Posted on 06/04/2010 2:30:34 PM PDT by nickcarraway
In the new movie "Splice," a human-animal hybrid terrorizes people. In real life, scientists argue mixing human and animal cells could save lives.
Dren, the half-human, half-animal hybrid set to terrorize Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley in the new movie "Splice," is pure science fiction, but politicians across the country aren't taking any chances.
In the last month Ohio and Arizona have both passed laws forbidding research of animal human hybrids.
Proponents of the laws fear Dren-like creations and object morally to the combining human and animal cells. But scientists say the research could lead to cure for AIDS, immunize people against cancer, or grow replacement organs.
The potential for medical cures or advances is huge, said Esmail Zanjani, a scientist at the University of Nevada Reno who has created sheep that produce livers that are up to 20 percent human.
"But just because we can do something doesn't mean we should," said Zanjani. "We need to have a full discussion with the public," about this kind of research.
In a recent interview, "Splice" director Vincenzo Natali said that his inspiration for "Splice" was the earmouse, a 1995 experiment where scientists grew a large, human-shaped ear from cow cells grown on the back of a hairless mouse.
Despite the fact that no human cells were used in the ear mouse (the scientists placed cow cells on a polymer shaped like the human ear), the research sparked controversy and raised hopes that replacement organs would soon be available.
Since then research into animal human hybrids, or chimeras (after the lion, goat, and snake creature from Greek mythology) has exploded. Over the last 15 years scientists have created sheep with human livers and pancreas cells, mice with human immune systems, and many other combinations of human and animal cells.
None of the modern chimeras look like something out of Dr. Moreau's menagerie. They look like normal animals. The difference is on the inside.
The blood flowing through their veins could be human. The liver or kidneys could contain discrete human liver or kidney cells. These are not transgenic animals, said Zanjani. They are discrete cells, either animal or human. The DNA is not mixed.
If a human had, say, hepatitis, and their liver was dying, scientists could extract liver cells from that person, insert them into a developing sheep, and then harvest a human liver, made from a person's own cells (to reduce the chance of organ rejection), and replace the old liver.
Infected cells can't fight off an infection, whether it is HIV or some other disease. But if uninfected human stem cells were placed in an animal's body, scientists could train those cells to recognize and fight off the infection.
Once they are ready, the cells would be harvested from the animal and introduced back into the original human's body. There the retrained immune cells would fight off the infection.
The same technique could work for cancer, said Jeffery Platt, a scientist at the University of Michigan exploring this very scenario.
Millions of lives could be saved using human-animal hybrids, say scientists, but some people have strong moral objections to mixing human and animal cells. Earlier this week the Ohio Senate passed Senate Bill 243, which prohibits "the creation, transportation, or receipt of a human-animal hybrid, the transfer of a nonhuman embryo into a human womb, and the transfer of a human embryo into a nonhuman womb."
Anyone who violates the new law could spend five years in prison and face up to a quarter million dollars in fines. Other states, including Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arizona have also banned research into chimeras.
National governments have also stepped in. The United Kingdom approved chimera research in 2008, when it granted a Newcastle University stem cell scientist Lyle Armstrong a permit to use cow eggs filled with human DNA to develop therapies for Parkinson's disease and stroke victims. (All cow DNA would be removed before the human DNA would be inserted.)
Canada bans all chimera research, but the Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act of 2009 failed to pass the U.S. Congress.
Fears about new technology are nothing new, said Platt; the advent of railroads sparked controversy about how fast the human body was meant to travel. Nor are they unnatural; people fear what they don't know. But the potential of chimera research to save millions of lives should also be added to the equation.
"Where it becomes a problem is if government responses with undue constraints that are not justified," said Platt.
The vast majority of the world does low tech farming and yet the population of the planet has increased to what it is today.
All high tech farming does it free up people to live in cities instead of farming themselves. Just because high tech farming works in the US and a few other countries with the standard of living and moral fiber to be free, doesn't mean the whole rest of the world is supported by it.
Honestly, the quality of trolls just isn't what it used to be. What idiots....
Which is not nearly the same as blending DNA from humans and animals to create hybrids, chimeras.
Your diligence in avoiding the topic of the thread is blatantly obvious.
No matter what strawmen you try to erect to divert the topic, you’re not fooling anyone.
The Bible does not give carte blanche permission to do whatever one feels like to the rest of creation.
World population started to grow in the 19th century and started to escalate in the 20th century, this was due primarily to medical advances that significantly reduced the rate of childhood mortality.
There have been SOME famines in history that were the result of droughts; however, they have mainly been due to oppression. There were plenty of famines in medieval Europe, but that was because feudalism RESTRICTED the ability of the peasants to farm the lands they rented.
Farming requires exactly FOUR things:
Fertile soil, seeds, fertilizer and water. Mankind has known this for over five thousand years and the basics have NEVER CHANGED.
If you ligate an exogenous DNA segment into an existing organism, and that new organism does express the new coding, how is the organism NOT a hybrid..?
Let me guess: Because if YOU didn’t mind that organism, then it would be OK for the world, right?
Another guess ventured: this post is also irrelevant because it doesn’t suit you, doesn’t back your claims...?
I laid out a blank for you to fill in, and after you did NOT fill it in, did you notice how I didn’t say your subsequent answer was irrelevant...?
That lonely little brain cell of his may not be able to process that much information at once.
Yeah screw high-tech, bro, gimme a teePee and let me squat in a slit-trench, any day..!
DA BOMB..!
ROCKIN’ MY LOIN-CLOTH; MOVE OVER, COMRADE KIM —MORE TREE BARK SOUP FOR ME, HURRY UP...!!!
Then he should just concentrate on the part about fertilizer, he seems to be producing that in abundant quantities.
You ever notice how those who consider themselves the most intellectually astute resort to such infantile tactics when they can’t get people to agree with them?
That's the way the left has always acted.
To me the greatest downside is the loss of understanding that feeding ourselves is the principal physical labor of mankind, that personal food production can teach us many virtues.
It worked out so wonderfully for Pol Pot, after all....
What's the matter? Didn't invoking the nazis work out so well for you? Now you have to bring up pol pot?
Double fail.....
The fact that you flunked basic math not withstanding? You have zero understanding of the elements of population growth.
Natural farming is the only farming that produces food. Playing Sorcerer’s Apprentice with gene splicing has yet to produce a safe, nutritious food crop. The results of such tampering has yielded imitation food that disrupts both the health of the creature consuming the crop, and the health of surrounding natural, nutritious crops.
Pigs at least are smart enough not to eat unnaturally modified corn; humans seem to lack that instinctive intelligence.
Let's have a microsecond of silence..O.k., done!
Just noticed.
Too bad, so sad......
LOL!
You hide your sadness well.
He didn’t last long.
metmom: “God giving man dominion over the planet is not a license to engage in immoral pursuits.”
I totally, absolutely agree. Is your opposition to this because you believe it equates to humans and animals mating? Explain.
metmom: “Nobody said technology is evil. A strawman if I ever saw one.”
I wasn’t using that particular point to refute anyone. I was explaining my position on technology. It’s neither evil or good. It’s what man does with it that is evil or good.
I don’t mean any disrespect to you, metmom, but you haven’t provided any scripture whatsoever to show it’s evil to grow replacement human body parts in animals. What’s the point of discussing this from a Christian perspective at all if we can’t back it up with scripture?
I don’t take these sorts of issues lightly, BTW. I believe people need to spend a great deal of time in prayer and study before they embark on anything that might be questionable. If in doubt, it shouldn’t be done:
Galatians 6:4 “Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else,...”
Nevertheless, things aren’t evil just because you or I think they are. We should be prepared to provide an answer to anyone on matters of faith and righteousness—based on scripture. If we state something is evil, it MUST be founded in scripture. Don’t you agree?
We have virtually zero chance of convincing others without scriptural backup. Plus, we violate scripture ourselves when we don’t test doctrine with scripture.
1 Thessalonians 5:21 “Test everything. Hold on to the good. 22Avoid every kind of evil.”
1 John 4:1 “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
Revelation 2:2 “I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false.”
Acts 17:11 “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”
2 Timothy 4:2-4 “2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all long suffering and teaching. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”
Acts 18:28 “For he vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.”
John 7:24 “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.””
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