Word: rat
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Imagine a mouse impregnating a rat, a bull impregnating a horse, a deer impregnating an elephant. Imagine a man fathering a child--or 100 children--a century after his death. Sound preposterous? Think again. A team of scientists at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center has taken the first tiny steps toward scenarios at least as bizarre, and perhaps even more so. Writing in the current issue of Nature Medicine, the researchers report that they have frozen spermatogonial stem cells--the cells that make sperm--thawed them and coaxed them back to life...
...second experiment is equally groundbreaking. If rat stems can produce rat sperm while living in a mouse's testicles, it's plausible at least that any mammalian species could play host to the stem cells of any other--thus helping biologists, for example, preserve the genetic material from endangered species...
...network withdrawals drew a tight-lipped response from Robert Pitofsky, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. "I support comparative advertising," Pitofsky says. "I hope that this is not an occasion to suppress comparative ads overall." Perhaps not, but the rat-a-tat of battling drug claims has been making heads feel like the morning after. Hey, has anyone got an aspirin...
...Captain Trash, Thomas Derrah amazes. Trash looks like a gum-chewing heroin addict, but in his escape from prison (the unbelievable number "Rat Seraban") and trip to Russia ("Russia's a big motha," he says), he proves he is more than just a whining yesman. "I think we should rip off their necks and piss down their throats," he suggests matter-of-factly. Derrah has never been more funny...
...behind the scenes, plotting strategy, raising money, orchestrating commercials. Pat calls her every 30 minutes to check in. Bay is the personification of his barking inner voice, goading him to run for President, something she has been doing for a decade. Whereas Bay talks nonstop in her brother's rat-a-tat style, Shelley is painfully reticent. Her only public role is to smile serenely, sit behind the candidate onstage and form the visual punch line to one of his biggest applause getters: "I want to introduce the lady I intend to nominate to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton...