Sperm from teeth?

New Scientist reports that Brazilian researchers are attempting to help infertile men by finding a way to turn teeth cells into sperm cells via mouse testicles:

Irina Kerkis of the Butantan Institute in São Paulo and her colleagues injected stem cells from the dental pulp of human teeth into the testes of live mice. The cells seemed to migrate to the tubules where sperm usually mature and differentiate into cells resembling human sperm.

Just one problem: "some of the human cells fused with mouse cells." Well, at least the kids would be a shoo-in for the Mouseketeers.

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Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over forty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. Contact Us

Posted By: Alex - Fri Jul 11, 2008
Category: Science

Comments

Sounded completely insane to me.

Posted by Alex on 07/12/08 at 10:46 AM

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