Animal-Human Hybrids Spark Controversy

[Dover]

So now we're making our own mythological creatures?


............................................................

Animal-Human Hybrids Spark Controversy

Maryann Mott
National Geographic News

January 25, 2005
Scientists have begun blurring the line between human and animal by producing chimeras—a hybrid creature that's part human, part animal.

Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University in 2003 successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. The embryos were reportedly the first human-animal chimeras successfully created. They were allowed to develop for several days in a laboratory dish before the scientists destroyed the embryos to harvest their stem cells.


In Minnesota last year researchers at the Mayo Clinic created pigs with human blood flowing through their bodies.

And at Stanford University in California an experiment might be done later this year to create mice with human brains.

Scientists feel that, the more humanlike the animal, the better research model it makes for testing drugs or possibly growing "spare parts," such as livers, to transplant into humans.

Watching how human cells mature and interact in a living creature may also lead to the discoveries of new medical treatments....cont'd

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/01/0125_050125_chimeras.html

...........

Scientists Recreate Genome of Ancient Human Ancestor

John Roach
for National Geographic News

January 25, 2005
Scientists have recreated part of the genetic code of an extinct, shrewlike creature that is thought to have been the most recent common ancestor of most placental mammals, including humans.

Placental mammals give birth to live young, and they descended from a common ancestor scientists simply call the "boreoeutherian ancestor." The creature scurried about the woodlands of Asia more than 70 million years ago.


In recreating part of its genetic code, researchers say their goal wasn't to bring back the dead à la Jurassic Park (see sidebar). Rather, the scientists say their goal is to better understand human biology and evolution.

"The main reason we did this was to learn something about our genome and the way genomes evolve within the mammal kingdom," said Mathieu Blanchette, an assistant professor in the school of computer science at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Genome Stories

David Haussler, an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of California, Santa Cruz, joined Blanchette in his quest...cont'd

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/01/0125_050125_genome.html

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Anybody remember seeing articles/pictures circulating of strange hairless hyena-like canine 'creatures' that were turning up in different U.S. states within the last couple of years that no one could identify? I wonder........check this out:

http://www.crystalinks.com/chupacabras.html

Stranger than fiction. Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.....

[autorank]

1. Dover, thanks. This is stunning!

What a bunch of morons. They need to stop this nonsense right now. Too bad the US can't take a lead as reponsible stem cell researchers. We could make a difference but * has moved away from the table.

[Lisabtrucking]

2. Interesting, looks like part lion, part dog. n/t

[undergroundpanther]

3. Maybe

this sick anthropocentic additude from the likes of Francis Bacon that claims humans are so great,and wonderful somehow "we " are the pinnacle of life(bullshit I say,because if you look at what "civilized" humans have done to the species of this world we all share,we kill off alot of life fighting against each other to be the biggest bully and biggest ego and to steal from others) I would hope the human superiority fetish (and racism too)will finally end when we stop being humans.
When a human must admit his mom is a mouse, maybe we will stop being such abusive fuckheads to animals and become a helpful part of life,content to be living alongside many kinds of life instead of seeking dominion over it as if the species we are is an"entitlement"..

Besides we already share alot of DNA with animals already.
Humans are animals,despite what some of these'scientists' rhaposodize about human'superiority.We are as a species very sick,destructive,selfish,oblivious,lovelesssociopathic , stupid,short-sighted,deluded, insecure and narcisstic animals destroying everything,and we call that"sucess"
Maybe having the genes of a cow will grant some of us who have cows in the family the ability to feel compassion for our chimeric and lesser human kin.. Sanity dosen't have to be taught by a human face.Sanity can be found in a cat,a bird,any creature can have it ,animals have more loving hearts and less hangups than people do(unless they are abused by peopole),maybe that is why we love our pets and identify with them so much.

I welcome chimeras because it's time for mankind to become exinct.
Mankind has been trying to eliminate his own kind since he started the first war.
Tell me was there ever a world wide Zebra war?
With weapons of mass destruction? Where one group of zebras destroyed the grasslands of another group with chemicals?

[uppityperson]

4. Mousetrap=murder, poison=abortion?

oooo, mouse with a human brain? This opens up all sorts of possibilities to the discussion of when does a cell become a human (ovulation? before? after what development?). I think we need to register sprem.

[Dover]

5. It's already been done......and this is the price we paid >

By hybridizing chimps with humans they have reduced the natural intelligence of the chimp tenfold! Behold!

[uppityperson]

7. Very good. hahahaha

[semillama]

6. We already have mice running around with human ears

growing out of their backs.

Sort of scary when science fact trumps science fiction.

[oneighty]

8. The Mouse With My Brain

Boy he gonna be disappointed.

180

[Dover]

9. ABC article: Animal-Human Hybrids

Feb. 7, 2005 — Animal-human hybrids have long been the stuff of fairy tales and myths — from the half-man, half-horse centaur to singing mermaids.

Now the swift pace of genetic engineering has some worried that such mixed creatures, known as chimeras after the fabulous beasts of Greek mythology, are making the leap from the pages of fiction to reality.


While scientists argue that research would likely never go so far as to create entirely new, living species — even if it could — activists say the march toward building full-blown, genetically engineered human-animal hybrids has already begun.

In the coming months, a number of measures, from a patent filed by activists opposed to such research to lists of recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences and the President's Council on Bioethics, could influence how fast and how far such projects will proceed in the United States...cont'd

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Health/story?id=465202&page=1

[Dover]

10. U.S. Denies Patent for a Too-Human Hybrid

Scientist Sought Legal Precedent to Keep Others From Profiting From Similar 'Inventions'

By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 13, 2005; Page A03

A New York scientist's seven-year effort to win a patent on a laboratory-conceived creature that is part human and part animal ended in failure Friday, closing a historic and somewhat ghoulish chapter in American intellectual-property law.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected the claim, saying the hybrid -- designed for use in medical research but not yet created -- would be too closely related to a human to be patentable.

Paradoxically, the rejection was a victory of sorts for the inventor, Stuart Newman of New York Medical College in Valhalla, N.Y. An opponent of patents on living things, he had no intention of making the creatures. His goal was to set a legal precedent that would keep others from profiting from any similar "inventions."

But in an age when science is increasingly melding human and animal components for research -- already the government has allowed many patents on "humanized" animals, including a mouse with a human immune system -- the decision leaves a crucial question unanswered: At what point is something too human to patent?

cont'd >

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19781-2005Feb12.html

[VegasWolf]

11. Mice with human brains could replace Republicans. n/t

[Nihil]

12. Mice with mouse brains could replace Republicans.

:-)