Virgin Birth

Reproductive technologies still haven't achieved the miracle of virgin gestation: getting a human egg to develop into an embryo without help from a sperm. But eggs can be coaxed to divide and yield stem cells, as Boston researchers learned after studying the work of disgraced Korean scientist Hwang Woo Suk. Hwang, who thought he had created the first human embryonic stem cells through cloning, had actually grown the first stem cells from a dividing human egg, suggesting the technique might be developed further.