"Hey, while you're at it could you,uh, maybe add an inch?"
Rabbits aren’t exactly known as ambassadors of sexual dysfunction (“You gotta help me, doctor. My wife and I only make love fourteen times a day and our marriage is falling apart. Our five hundred kids are starting to notice the tension.”). But the rodents with the biggest “aww” factor may be the key to developing a cure for damaged erectile tissue that can impair penile function. Researchers at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C. used tissue-engineering techniques to erect (sorry, had to) a fully functional rabbit penis that allowed the animals to mate and impregnate females. The results were impressive, leading to the most functional erectile tissue replacement procedure currently documented, according to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
While older men have plenty of treatment choices when it comes to losing erectile function, men born with a defective penis have few options available. The success of the rabbit study may lead to a new treatment for men born with dysfunctional erectile tissue, who have been diagnosed with penile cancer, suffered trauma, and in some instances, men who suffer from erectile dysfunction. And scientists weren’t the only ones expressing enthusiasm for the new treatment—the male rabbits given bioengineered organs rushed to copulate with a female within 60 seconds of introduction. So now the formerly impotent Nibbles can saddle up to his buddy at the bar and proudly say, “Sorry I’m late, Hoppy. I was slipping Fluffy the old carrot—ten times.”
* To learn more about animals with some really bizarre mating rituals click here
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