic device in the brain. Part of his motivation for pursuing this research is his belief that computing intellect will surpass human intelligence in 30-50 years. As he told the Orlando Sentinel, “If you can’t beat them, join them.”
