Here’s the headline: Scientists Have Bred Live Mice with No Need for Fertilized Eggs
And here’s their explanation:
Am I completely missing something, or does the author not realize that an embryo is in fact a fertilized egg to begin with?
I could well be missing something but this reminds me a lot of people talking about electric cars not needing fossil fuels not realizing how high a percentage of electricity is produced from fossil fuels to begin with.
The author’s paper is titled “Mice produced by mitotic reprogramming of sperm injected into haploid parthenogenotes”. That’s pretty clear. I don’t think the author is confused at all.
Whoever wrote the headline “Scientists Have Bred Live Mice with No Need for Fertilized Eggs” (and I don’t dignify headline writers with the title of author) should be slapped and sterilized, however.
I know you can get sea-urchin eggs to start to divide and replicate without actually fertilizing them. Could it be that you could do that, somehow (chemical stimulus?) with a mammalian egg? It divides, becomes a blastocyst, all without sperm, purely parthenogentically? If, after it has divided a bunch of times, then you introduce sperm…um… Damned if I know! Worth messing around with, I guess!
I think he meant the author of the Gizmodo article, not the actual study.
Yes, the author who wrote the news brief, not the person who wrote up and conducted the experiment.
Took the words right out of my mouth. 
I understand this is the most respected science journal in California.