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 ...
They locked out the other thread. So I will answer you on this one.
That tail would be really handy. Drinking, Driving, and guns - makes the world go 'round!!
Owl_Eagle
”Unleash the Hogs of Peace.”
P.J. O'Rourke Parliament of Whores
Whatever it is, it still looks better than Rosie.
Who cares about ethics?
As long as they get good gas mileage!!
My thoughts exactly. Then again, scientists know everything about anything, especially DNA, and we can all feel comfortable in that knowledge.
ping
Q: What do you get when you cross a democrat with a billygoat?
A: A weedeater that don't work!
I think it's amazing!
Doesn't anyone in here think we came from the sea? Evolution ring any bells in here?
Too late!
Other than the fear of new infectious diseases, most of these experiments are not as troublesome to me as harvesting embryonic stem cells or the prospect of cloning for harvesting stem cells and organs. It is obvious that humans are not being destroyed or enslaved. However, the experiments could lead to the production of "animals" with human parentage and the techniques for producing germ cells, those for "reproduction" in other animals' wombs and for cloning using oocytes from other species (in order to by-pass the necessity for human oocytes) seem intended to advance the worst of science fiction's predictions.
The guide should be that all offspring of human parents are themselves human enough to receive societal and governmental protection from killing and enslavement. (Of course, at least 30 years too late for that) Require the experimenter to prove that he is not harming a human life.
We've gone down the line too far in redefining who is "human" until even our own children are not given that protection in this country, and in other countries such as the Netherlands, no one is protected once their life becomes a "burden."
I can't come up with an ethical argument for prohibiting these experiments that will stand up past the "human embryos aren't human beings" and "it's not human cloning unless you produce a human baby" crowd.
"Wow...soon they'll have freaks that make Michael Jackson look normal. It's stories like this that make me glad I'm 'old'."
Humm...that explains Porky Michael Moore, doesn't it?
"None. It shouldn't be done. Especially by those who have a 'pathological' obsession (according to Rifkin in the article)."
How about "mad scientists" re-creating Unicorns?
In Great Britain, scientists cloned pigs without certain genes that would cause rejection by humans with the plan to harvest them for their organs for xenotransplantation. There has been discussion as to whether Orthodox Jews could accept them (Consensus was, yes, to save life is good). Unfortunately, even the pigs they thought were completely free of risk turned out to have some sort of pig viral infection.Do a google search on "xenotransplantation pigs."
The genetically modified bacteria are proof that we have been lucky so far in our genetic modification of other life forms, including plants grown for food and all the E. coli that are producing pharmaceuticals. I remember the fuss in the popular press and popular science press back in the '70's and '80's. The fear was that one of the researchers would go in to the lab while sick, their E. coli would get mixed up with the lab specimens which would all become super-bugs resistant to antibiotics....
Of course, we shouldn't have worried about what would happen in the lab, we had toddlers for that.
Some (Julie Zoloff in Texas's Legislative Stem Cell forum, yesterday, for one) say that the cloning and stem cell bans in France and Canada were backlash against genetically modified foods.
The difference is that so far, single traits have been transmitted into simple - even non-motile - organisms in what were originally very controlled environments.
That doesn't mean that this science should not be done. But, there should be more restraint than has been shown by the experimenters in this article.
EEEEEEEEEEKKK A FREAKKKKK !!!! wonder if that's how Linda was made LOL
It isn't that crowd we ought worry about, it is the average American voter who is not paying attention, casting ballots based on personalities rather than voting as a sovereign who must heed the moral and legal future of his Republic at stake. Therapeutic cloning will arrive legal if the amoral crowd (in Hollywood and elsewhere) can raise enough fretting without being called to accounts. The media is fully in cahoots with the liberalization and thus the mutating of this Republic that once feared and revered God. If humans can play at being godlike, the media will be free to go in any profitable direction they choose, without thinking first of the potential for destructive corrosion. Our court system isn't even a help in this, what with both political parties afraid to tackle the judicial activism.
replacement for Plax next year....
special helmet modifications
Ditto, I've often said the very same thing about much of today's sick, less-than romantic society!
Tom Daschle
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