Bah. Popeye had one of these years ago!
Posted on 03/15/2005 10:00:29 AM PST by mojito
What happens when you cross a human and a mouse? Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke but, in fact, it's a serious experiment recently carried out by a team headed by a distinguished molecular biologist, Irving Weissman, at Stanford University. Scientists injected human brain cells into mouse foetuses, creating a strain of mice that were approximately 1% human. Weissman is considering a follow-up that would produce mice whose brains are 100% human.
What if the mice escaped the lab and began to proliferate? What might be the ecological consequences of mice who think like human beings, let loose in nature? Weissman says that he would keep a tight rein on the mice, and if they showed any signs of humanness he would kill them. Hardly reassuring.
Experiments like the one that produced a partially humanised mouse stretch the limits of human tinkering with nature to the realm of the pathological.
The new research field at the cutting edge of the biotech revolution is called chimeric experimentation. Researchers around the world are combining human and animal cells and creating chimeric creatures that are part-human, part-animal.
The first chimeric experiment occurred many years ago when scientists in Edinburgh fused a sheep and goat embryo - two unrelated animal species that are incapable of mating and producing a hybrid offspring. The resulting creature, called a geep, was born with the head of a goat and the body of a sheep.
Now, scientists have their sights trained on breaking the final taboo in the natural world - crossing humans and animals to create new human-animal hybrids. Already, aside from the humanised mouse, scientists have created pigs with human blood and sheep with livers and hearts that are mostly human.
The experiments are designed to advance medical research. Indeed, a growing number of genetic engineers argue that human-animal hybrids will usher in a golden era of medicine. Researchers say that the more humanised they can make research animals, the better able they will be to model the progression of human diseases, test new drugs, and harvest tissues and organs for transplantation. What they fail to mention is that there are equally promising and less invasive alternatives to these bizarre experiments, including computer modeling, in vitro tissue culture, nanotechnology, and prostheses to substitute for human tissue and organs.
Some researchers are speculating about human-chimpanzee chimeras - creating a humanzee. This would be the ideal laboratory research animal because chimpanzees are so closely related to us. Chimps share 98% of the human genome, and a fully mature chimp has the equivalent mental abilities and consciousness of a four-year-old human.
Fusing a human and chimpanzee embryo - which researchers say is feasible - could produce a creature so human that questions regarding its moral and legal status would throw 4,000 years of ethics into chaos. Would such a creature enjoy human rights? Would it have to pass some kind of "humanness" test to win its freedom? Would it be forced into doing menial labour or be used to perform dangerous activities?
The possibilities are mind-boggling. For example, what if human stem cells - the primordial cells that turn into the body's 200 or so cell types - were to be injected into an animal embryo and spread throughout the animal's body into every organ? Some human cells could migrate to the testes and ovaries where they could grow into human sperm and eggs. If two of the chimeric mice were to mate, they could potentially conceive a human embryo. If the human embryo were to be removed and implanted in a human womb, the resulting human baby's biological parents would have been mice.
Please understand that none of this is science fiction. The National Academy of Sciences, America's most august scientific body, is expected to issue guidelines for chimeric research some time next month, anticipating a flurry of new experiments in the burgeoning field of human-animal chimeric experimentation.
Bioethicists are already clearing the moral path for human-animal chimeric experiments, arguing that once society gets past the revulsion factor, the prospect of new, partially human creatures has much to offer the human race. And, of course, this is exactly the kind of reasoning that has been put forth to justify what is fast becoming a journey into a brave new world in which all of nature can be ruthlessly manipulated. But now, with human-animal chimeric experiments, we risk even undermining our own species' biological integrity in the name of human progress.
With chimeric technology, scientists have the power to rewrite the evolutionary saga - to sprinkle parts of our species into the rest of the animal kingdom as well as fuse parts of other species with our own genome and even to create new human sub-species and super-species. Are we on the cusp of a biological renaissance, or sowing the seeds of our destruction?
Bah. Popeye had one of these years ago!
It's all His nonsense....
WHOSE brain is being used????? Yuck! How horrifying!
In all seriousness... this is an area you'd want to avoid. Even though the bits wouldn't strictly speakign be carved from a human, and thus it wouldn't *exactly* be canibalism... you wouldn't want to give some chimera-bacon to someone, have them say, "Hey! This tastes a little different... but it's *really* *good*! Where can I get more?"
"...Are You a Man or a Mouse?..."
Throw some cheese on the floor and find out.
> It makes you wonder when God is going to pull the plug on this nonsense.
Probably the moment the superstitius take over and stop all science. At that point, humanity would cease to have a future anyway, so you might as well cancel the experiment.
Sheesh. I'm sure there were people just as aghast at the idea of heart transplants, blood transfusions, vaccinations...
LOL! Best answer!
Where will the chimera-pigs live...seperate housing from non-chimera? How would someone know the difference, would they have to ask prior to eating?
Pan
by Ryan Tuccinardi
The Greek god of shepherds and flocks, who was especially popular in Arcadia. He is a son of the god Hermes. He was depicted as a satyr with a reed pipe, a shepherd's crook and a branch of pine or crown of pine needles. He had a wrinkled face with a very prominent chin. On his forehead were two horns and his body was hairy. He was a swift runner and climbed rocks with ease. Pan belonged to the retinue of Dionysus.
Pan was also a god of fertility, unbridled male sexuality and carnal desire. He chased nymphs through the forests and mountains in the shape of a goat. Pan was not very liked by the other Greek gods.
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/p/pan.html
Satyrs
by Micha F. Lindemans
In Greek mythology the satyrs are deities of the woods and mountains. They are half human and half beast; they usually have a goat's tail, flanks and hooves. While the upper part of the body is that of a human, they also have the horns of a goat. They are the companions of Dionysus, the god of wine, and they spent their time drinking, dancing, and chasing nymphs. The Italian version of the satyr is the faun, while the Slavic version is the Ljeschi.
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/s/satyrs.html
I keep thinking of "The Fly", (the original): Help Meeee, Help Meeeeee.
> Where will the chimera-pigs live...
In research facilities, no doubt. Quite possibly they'd be manufactured upon demand rather than bred.
I think it's wise to remember God told the Israelites: "You are to keep my statues. You shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle...: Lev. 19:19
The ideas that injecting human brain cell material into a mouse foetus will turn it into an intelligent mouse, or some sort of percentile-human, is ludicrous.
Statements like "this mouse will therefore be 1% human" are non-scientific gibberish. It will be a mouse which someone messed with at conception. Inject away! It won't be a human. Knock yourself out.
That would be awful if they ever got loose and procreated...we could end up eating a relative!!
Anybody else watch last week's South Park? Matt and Trey ahead of the curve as usual.
Most Humans don't know socialism is slavery by government yet..
Especially the "smart" ones...
ggrrrrrrrrr.....
No hybrid cows?
> I think it's wise to remember God told the Israelites: "You are to keep my statues. You shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle
Response 1: We're talking humans and mice, not cows.
Response 2: So... breeding better moo-cows is a sin? How about dog breeding?
Response 3: We're not Israelites.
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