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WHAT sort of person would you get if you crossed the genes of Marilyn Monroe with those of, say, Madonna? Till now such a hypothetical question would rightly have been greeted as a little crazy. But the age-old certainty that two females cannot sexually reproduce has been demolished (see “Dawn of a new kind of parenthood”).

Crossing two female mice to produce a daughter with two mums and no dad is one of those rare scientific firsts that are genuinely unexpected and amazing. Until now dogma has held that the union of egg with egg will never bear fruit.…

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