Two Dads, No Sads

It is possible that there will be no chance of hurting a mother's feelings and everyone could be right in the future when they say a baby looks just like his dad.

Scientists at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston did some chemical reprogramming of dad cells; mixed it with surrogate eggs and embryos; managed a bit of selective breeding; and presto, chango, science creates babies with genetic material only from only from the dads.

The original idea was to try and figure out how to save endangered species. However, as with all science, it opens up possibilities far beyond the original hypothesis to everything from  allowing gay fathers to have children reflecting both of their genetic makeups to breeding [for example] the brains of an honors student with the body and athletic ability of an all pro defensive lineman.

Getting Paid Doesn't Depend on Doing a Job Well

One of the things that the marvels of science often disguise is that researching things can just be a job. It is important to remember, of course, that some jobs interest us, some don't, and some people do their jobs well and others not as much.

So today we disparage [some} science and by extension the scientists behind it. Apparently, some folks were paid to come up with statistics to support the rather unsurprising pronouncement that supportive dads produce happier sons, which seems like a good thing. Others with advanced degrees spent lots of money and time with various groups of girls so they could write papers announcing that a biological father's absence is somehow related to earlier puberty in his daughters. Then there is the blah, blah, yadda, hmmm from "experts" who have been paid to arrive at various rationalizations for the social belief that there is some sort of biological imperative in men to prefer fathering boys.

The only good to come from some folks doing a bad job poorly: it gives other people something to write about -- so, again, thanks.

From the Abyss and Into the Political Arena

Practically the perfect dad in the movies, at least in Extraordinary Measures.

John Crowley might also be taking his background as Super Hero Dad, putting his life on the line to save his kids from a deadly disease, into the political arena, riding movie publicity to office as an elected Republican in New Jersey.

Who Sucked the Life Out?

Nature's father-teen metaphor: Pipeline father's "suck the life from their young."

Few will hear of it — it being a nature story, after all — but teens in particular will feel the pain of the pipeline. That fish, looking like a straight version of the related seahorse [Earlier: Is Pops Preggers?], also is one of the very rare species where the male carries the babies. (In this case, the fertilized female passes her eggs to inside the daddy-to-be for nourishment 'til birth.)

A new study suggests that a father may be ingesting some of the hundreds of possible pipeline. However, another hypothesis of why fewer come out than go it is much more likely to those who have gone through fatherhood. In this scenario, it is not the father who feasts on the embryo, but the pipeline kiddies who cannibalize each other.

No, I didn't Say 'Rabbit Ears'

This week's objet d'eBay, a window decal declaring a mammalian parental relationship, may well be something to stock up on. Thanks to scientific advances, rabbit penises can now be grown ... and perhaps someday attached to humans much as we now have other animal organs transplanted to humans. Sometime in the future, f***ing like a bunny could well be taking on a whole new meaning: get your sticker before they run out.

In Some Cases, Not the Worst Idea

Thanks to the British researchers who claim to have created viable human sperm from stem cells, we are once again encouraged to say so long to natural fathers. [Earlier: Gifts that Keep on Giving ... With Limits; Today's Betting Line; and No Good Procreators]

While on the one hand it seems unlikely we'll be rushing into a situation anytime soon where we say goodbye to natural pops, there is at least a moment every once in a while when it doesn't seem like a bad idea — such as when you hear about the guy who asked his son to help him dump the body of the prostitute he picked up and killed.

Sniff, Sniff

How do the little imps smell?

A recent study by French researchers reached the conclusion that dads treat better those children who look and smell more like them. They were in Senegal for the one study and will be issuing their results from a similar test of folks in France. And, for many reasons, being treated better is key, not least because if you smell better — and children, I'm talking to all of you — you might get a father-made mega toy made from toys, like those created by artist Robert Bradford. If, on the other hand you smell (and behave) poorly, you might end up doubley maced by your dad and with a 20-foot chain around you.

Gifts That Keep on Giving ... With Limits

Barry the GO (Great Orator) waxes poetic about what dads should give their kids. Some, however, go far beyond his imaginings.

A Scottish pop provided a kidney months before his dying daughter's wedding. She lived and happily married, which would seem to suggest this gift as setting the bar of how science has enabled dads to give. But science offers even more.

Now the dead can give life. Three years after California's Bruce Verner passed on, his widow inseminated herself with sperm she "extracted" (?) shortly after his death. Unfortunately for his daughter, science is a bit more giving than law as a U.S. district court has just ruled that she is not eligible for the deceased's social security benefits as a "survivor" of her father.

Apparently, science can take dads to a place well beyond rhetoric.

Many take the opportunity of Easter to look skyward, toward a heavenly father. However, few have the same sort of ability to pinpoint whether they should look for advice than nine children of three fathers.

This week's objet d'eBay is the blueprint of The International Space Station, current home to the 19th expedition and fathers. Gennady Padalka is a Russian cosmonaut, current commander and dad to three girls; NASA flight engineers Michael Barratt has two girls and three boys; and Koichi Wakata is the Japanese chichi of a 10-year-old boy. And if their kids want to know whether they are during the occasional IP call from space all they have to do is alternate taking a look at the blueprint and using their imagination as they stare beyond the ozone.

The Home Body

Perhaps the world has been screwed up from the beginning. Maybe men are better at staying home and minding the kids and women are supposed to go off to hunt and gather?

Except for the guilt they both feel, one British couple recently wrote up how well the economic downturn that sent dad into redundancy and mum off to win the family's bread seemed to be working out. (Not surprisingly, the kids have reversed to with their daughter missing having the misses do her hair and their son delighted at the opportunity to bounce all day off the man of the house.)

And then there are supermen — like rhyme dad Larry Shine, single father of nine — who both work and take full care of his children.

Given the ability to create life in a test tube, there have often been jokes about whether men are necessary, but the idea that men can handle it all does give one pause: are scientists also working on procreation possibilities that could make women unnecessary as the next evolutionary step?

Evolutionary Fathers

Today's birthday father, Charles Darwin (Happy 200th, Chuck!), constructed a mathematical (?) proof as a boy that convinced him marriage was the right course. Among the positives he found to outweigh the negatives was the potential joy of having children — he was father to 10 — even as his own father decried his likely ability to amount to anything (eighth and fifth paragraphs).

Naturally speaking, Darwin is thought of as "father to the theory of evolution." It's a theory (which is scientific speak for "what we really believe") that says (sorta) that while Julian Coryell is likely to be a guitar player like his father, jazz master Larry, it is also likely that the Coryell, Auger, Sample Trio — the CAST of Coolidge Returns! — will have evolved to a slightly different sound than what one hears when their famous dads play. And so they do.

Hope and Claws

It is nice to believe there is hope for any father, even the most snarling and evil.

So let us take from the story of how Henry, a New Zealand tuatara — a lizard-like animal with a family tree that may have roots in dinaosurs — came to be a father at 111. It turns out that once a tumor was removed, he became much more sociable, most evident in his having impregnated 80-year-old Mildred ... to the tune of 11 hatched eggs, so far.

And let us give to the ongoing sage of Damir Dokic, the tennis father-from-hell who took his daughter Jelena to a career high No. 4 ranking as a teen with a slash and burn strategy that almost destroyed her, before she was able to pull her life together enough to be the queen of this year's Australian Open ball.

Because, maybe, if Henry can get some good and enjoy the pitter patter of little tuatara paws, then, perhaps too, there's an operation for Damir that will help him pull it all together as well.

Questions of Identity

Everyone is drawn to news of groups with which they identify. Comfort is offered by the struggles of similar others; glory is reflected with their achievements; and pride is discovered with the supposition that facing, or having faced, the same circumstances, one would do better.

So what is to be learned or felt from (real life father of two; stepfather of one) Tim Robbins playing the father of Iron Man Robert "dad of Indio" Downey Jr. in the upcoming movie. And how is one to feel about learning that Tom Cruise can go all googlyda when son Connor is up for a part in a movie?

How far should one identify with Emer, the Emu who fled the farm the night Mrs. E laid an egg — Emu dads are responsible for sitting on the eggs, sometimes not eating for the two months of incubation? And what to make of the discovering that the frightening macho monster dinosaurs of yesteryear were actually homebodies who would take care of the eggs of many ladies?

So many differences from one group is a bit a much, a fracturing of the looking glass leaving the observer with the puzzle of how he wants to put all the pieces back together.

Are These the Sand Times?

Times are so difficult and complicated these days that even the best of news seems framed in a context of negativity ... even if you have to reach a bit to fit the negative around the positive.

For example, in a report on how British researchers may have discovered that somewhere in a father's gene is the determiner of a baby's sex is buried that news that more boys than girls are generally born, but that more die sooner in childhood as well as a hint that dad's controlling the sex of the kids was found by studying how many men died during World War II. So, the news of life has to be told within a box of death.

Not that you actually need positive to find some negative news. Bad news can travel on its own. For one, there is the report of the Punjabi dad who realizes to his shame that his son was one of the Mumbai terrorists. Another: the mind nearly boggles at the tale of a father whose 15-year-old goth daughter was part of a blood-sucking posse arranged for someone to stab him to death in a back alley where he kept his car parked ... although his 20-year-old son always loved him according to his MySpace page.

With news all around like this, is it time for dads to go ostrich?

Not at First

Fighting the good fight does not mean always fighting the right fight or battling towards a win that is really possible. Still, when talking about fathers, it is always necessary to F the GF.

Gemtasu most honors his father, Moimango, by celebrating his (re)smoking. The singing and dancing around the corpse won't bring him back to life, but it does recognize the quality work of scientists' ability to remummify.

Similarly, Ted Kucowski probably won't ever see son Brandon racing alongside him, but the birth defect schizenchephaly from which teh younger Kman suffers shouldn't stop them from competing as a father-son team in additional 5ks, triathalons and marathons (they've been in 40, 20 and "a handful," respectively). How better to celebrate love than to fight together even when you know you won't come in first. In such cases, winning the race takes on a very different meaning.

Winning is also likely to take on — if the polls can be believed — a different aspect for Dough and father John McCain. The son makes a number of wonderful points about his father, but perhaps not enough to justify his winning the presidency, which at least today he seems likely to lose. But pride and love should still always be on display betwee child and father &mdash it is the good and right fight — even when all rational thought argues that is it hopeless.

Love is never hopeless.

Screen Gems

"We should all be so lucky as to be able to make a documentary about our fathers," according to Mark Everett. The singer, who in addition to creating "Parallel World, Parallel Lives" about the life of physicist/dad Hugh Everett III had previously tried to explain and explore in his book, a bachelor take on "Things the Grandchildren Should Know."

Everett younger takes viewers on a guided, albeit not comprehensive tour of the mind of Everett elder, the man who proposed various proofs for the concepts that other universes exist in places inaccessible to humans. Of course, what he is not discussing are the universes of other dads here on earth that we are just missing ... such as, for example that of central African mountain gorilla king Titus, who used his fathering skills — siring and protecting — to dominate his pack for nearly 17 years. Disappointingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, his many children haven't yet gotten around to learning the necessary movie making skills or adapting to the tools that would let them tell their father's story. So, his is currently a universe glimpsed and imagined only from the outside.

As is the parallel universes that is still be discovered within the mind(s) of a man who went crazy while writing of a man who went crazy. That tale is told by Immy Humes, daughter of burnt-out literary nova Harold L. Humes, whose unfinished novel "The Memoirs of Dorsey Slade" is the story that never got finished within a story within a story of his crack-up.

Perhaps the parallel universes of fathers were what Everett was really getting at and the proof can only be confirmed when we lay all their stories out? In that, we will surely all be lucky.

Scientific Explorations and Examinations

Scientists are working on research and theory that an impregnator becomes smarter and nicer through the process of the impregnee giving birth. Dads-to-be may get sympathetic morning sickness and food cravings, too, but all things considered it's a small price to pay.

Men's brains are changing as their new baby is growing. They're on greater alert for dangers, their instincts for care are improving and problem-solving skills are sharpened and hone. Why? According to the variety of scientists cited in a Times (of London) article, hormones and a need to survive.

Not yet known is whether children increase your abilities by exponential effects. If that should be true, imagine the improved version soon to be on display of Texas/Nevada's Joe Shatswell. The U.S. Army specialist is on leave from fighting in Afghanistan so he can tend to his two-year-old daughter while her mom is in the hospital being care for on the eve of the birth of the couple's quadruplets.

Where will science go in explaining fatherhood? And can it ever explain why just as nature gives, it also takes. The flip side of learning to be smarter, to love and care for your children that much more is harsh. And so, just as hope is sprung for Shatswell, hope was crushed in the story of an Indian gentleman who died of a heart attack just hours after learning of his daughter's suicide. She killed herself because she could see his suffering no more and in doing so she appears to have taken the little bit left of his life as much as hers.

Give Until It Hurts

What would a world without moms look like? It probably wouldn't be pretty. And it is unlikely, although there is an Algerian tree, an Asian clam and Sicilian insect that are always motherless children.

More usually we think of a dad giving to his child(ren), but this, too, can be a fairly passive process. Brit Kevin Pyle gives his son a role model of prize-winning laziness and new research says dads (not moms, as formerly thought) are the ones who regretfully pass along the hair-loss gene they wish they hadn't received from their pop.

Passivity can flow both ways — if the right example has been set — as exemplified by Lee Seung-min, who lounged through some surgery so as to pass along a part of his kidney to his fellow seaman and father, Lee Ho-keun.

In fact, whether or not there are moms, nature mandates dad give (and teach giving) directly.

Dog Days

Ladies and gentleman, we are sniffing around in a "brave" new world. Snuffy done up and got two bitches pregnant.

The progenitor is an afghan (talibark?) hound, also the world's first cloned dog, according to the Korean scientific husbandriers who brought him to be and pimped for him. Heading up the effort that first brought Snuffy (an acronym for Seoul National Univesity puppy) is out-of-favor researcher Hwang Woo-Suk, who has continued in animals after he got kicked out of people in a stem cell research scandal.

So, it is not unlikely we'll be cloning people dads soon, too. Maybe they'll all be like the average Australian dad with his 2.3 kids — cloning can have consequences?

Day's Doubles

Dad news today is all about doubling: beds, dates, twins and even beds.

First, Britain's Fatherhood Institute issued a report encouraging hospital policy changes to allow couples giving birth to book a double so the new dad can overnight in the hospital bonding with and learning about his new child.

Next, up is the just published Assisted Loving: True Tales of Double Dating with My Dad. What did the gay author, Bob Morris, learn about hanging with his widowed Pa? His dad shared wisdom many dads teach their kids — although not always in such circumstances — that good is usually better than perfect.

Then comes news of the 59-year-old new dad, whose 56-year-old wife has given birth to twins after their combined 35 years of marriage (together, even). Obviously, life has gotten harder, but Qassem Sukkarieh says nothing could be hard enough: "When I get into the house, tired or even exhausted, and hear one of the babies crying, I forget all my fatigue and smile .... I have waited for these moments for years."

And, finally, there is word of a son who may be following his dad into space. Krosh was in a 1992 Soviet space ship and now one of his sons have joined with 39 others being considered for a possible Mars landing. Oh, did I mention father and son are macaques?

** Gentlemen, you have two of them. Use them! **