Posted on 01/27/2005 8:08:03 AM PST by Jay777
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....
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...
Next step in evolution?
Paging Dr. Moreau!!!
"I am not..an...animal!!!!"
I wonder if science can create a Democrat with conservative blood flowing through her body?
And would the effect be permanent, or last only until the 1st Tuesday in November, 2008?
Wow...soon they'll have freaks that make Michael Jackson look normal. It's stories like this that make me glad I'm 'old'.
Looks like a new geneeration of Democratic voters.
The Island of Doctor Moreau -- "Are we not men?"
Give me large swift wings of an eagle or osprey, speed of a cheetah, and power of a gorilla :D
I'd consider buying a centaur or two. How much are they?
This is very dangerous stuff. Breeding animals with custom human parts for use in transplant surgery is OK. Letting the animals breed or exist outside the lab is monsterous.
In this article, biotechnology activist Jeremy Rifkin says,
"One doesn't have to be religious or into animal rights to think this doesn't make sense," he continued. "It's the scientists who want to do this. They've now gone over the edge into the pathological domain."
Agreed, Jeremy.
From article...But creating human-animal chimeras—named after a monster in Greek mythology that had a lion's head, goat's body, and serpent's tail—has raised troubling questions: What new subhuman combination should be produced and for what purpose? At what point would it be considered human? And what rights, if any, should it have?
This is monstrous.
None. It shouldn't be done. Especially by those who have a 'pathological' obsession (according to Rifkin in the article).
From Article...Weissman has already created mice with brains that are about one percent human.
Later this year he may conduct another experiment where the mice have 100 percent human brains. This would be done, he said, by injecting human neurons into the brains of embryonic mice
Matchmaker matchmaker make me...a cat's backbone, an eagle's eyesight, and the regenerative ability of some of them lizards.
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