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 ...
And we would be exposed to diseases that we have no immunity to.
Years ago i used to think it would impossible for some of the dire tidings of Revelations (eg a third of mankind killed by disease) to come to pass, but i know that a virulent pathogen or virus, especially one that we have no resistant to, could sweep the world like wildfire. After all the whole globe is linked and travel makes the world a veritable village. All it would take is the right pathogen to jump to humans and we would face apocalyptic realities.
This is actually quite funny!
Did you see this????? :o
Your apocalyptic theory is fearfully true. Our ecoshpere is very fragile. One event could set the dominoe effect. A comet lands in the ocean and poisons our fragile food chain. A stock market crash could go worldwide. Think how dependent we are on electricity. What if suddenly it was all wiped out. We are more fragile than we know.
On the other hand note...aren't monkey's immune to AIDS? If they could figure out which gene makes that immunity...I should stop.
I was trying to look up their origins on the net, and it just says they came on a space ship to third earth from Thundera when it exploded. A comic book went more in depth about it, but I can't find it. What can you find out? It's got me curious. I was just a kid when they came on T.V.
More like engineering, I guess. But if you end up with a whole new species, and it's functional, I don't know what the difference would be to that particular species.
LOL!!! < :D
And what if we brought back extinct animals, how would that effect evolution? Or, think about a mouse with a human brain. If it started communicating with us, even though its brain is human, it would be communicating from the perspective of a mouse. What kind of impact would these things have on our own evolution? This actually does bring up interesting questions to evolution discussions...maybe it is worthy of a ping?
Can you imagine a mouse with a human brain allowed to live? Would it learn to communicate with us? That just opens the imagination up wide. We have more technology than we have responsibility to use it.
Stuff like this is going to push God over the limit, as I'm sure abortion is.
Like Mickey Mouse?
It's been done. The result was democrat voters.
Oh yeah, and we humans these days are nothing if not ethical. < /sarcasm >
And you are right, we are too fragile. I always tell my friends this and they think i am fibbing with them. Infact i got them a book on survival and all that stuff. The thing is we are too 'civilized.' Imagine what would happen if the world as we know it ceased. For example if there was a major terrorist attack in the US (considerably bigger than 9-11), and the services we are so used to went away for awhile, society would just crumble! Imagine if a region has no electricity for days, no running water, if all the food in the supermarkets was looted, if mobs roamed the streets, if everyone was afraid of everyone. Imagine if one couldn't call the local Pizzeria for a home delivery, water was no longer available with the twist of the wrist, warmth was no longer a given, dialing 911 only led to static, and the large glass windows that were once so beautiful only serve as a beacon to all forms of social dregs to come crashing through!
What about Martial Law and the national guard? Wouldn't they patrol the streets and keep the order? Well, if the incident (be it a biological attack, large-scale natural disaster etc) was large enough, they would be inundiated and spread too thin. And if it was a truly enormous event then they would just go home to protect their own families.
You'd be surprised how far sane people would become raving lunatics if their environment was changed into something alien and uncomfortable. Probably the worst place to be would be in suburbia. It would be basically tantamount to a zombie attack (and if you really think about it, all those cookie-cutter suburbs: ie the same exact houses, all with labradors, a sedan, a minivan, kids that dress and talk the same, group think etc) ......
Anyways, let me stop my rant before some start thinking i'm crazy.
As for the monkeys and their immunity, the reason they are immune to their version of AIDS (in that the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus - SIV - doesn't develop into a full blown terminal stage) is due to their developing resistance over the eons. You might be interested to know that certain prostitutes in central and east Africa were discovered to have amazing resistance to infection with the AIDS virus. Their number is very small (last time i checked it was around 30), but scientists say that it probably happened in the last decade or so. Apparently during sexual intercourse they go enough virii particles to register in their systems (with T-cells responding), but at the same time not enough to be able to start an infection. This is, obviously, quite rare. But there is a small pocket of prostitutes that is resistant to the disease.
I'm a crusty ol' conservative, and I think this thread is essentially silly, so I'm not inclined to ping the list. It's not up to me to censor the science threads, and of course I can't, but I don't want to bother the list when I don't think it's appropriate. But go ahead and ping anyone you like.
These prostitutes probably are the product of prostitutes. This was probably a generational effect.
In your rant about anarchy above...I think martial law sounds scary in itself. Also, the person who remained calm and organized efforts to allieviate the problems would be a great leader. Is that where the anti-Christ would come in? He'd temporarily save us and gain our respect? I think we should start saving our canned goods, and bottled water now! :)
Those "monsters" keep my 9 year old son alive.
If researchers were able to create a pig pancreas that was human enough that it would not be rejected, we would jump at the chance to have it implanted. Assuming trials showed it to be safe.
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