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Cloning Yields Human-Rabbit Hybrid Embryo
ralphb writes "Here is the story of scientists in China who have, for the first time, used cloning techniques to create hybrid embryos that contain a mix of DNA from both humans and rabbits. Hop on over for a look!"
My dear god, didn't any of these "scientists" ever see Night of the Lepus?!
We're all doomed!!
Mike
Finally, babies with a healthy appetite for sex
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
China trying to compete with Hugh and create their own Playboy Bunnies? Not to mention the potential for pleasure, knowing how rabbits multiply....
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Welcome our new fuzzy over...nevermind.
Bah, what a trivial story. Let me know when they can make a monkey with four asses. THEN, I'll be impressed!
$8.95/mo web hosting
mix of DNA from both human and rabbit
Well, not exactly. The cell DNA was human. Only the mitochondrial DNA was from rabbit.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
And before all the luddites, technophobes and "every sperm is sacred" nutjobs hop in: no human/animal life was created here - the experiment experiment was with mere cells.
BOO! TERRO
I for one welcome our new human-rabbit hybrid masters.
I will remind them that I could be useful in rounding up people to toil in their underground carrot mines.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
This is just the sort of thing that will catch the attention of do-gooder congressmen and get things like cloning research completely banned...If they do things like this, they should keep it quiet, not get it out into the mainstream of public opinion where people can jump (or maybe hop-hop-hop) to conclusions and phone their congressman.
"I think because all the nuclear DNA is human," Doerflinger said, "we'd consider this an organism of the human species."
Better pay attention, when you go hunting next time.
Even regular cloning causes most of the subjects to die. I can't imagine interspecies cloning not killing many many more. Most likely, this embryo will die after a few divisions, being so strange. However, even "successful" clones have more problems and a shorter lifespan. Doing this should be unethical by anyone's standards.
...we can breed like rabbits
Whats up doc?
... China had enough people already, without creating humans that breed like rabbits!
Don't they know that adding human DNA to rabbit embryos is a crime against nature? They should abort babies for those stem cells, the way God intended.
How many asses does it have? I suspect it's less than five.
Down with Saudi Arabia!!!
What if the poor creatures were as 'reproductive' as humans and as intelligent as humans??
Wait... we can employ them at Microsoft.. and SCO as well, if they exist.
-
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Well I guess its a step twords organ duplication for greater good - goooooo Rabit :)
Dont just mail it - Maileet
Scientists in China have, for the first time, used cloning techniques to create hybrid embryos that contain a mix of DNA from both humans and rabbits
...
I thought China needed to control the exponential growth of their population, do they really need that? They should sell the technology to the state of Florida instead
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
hybrid stem cells awoke from surgury, his first words were:
"ehhh, What's up Doc?"
(Yea I know, bad joke, but we all knew it was going to be posted eventually....)
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Hop on over for a look!
/. isn't enough... =P
Can we not be saying stuff like this... You will have an even worse chance of ever getting laid. As if spending your whole day on
... and the result was one more Bill Gates?
And there was much rejoicing.
... mixing the frog with the horse was great, until the explosion.
I'm very afraid of this. I hope this aint true. In the case it is, just remember:
"Brave new World!"
It amazes me that there are people in this world smart enough to splice genes and such, but instead of like...finding a cure for cancer or something, they are making bunny people? Because they can? Could someone give me some insight as to why in the world we need rabbit-human hybrids?
Chaos is Divine *
The vast majority of the DNA in the embryos is human, with a small percentage of genetic material -- called mitochondrial DNA -- contributed by the rabbit egg. No one knows if such an embryo could develop into a viable fetus, though some experiments with other species suggest it would not.
The DNA that they put into the human cells is not DNA which determines physical charateristics. It's mitochondrial DNA, which is found in the cells' mitochondria. These little organelles of the cell basically burn sugar to make energy usable for the rest of the cell. There is a lot of evidence suggesting that the mitochondria found in all human cells was actually a seperate organism that became co-dependent with the cells in which they lived. Interstingly enough, mitochondiral is almost totally unaltered with a new generation, and is always passed down through the female of the species because the sperm cells typically have very few or a negligible amount of mitochondria. i.e. You have the same mitochondrial DNA as your mother and all your siblings, and she has all the same as her mother and so on down your family tree.
--
Adobe's anti-counterfeiting softw
mix b g with a cat; he will re-design Windz such that when a blue screen appears, the computer also vomits in your shoes.
What have we created
--
"this is the gloaming"
Radiohead
--
"this is the gloaming"
radiohead
Wizard: It's a horrible beast.
King Arthur: What, you mean behind the bunny rabbit?
Wizard: It IS the bunny rabbit?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Rabbitmen. They can programs all night long and work for carrots. You thought outsourcing engineering to India was bad, wait till the HR department hears about THE ISLAND OF THE RABBITMEN!!!!! WHA HA! HA! HA! HAAAA!!!
Judgeing from the artical they might have found a better way to get stem cells for research. However, now instead of having to deal with just people that are anti-cloning or anti-stem cell research, you would also have to deal with the animal rights activists because of the retrevial of the eggs, and the undertermined status of the cells after they are created.
So in the short run it is posibly a better way to get stem cells, in the long run it will raise alot of ethical concerns, as well as the undermined nature of the cell - in short we don't know if they are "true" stem cells in their ablity to grow into any organ. Also, if they do have the potenital to become any organ, we don't know how the human body would react to the foegin DNA (the rabit mitocadria)
"He'll bite your head clean off!" "It's a vicious rabbit with large, sharp, pointy teeth!"
......Run Away!
Rabbits a re boring. Why not mix with something cool like a Gorilla?
;^)
BEHOLD...the Man Ape!
Oh wait...
My old sig was REALLY stoopid.
Better use sharks, or hawks, or even snakes. But not rabbits. What's good in mixing human intellect with rabbit sexuality? Now imagine big spiders with human brains. That would be a certain improvement for both.
Less is more !
When are they gonna stop fooling around and start engineering Carmen Electra clones that have a thing for network admins...
According to the article, the americans have tried this earlier with cow eggs, supposedly to create a new breed of unstoppable super soldiers with mad cow disease (source: xfiles.com).
RTFA and you'll find the cells used for the DNA were a mix of rabbit skin and human foreskin. Imagine explaining that when your long-eared, buck-toothed teenager asks "Daddy, where do babies come from?"
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
every time you bang your head you become a mass murderer?
or would you say it's a multiple suicide?
either way, I'm definitely going to hell, right?
I don't claim to be a DNA expert but I'll bet the people opposing these kinds of exparaments know even less about DNA than I do.
Somewhere I've read that we share most of our DNA with all the other members of the animal kingdom and indeed we share a lot of DNA with every living thing.
Some of these exparaments are "pure research" and others are "applied research." In pure research you do the exparament and then look to see where it took you. In applied research you have a pretty good idea of where you are going and are pretty much conducting the exparament to verify your theory. In either case, there really is a goal to the research and I'll submit that the goal is usually good for humanity.
Without this kind of research we would miss out on opportunities to cure disease, treat birth defects and, all sorts of other good things. But, there is something even better that comes from this research. We gain a greater understanding of the world we live in. We add to humankinds knowlege base. Without doing this we will fail to advance and the next century will look like the last. When that happens there is little doubt that we will have started to slide down the road to extinction becuase we will exhaust vital resources.
You should not bring Chinese morality into this, since US researchers have tried this too. from the WP article:
/., but RTFA!
Although scientists in Massachusetts had previously mixed human cells and cow eggs in a similar attempt to make hybrid embryos as a source of stem cells, those experiments were not successful.
Secondly, this was done to produce stem cells and not out of morbid curiosity. Please, I know this is
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
How about this rabbit-tiger hybrid?
That's no ordinary rabbit! 'Tis the most foul, cruel and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!
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Warning: Slashdot may contain traces of nuts.
Stocks in Carrot Farms soared on the American exchanges on Tuesday, the day before Chinese experiments in Human-Rabbit cloning were announced to have created a successful cross-cloning.
Did anyone notice the advertiser links at the bottom of the page for Latest Stem Cell Therapy and Dwarf Rabbit?
Talk about keyword advertising gone awry!
So when are they going to cross ninjas with turtles?
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
Now, without sounding trollish by bringing American morality into this, I'd just like to quote the article:
"Although scientists in Massachusetts had previously mixed human cells and cow eggs in a similar attempt to make hybrid embryos as a source of stem cells, those experiments were not successful."
Now we finally know why Anya was so afraid of rabbits... She saw their future as our masters...
This has to be a hoax. Rabbits are mammals and give live birth.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
I really dread the time when this creature reaches puberty.
I can see the headlines now:
Long eared, carrot loving chearleader breeds like rabbits.
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
The furry crowd must be mighty yiffy over this little development. :)
Of course... they're mostly yiffy all the time.....
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
I just want to know when I can get a monkey with five asses.
If sigs are for losers, and this is a sig, then I am a loser!
http://carnival-in-rethymnon-crete-greece.com/Rabi t2_jp40.jpg
Now I can own my very own live Jar-jar binks!
:-)
Why on earth would you want *that*? Well, at least you have a very good reason to be an anonymous coward.
der Joachim
Geek runner, motorcyclist and professional know-it-all
All this scientific research just to make Bugs Bunny a reality?
Don't bother. I hopped on over and there were no damn pictures.
"Hop on over for a read" more like. It's all made up anyway.
Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.
...what's up doc?
FLR
Anytime soon?
Don't they realize they've been doing this in Kentucky for a long time?
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
This kind of knee-jerk 'this is bad/immoral/whatever' comment, even though you clearly didn't finish (start?) reading the article is exactly the kind of piss-poor commentary that prevents science doing good.
J.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
New Zealand rabbit eggs is merely a short hop from Australian kangaroo eggs.
Are you sure this is Pravda on the Potomac and not The Onion?
Graham
Linux - Fast Pane Relief
"She said the experiments should force opponents of cloning research to identify more clearly than they have until now exactly where they would draw the line against human embryo cloning -- in effect: How human does an embryo have to be to have the moral standing these advocates confer on embryos?"
Clones are people, two?
The real question is, is really that inconvenient to extract human eggs in a technical sense, or have the church, lifers, authorities, etc. placed so much ethical/moral baggage upon stem cell research that making plausibly less than human embryos for study is the only remaining (unencumbered) avenue of progress?
...Japanese will add a whole new meaning to the name,
Usagi!
The password is "Moom Prism Power, Make-up!"
And how long before Catgirls are a really? Watch those claws!
WHERE ARE THE SCREENSHOTS???
The triple and long jump records will be broken by a large margin Real Soon Now
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
You did read the article didn't you? Oh what am I saying, of course you didn't. Your knee probably jerked you right out of chair!
The DNA of the Rabbit cell was removed and replaced with DNA from five human cell sources. Note that the Rabbit and Human DNA was not fused or merged; it was Human DNA in a Rabit cell (You know how cells work; right?) Those cells were then cultivated, resulting in 400 individual cells. Out of those 400 cells, 100 of them survived to the point where they began to produce stem cells. The cluster of cells were then destroyed.
No Rabbit/Human hybrid, no little furry baby monsters, no little baby embreyos sucking its fur covered thumb. You're safe, don't panic.
Can we splice some donut DNA into something, like a duck or a moose and have donut-shaped, rolly-polly ducks and... mooses? Imagine, a duck with a big round hoop on it back.
Hm.
Informatus Technologicus
Finally we will have the first real superhero. But my favourite is still spiderman.
for some tomacco
100% Insightful
On Slashdot, who has got them?
a real giant-ass easter bunny to scare the crap out of children in the mall during Easter.
' The Island of Doctor Moreau ' goes global! Film at eleven...
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
For example, if a human embryo with three of a given chromosome is formed, depending on which chromosome it forms on, the embryo may either fail to develop past the 8 cell stage, or develop into a 10 week fetus and die, or develop longer and die, but never become viable outside the womb. Down's syndrome is unique in that it and sex chromosome triploidies are the only triploidies that are compatible with life. Other triploidies result in miscarriage or failure to implant.
Unfortunately, I had to learn about this the hard way.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
Wow! The results are impressive!
Chinese scientists announced that now they'll focus research in catgirls.
Prescriptive grammar:linguistics
Of course the idea of the crazy communist scientist creating monsters is pleasant to many people (even here as I can see), but there may be real scientific and medical purposes in this project.
From the article The approach could help scientists wishing to mass-produce human embryos as sources of human embryonic stem cells. I doubt china invests money in science-fictionesque freaky experiments just to piss off theologians all over the world. And I doubt crazy researchers trying to create monsters would publish in Cell Research.
I have no problem with science and progress.
But I fear that our scientific knowledge is growing far more rapidly than our wisdom and social structures.
This technology in these times is a recipe for disaster. Look at the last couple of years.
Do you think the world is ready for this technology, or will we stumble into it blindly and apathetically and blame 'them' ( them: scientists, government, those pulling the strings of our government, the rest of the world who stood by and watched as we sealed our fate ) later when the shit hits the fan?
Yesterday's Births:
...
Xing Tao Ming - 3.2 kg - M
Deng Fu Ling - 4.2kg - M
Bugs Bun Nee - 10.3kg - M
Jaz Jak Rab Bit - 10.4kg - M
Plae Boi Bun Nee - 8.7kg - F
...
Just another freak in the freak kingdom.
if the US wasn't strictly trying to control embryonic stem cells for research, then there wouldn't be a demand to make a hybrid source for embryonic stem cells.
america (currently) leads because we (usually) have the foresight to keep barriers out of the way of technological progress. we have slowly overcome nearly every 'religious' boundary by slowly letting people become accustomed to the way this medical technology -improves- life. each time they are accused of wanting to 'play god'. scientists grit and bear the well-intentioned but factually ignorant viewpoint until slowly the advances are accepted.
i'm not saying that we throw our morals to the wind and race to immortality and superhuman hybrids - just that we redirect our skepticism. are we really trying to play god? or are we just trying to preserve and extend life, to ease pain and suffering, and to advance as much of our species as we can, without hurting anyone? instead of just levelling opposition to every potential breakthrough because we're 'playing god' - can't we just look for a second at what the facts are?
embryonic stem cells are being harvested from aborted fetuses. fetuses that were legally terminated and currently, are waste. by banning science from using this unfortunate situation to the best of their ability, people are ensuring that absolutely no good comes from the situation.
if lives can be saved by studying those who have left - then why in the world would we stand in the way of that? religious opposition in the 19th and early 20th century maintained that if we allowed study of cadavers or donation of organs that people would be killed and abducted and harvested by notorious individuals in the name of 'science'. but that did not happen. nor will people go out of their way to abort fetuses just so they can get stem cells. scientists are not growing fetuses to harvest stem cells.
this unfortunately ignites the whole abortion debate, which i doubt will ever be resolved. but legally, if I, as next of kin, have the right to determine whether the body of a loved one is to be donated to science; why shouldn't these mothers who exercised their legal right to terminate their pregnancies, also have that same legal right to donate?
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Now that he is both a rabbit and a kid? "Trix are for kids!"
"Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions." -- G. K. Chesterton
A human with the libido of a rabbit. Hmmm...
GET FREE APPLE STUFF!
Did you actually read the article? The results of this experiment will have very tangible benefits to humankind, in growing stem cells for medical purposes without needing to use human embryo cells. This was certainly not done out of 'morbid curiosity.'
I've never understood where this idea comes from. When you have sex, the number of sperm released is typically in nine figures {decimal}. Out of all those sperm, most will not fuse with an egg. Perhaps one {single birth or identical twins} or rarely two {non-identical twins}, even rarer more than two. Most likely, none of them will find an egg.
If a man has sex just once and gets his girlfriend pregnant, one sperm has done its job but there are still hundreds of millions of sperm wasted. Now if a man had sex twice a day every day for seventy years and each instance of sex conceives exactly one child, that is just over 50000 babies - and trillions of sperm. Most of which were just never going to make it. So if you had a w**k twice a day for seventy years you might have wasted trillions of sperm, but since most of them were never really going to go anywhere anyway, you have only really wasted one per shot. And there are sufficiently more sperm in a single ejaculation to make that quite insignificant by comparison.
As they say, sperm are tiny, but it only takes one of them to fill a pram!
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
To create the ultimate porn star?
in other news, political scientists from California claim to have made the first genetic crossbreed between a politician and a jackass and... oh wait... never mind.
Chris
I pimp this product:
www.studentplatinum.com
Subscribe for free to my show!
Eeeeehhhhh.... What's up Doc ?!
I, for one, welcome our new Bunny-Men overlords.
Cool... I'll have a genetically created mini-Me/rabbit hybrid made in China, then I can bring him to sporting events, saying "he's my good luck charm, no really, he's got real Rabbit's Feet!"
Matt Groening created human-rabbit hybrids years ago.
-----
Sorry, I'm only a 1336 h4x0r.
No, but they apparently saw Donnie Darko a few times.
Some wondered aloud what, exactly, such a creature would be if it were transferred to a womb to develop to term.
Some actually turned out ok, others not so well.
Mostly from natural causes. Your disgust arises from your ignorance.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
welcome our new leporidae-human overlords.
that wasn't supposed to happen
KK4SFV
When can I place an order for a real life Cabbit (half-cat, half-rabbit)? I mean, with one of those overly-cute things, any geek would be an instant hit with the ladies, right? ;) Woops, I'm sorry, I mean... ^_^
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
Because that eighties band, Echo and the Bunnymen wants to have another go, but they are all out of bunnymen.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
now, if it were only invisible....
(anyone remember the classic movie?).
SPAM solution made easy: 1 spammer, 5 cords of rope, 5 hourses, and fireworks. Be creative.
First we brought you SARS, guess what's next?
Is someone gonna do a duck human or will Daffy be left ever 2d best?
"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
I have not RTFA, but you touched on the nature of mitochondria...
It is generally believed that mitochondria used to be the anaerobic bacteria present on primordial Earth. As they discharged oxygen as a waste product, they basically filled the atmosphere full of a chemical they couldn't respirate at all. As aerobic bacteria arose to take advantage of the vast amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere, the anaerobics started dying off, and it is believed that some of them managed to establish symbiotic relationships with the aerobic bacteria, eventually being absorbed into a single organism. The anaerobic bacteria, as I recall, produce energy much more efficiently than aerobic bacteria, while the aerobic bacteria can provide the chemicals necessary for the reaction to the anaerobics within.
I Am Not A Molecular Biologist, so I may not be entirely accurate, but that is the best of my recollection.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
Or how fast comments about how fast rabbits multiply are multiplying.
Actually this is a bit terrifying. I don't believe the world is ready for genuine human/animal mixes. Image yourself (if these abominations can survive) as one of the poor creatures from the movie. As at least part human you would be a social creature. As at least part animal (if there are any physical or at least obvious psychological manifestations of your animal self) you would be an outcast and a freak. The best one could hope for is some meager acceptance through pity. That's not much of a life. Just because because one can do something doesn't mean that one should. Hopefully this type of DNA mixing and cloning will prove to be untenable if for now one else then at least for the sake of the individuals that may be produced this way.
How hard was it getting though Jr. High with normal sized ears and no fluffy tail ? Now at this to the mix and try to get a date for the sock hop! (NPI)
Now we don't need to kill rabbits for pregnancy tests. Women can just inject themselves with their own urine and if they die they are pregnant.
Perfect.
I come from the tribe of Smith. We already breed like rabbits...
Oh, wait, you said mitochondrial.. mistake.
...we are one step closer to having a real life Jessica Rabbit? Cuz I can TOTALLY get behind that plan!
Bunnygirls a reality !!! Are catgirls next ? ;P
I would've thought Japan might have tried this earlier... ... or maybe they did and ended up with godzilla instead...
i am still waiting for the 4 ass monkey....
It'd be a raman, right?
Or would it be a habit?
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
but cloning and breeding customized humans
We need a new super hero. RabbitMan - where are you?
So the resulting cells are human cells, except that tracing the maternal line using the standard techniques would... "Your mother was a hamster!"
Warner Bros is suing Chinese scientists for the rights over bugs bunny.
Intel might have a trademark infringement case. They've had bunnymen for years.
> scientists in Massachusetts had previously
> mixed human cells and cow eggs in a similar
> attempt
Of course they must've gotten the cow eggs by mixing Cow and Chicken.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
And what do you get? Beautiful women that fuck like rabbits!
Count me in.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
with Jeff Goldblum...pretty creepy!
Menghele (yeah, him!) got an overunity success cloning cattle on his ranch in Argentina, in the 50's. Peron was a guest there, once, and got the grand tour. Didi it with techniques like those employed by scientists thirty years later, when the rest of the world "caught up", and science mags started talking about it.
He just made hundreds of copies and, on the average, 1.x survived. Net result, his ranch had a breeding productivity 1.x greater than the best of the rest.
Concentrate on variety and number and replication, until sufficiently viable lines come along. Grunt work for the huddled juniors, assistants...
There can be lots of more sophisticated approaches. But this bludgeon-technique still works.
First off, they had to remove virtually all the rabbit nuclear DNA because if you do not do this and simply fuse two cells (say a human cell and a rabbit cell) with intact DNA, almost invariably, the human DNA is lost. The cells dump extraneous DNA and it just happens that most often, it is the human chromosomes that get dumped.
Second, this is merely a gradation of "chimera" beyond that which is commonly called a "transgenic". The later is a long-used basic tool in molecular biology/developmental research. There are innumerable extant mouse-human "chimeras" out there, just as there are Drosophila-human, yeast-human, yeast-E. coli, E. coli-yeast, etc, etc, etc, transgenic (chimeras). Normally, what is transfered in these cases are individual genes, though short chromosomal segments can be transfered as well. This article refers to a chimera in which it is merely the shell that contains the DNA (the cell) that is changed from native to alien species. You could likely get by with a viable cell with a partial mix of rabbit genes in human cells and vice versa, so long as the proteins encoded by the genes are homologous enough to share the same functions and helper proteins.
What would be cool, in my opinion, would be to do a human-bird hybrid in which the bird cell contains only human genomic DNA but the cells retain avian mitochondria - with a little transgenic work done to replace the human mitochondrial genes in the nuclear chromosomes with their avian counterpart. Why? IF (a relatively big if) the mitochondria can properly function in concert with the rest of the human DNA, you might produce a long-lived cell line or, if you let it go to term, a longer lived human. Why? This is based on the oxidative damage/free radical theory of aging: bird mitochondria are much more efficient than human mitochondria on the level of producing energy (ATP) vs production of damaging oxygen radicals. Birds have a high metabolism and their lifespan, relative to metabolic rate (one of the supporting observations for the free radical theory of aging), is unusually long. In general, a higher metabolic rate equates to a correspondingly shorter lifespan. The predominant source of damaging radicals is mitochondria by far. So, if you replace the human mitochondria with super-efficient, low radical producing bird mitochondria, you could end up with a human with an extended lifespan (to unknown extent) if the free radical theory of aging is largely correct.
Such a person would be no less human than anyone else, their mitochondria would simply be that of a bird rather than a human. Big deal. Mitochondria are alien themselves, afterall. They are the remnant of the fusion, hundreds of millions of years ago, between an anaerobic-type cell and a cyanobacteria-like aerobic bacteria. Once upon a time, then, a chimera was formed based on a semi-parasitic melding of two separate species. Each gains benefit from the other and ultimately, you end up with aerobic eukaryotic cells that makes humans, dogs, birds, insects, reptiles, etc.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
I thought this was the Year of the Goat. Imagine a whole race of Chinese Human-goat hybrids. They could subsist on tin cans and head-butt the entire world into submission.
-- thinkyhead software and media
Would you put your brain in a robot body?
It's not a mutant. They inserted human chromosomes into a rabbit *egg* cell. Only the mitochondrial DNA (the one that is provided by the egg, comes from the mother, and has little to do with heredity as a whole) came from the rabbit.
Why is this important ? Well, because the ability to make valid human stem-cells from animal egg cells would remove one of the most troubling objections to human stem cell research : right now, the only valid egg cells for human cloning are human eggs - aka ovules. These must be obtained from real women, which leads to technical and ethical problems (I know that in the US selling ovules is already common practice but in Europe things are quite different). At any rate, a woman can only produce one egg per month, so this is a poorly productive method.
(The other solution for obtaining stem cells is to suppress the cloning phase and to directly take existing human stem cells out of embryos - there again, moral problems arise if commercial forces are ever allowed in this game).
Making human stem cells with animal eggs suppress most of these problems. The only big problem that remains is simply that so far, it didn't work. Now these people claim that they have made "mostly human" stem cells with rabbit eggs, but will they have the same capacitie as purely human stem cells ? Could the mitochondrial (rabbit) DNA interfere with the functioning of the cell ? These are the important questions now. According to this article, the paper seems to address none of them.
Thomas Miconi
=============
I guess alot of us have seen those images that were big a few years back: You know the ones where the ear was grown on the back of a rat, or the yyeeecchh penis on the back of a rat. Damn them. I hated seeing that.
I went to battle MC Escher, but drew a blank
These probably would not survive gestation. There are factors spread out in a specific manner in an egg which tell the various parts of the embryo what to become, and when. Imagine the egg as a bag of concentration gradients, going along at least three axes, several gradients per axis. As the cell divides, these become compartmentalized into individual cells. You now have scores of little bags with codes to each one, the code being the concentration of several factors (factors ABCDE having respective concentrations of 4,3,1,2,6 or 5,4,0,8,9). At certain times, these factors come together and give signals that tell that cell or group of cells to become a certain progenitor tissue type. Differentiation goes further after that, with cells "deciding" what to become based on what kind of cell is nearby.
Many of the signals would be similar between human and rabbit, but probably not enough to make a viable human, or viable anything else for that matter. The rabbit DNA control sequences targeted by the factors that are in the egg would probably be too different from the sequences with similar function in human DNA. This would permit the embryos to survive through several divisions, and probably form simple embryos (mammals are very similar until the fetus stage....even then, it's hard to tell sometimes). But it would probably never make it through gestation. Probably.
There is a reason for everything. Sometimes that reason just sucks.
Don't they have enough problems in China trying to control the *HUMAN* population?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Does this mean in near the near future, these rabbitmen will lead to a whiteman who could jump?
"He who laughs last, didn't get the joke."-Cap
For Teenage Mutant Ninja Rabbits!
... damn.
Wait, come back! It's better than it sounds! The song still works!
skye
apparently the hybrids first words were "Whats up Doc?"
Rabbit-Guy: Uhmm, yeah, dude. Mostly in my left foot.
You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
"I think because all the nuclear DNA is human," Doerflinger said, "we'd consider this an organism of the human species."
I think because all the ROM code is extracted from a Macintosh, we'd consider a PC running this emulator a system of the Macintosh platform.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
all because we are so stupid as to let the taboo-loving reactionaries such as Joe Sixpack and Dubya do our thinking for us.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
"The team said it retrieved foreskin tissue from two 5-year-old boys and two men" Those two must have been hard up for cash or something because no way would I let someone approach that area with a knife!
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
Silly, if rabbits give live birth, then where do easter eggs come from?
"It's a very tangled subsystem." --Windows kernel guru
You've been able to get something called 'Chinese boneless rabbit' (i.e. boneress labbit) in the UK for ages
All things in moderation; including moderation
My sister once got bittin bi a moose. Moose bites can be pritti nasti.
"It's a very tangled subsystem." --Windows kernel guru
Does this give a new meaning to HipHop. LOL
Jebus H Christ, man! Have you seen my parents?!? I don't want to think of my conception AT ALL! I like to think that I was unceremoniously dropped down the chimney by a big, hairy pterodactyl.
A man who can't pronouce "nuclear arsenal" shouldn't have one -sig ends here.
Humans dependant upon machines to live are cyborgs.
Are you dependent upon your automobile? How do most people eat if they do not drive to work or to the grocery? So why do cyborgs like you and I deserve fewer rights than the Amish?
Will I retire or break 10K?
They transferred the mitochondrial DNA only, which means only the mitochondria are affected, and they only generate ATP out of glucose, not shape the body.
it cannot exist without a host, it derives nutrients from the host to the detriment of that host.
Likewise, a born child is a parasite. It can't survive without mother's milk. Then it can't survive without food purchased and prepared by mother and father. What's the difference between a fetus feeding off a placenta and an infant feeding off a nipple?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Talk about bunny girls... what would Mr. Hefner say?
Jouni
Jouni Mannonen | Game Designer, Consultant
Its a Chinese Plot to undermine intellegent thought in the free world.How many people will have to stand in que,waiting to make a purchase while their minds are numbed stupid with front page stories in the Enquirer,Sun,World News,People,Time,Washington Post and other enemies of intellegent life on this planet?
"The Amazing Rabbit Boy!"
"Rabbit Boy Sets World Record In Sports"
"Rabbit Boy Talks To Animals"
"Rabbit Boy Abducted By Aliens"
"Rabbit Boy Cures Poison Ivy With Saliva"
"Rabbit Boy Democratic Hopeful For California"
(its enough to make you chew your own foot off,isn't it?)
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
What would happen if they put it in a womb?
Just ask Primus!
"I am gopher boy pondering reality, I am Gopher Boy, who will buy my raspberries?"
(Mephisto and Kevin -- Chef Aid: The South Park Album -- Primus)
SCO has has announced final termination of all Chinese hybrid embryo licensing. All rabbit-human hybrids must pay $699 to continue licensing their DNA code or face legal actions.
Mitochondria are the power supplies for cells, they drive the metabolisation by converting sugar into energy (I found technical details here, high school biology was a while back). If the mitochondrial DNA (ie, the building blocks of the mitochondria) are from a rabbit, then would not, theoretically, the person in question have the metabolism of a rabbit? Since the nuclear DNA is human, what you'd end up with (again, in theory, someone could let me know if I'm way off base here, IANABiologist) is a human shaped / sized organism with a metabolism designed for a rabbit sized organism. I don't think that, even eating high energy foods constantly, that such a creature would ever be able to get enough food.
Again, theory, any flames will make me cry like a little bitch and take my ball and go home...
The chains are broken
Loki is free
Ragnarok is at hand...
Considering all the "Funny" mod'in that happened..... on a more serious note.
If it can be created..... someone will do it....
Maybe the bible about the creature of the beast is more literal...
To this question from the article: Some wondered aloud what, exactly, such a creature would be if it were transferred to a womb to develop to term.
Out of curiosity I went to the NCBI webpage to check both the rabbit and human Mitochondrial DNA. As you can see, the same genes are present in both organisms. This is not always the case, as different species have the mitochondrial genes split between the mitochondrion and the nucleus in different shares.
If you then bother to run blastn with both sequences (or even better, tblastx) you can see the similarities between coding regions are around 75% or more.
The more important a gene is in an organism, the less likely it will mutate over generations (and thus the less different it'll be between different species). Mitochondrial genes are quite important, so the rabbit mitochondria might work very well with a human nucleus.
Bottom line? If those cells can actually grow to become a fetus, chances are that fetus won't really be much different from any other human fetus. It's more likely to fail its development because of how crude our clonin technology is at this point than because of the genetic differences.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
Jar Jar Binks! Help!!
They are trying to create the Easter Bunny!
:)
This is a bad thing? I like getting chocolate rabbits and candy eggs for Easter, its that plastic grass in the baskets that I cannot stand.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Or experiments, whatever.
Speak for yourself.
Help fight continental drift.
So next Easter I should expect to see lots more of these?
Thanks Easter Bunny....
I am dyslexia of borg - your ass will be laminated.
boy, I'm glad you weren't around when man discovered fire. I could hear the conversation now:
Caveman 1: Ooga booga, this fire stuff is great, it keeps us warm, we can cook meat, make light anywhere, etc.
AC Slashdot user: Ooga booga, Yes, but it can burn you. We shouldn't make it because we might hurt each other. Just because we can do it, doesn't mean we should. If we do keep making it, the whole earth might catch fire!
It's a good thing we have the Chinese with their complete disregard for human rights or we'd never get the opportunity to have such a freak show.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
As someone else pointed out, you have not figured that this research is really quite useful since it could be a viable source for stem cells.
However I am also critical about your notion of doing only research that is of "benefit to mankind". Any research good or bad only helps to increase awareness of the unknown. If the research results in something harmful to society and mankind you have identified it and can thus can keep it in check if people try to misuse it. Besides at the start of any research nobody is in a position to say if some research is potentially useful or harmful to mankind.
A small (and not necessarily accurate) example would help drive this point. Just assume that some country does not pursue research on Nuclear science since they perceive that it can be used to make bombs that can destroy mankind. Now if some dude like Hitler secretly carries out this research and knows how to make bombs, how would this country be able to protect itself against something it knows nothing about? Also apart from making bombs nuclear science can be used to produce energy. But we wouldnt have known that if we did not research about it.. The key here is information. Whether it leads to beneit or harm it is always good to have as much information as possible so that it can be checked if it is harmful and utilized if it is useful.
IMHO most of this inhibition is rooted at people's belief that God has to have made some rules about what we can and we cannot do and how things should be and how they should not. However there is a high possibility that there are no such rules. For centuries people believed that homosexuality is something that cannot exist because God's rulebook could not have allowed it. But the fact that millions of people in the world actually experience attraction towards the same sex is empirical proof that such a rule does not exist. Did God mean for humans to be gnetically fused with rabbits? Who knows? So then how do we decide what can be done and what cannot be done or what such rules are? Lets do it the scientific way. Lets just try to actually do it. If it succeeds then we can and if it does not then we cannot. And, all along the way while we try to achieve it, we have gained important information about the topic which will help us control and regulate it if it is indeed harmful for us. At this point I dont think we have enough information to decide whether cloning is good or bad for humanity.
.. in an Easter basket. ;-)
Will they be allowed to eat Trix?
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion, It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, The hands acqui
So, we've been attempting this human-rabbit hybrid for some time, have we?
At last! Success!
philcrissman.com.
Most of the proteins found in mitochondria are actually encoded in the nucleus, the mitochondrial DNA carries a very small portion of the necessary genes for its metabolism. You have also to consider the possibility that the reason for the reduced free radicals in birds could be because of the peroxysome (the structure that is in charge of eliminating free radicals) and not the mitochondrion itself.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
Anyone else think about The Island of Dr Moreau when you first read this headline?
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
We can't even be sure that those samples were taken from consenting subjects. Aside from ethical concerns over that half of the experiment, it's possible that such a being could have developed, but given that not enough time had passed for development of a fetus, we'll never know what effect rabbit cytokines (within the egg) would have had on the development of the organism. Remember that the animal/vegetal pole distinctions are made by initial partitioning of maternal mRNA/cytokines, which means that DNA transplantation is not enough to guarantee viability. The transcription factors coded for by the mRNA are likely mismatched to the human genome, resulting in failure of survivability.
Esquilax. As you will recall, an Esquilax is a legendary horse, with the head of a rabbit, and the body of a rabbit.
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
From the article:
"R. Alta Charo, an associate dean of law and professor of bioethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, noted that the work passed muster with Chinese ethics authorities"
Now, THAT'S comforting. I was starting to think that maybe the Chinese were going to get a reputation for being un-ethical...
This is the country where you can kill a female baby of less than a year old and still consider it an abortion.
Welcome to the Island of Dr. Moreau. Over here we have the rabbit-man, and we're working on a cheetah-woman in the back. Care to take a peek?
It's never good when something written by H.G. Wells, and later adapted to a movie for Marlon Brando, comes close to reality...or is that just my thought?
When they've got the supermodel clones ready, though, give me a call.
One only needs two tools in life: WD-40 to make things go, and duck tape to make them stop. ~G.M. Weilacher
Bionic Bunny!
This should bring a whole new meaning to the phrase "cotton balls"
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
the year is 2010, people can go to there local mall and visit a rabbit/human that is truly life sized. intrestingly enough kids seem to be frightend by the creature and the idea has been scrapped
They shouldn't have done that.
Now there will be men who think of nothing but sex.
Yes, of course alt.devilbunnies is for real. I'm surprised you ever doubted it. After the bunnies' assassination attempt on Jimmy Carter and their much-publicized terrorist takeover of Miami Airport, I thought everyone's doubts had been answered. Devilbunnies are out there. My advice to you is to run, run for the hills. :)
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
This is only the begining! Bun-Bun is coming!
The way that (real) stem cells are collected (or used to be collected) is in such a way that no moral dilemma exists anyway. When a woman goes in for artificial insemination, several eggs are removed from her body. These eggs are all impregnated a once, and then cryogenically frozen (-500 C). These eggs are defrosted one at a time and put back inside the womans uterus. This process continues until a child is born. Then all of the embryos that could have become humans are (get this) thrown away. Those embryos are the stem cells that can really become _anything_ that they are exposed to. Cells from things like placenta (and very possibly rabbits) are already biased and not truely stem cells.
What, I ask you, moral dillema exists when given a choice between studying these embryos and throwing them away. It is not as if these embyos are going to ever become viable fetuses either way.
.. welcome our new hobbit masters.
You want a pet that will take to your side!? .. Hubbits!!!
Your want a pet that will take to the dishes!?
Hubbits!!
Sincerly,
Hubbits!!
thinking about the movie 'Tank Girl'?
what a thought provoking converation.
And I was going to comment on something stupid like deforest kelly being in this movie.
But maybe I can do both!!!
Dammit Jim, its an embryo not a parisite.
Veramocor
My god people this is only the first page of posts and already you are using Hitler to compare people to?
Enough. Godwins Law is invoked stop posting.
Veramocor
Well, as much as I like^H^H^H^H hate to nitpick, did YOU read the article? I'm wondering if you're being a bit deceitful with regards to whose knee is leading whom to where.
I think I'm gonna have to call you on that.
To take a quote (you DO know how copy and paste works, right?) from the article:
Since the definition of "majority" can approach yet never become totality, and since the collective definition of "small percentage" can approach yet never become zero, whether you like it or not, there is some blending of DNA. Maybe it's not the "standard, double-helically-structured" DNA. Maybe "mitochondrial" DNA doesn't affect nearly as many attributes as those governed by what we've all come to know as regular, "original flavor" DNA. And maybe DNA identified as "mitochondrial" isn't allowed into the the more affluent DNA dance clubs, but it's still DNA.
IANABOLBS (biologist or lab bunny scientist), but I'm pretty sure it's safe to assume that if they call it "DNA," then it's DNA, even if they add a descriptive adjective to it.
Mom says my
so like... Donnie Darko?
Of course, I've watched to much anime.
Yay me!
But where are all the 21st century equivalents of pitchforks and torches? Can't we storm the castles with some kind of laser thingy or something? Wifi? RC helicopters? Man-made diamond pitchforks?
This is supposed to be about nerd stuff. Not some 'armless little bunny-rabbit.
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
Who says you can't mix em?
Waiting for ad.doubleclick.net...
Heard playing from the womb: "I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date."
http://mediagoblin.org/
In the article it says "The vast majority of the DNA in the embryos is human, with a small percentage of genetic material -- called mitochondrial DNA -- contributed by the rabbit egg." Unless I'm completely lost, shouldn't that mean that the embryo would be completely human if allowed to mature? I mean, if it's only the DNA contained within the Mitochondria that's rabbit, then all of the nucleic DNA would be human.
WWD4D?
Oh great, now Bugs Bunny will also be able to run for Governor of Califorina.
Table-ized A.I.
Rabi-en-Rose!
Clearly the Japanese are secretly investing millions into these Chinese labs to churn out willing, cute girls to work gaming/electronics retail and trade shows.
Makes sense to me.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
it's the rise of the real life furries!! EVERYONE RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!! I'll get the shotguns. yeah.. this reminds me of that movie.. the island of dr. something something.. cant remember the damn name of the doctor.. who created animal/human hybrids.. this just shows how much free time scientists have. and how most of them need to be shot in the chest.
...does whatever a rabbit can... that would be, let's see, eating half the plants in your garden and having lots of sex.
Sounds like the life for me!
I looked into the abyss, and the abyss looked into me--and we both winked.
It occured to me the headline for the story could have been "Chinese Scientists Develop New Habbit".
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
Do not attempt to fuck the catgirl. That is impossible. Instead, you must try to realize the truth: there are no catgirls. Then you will find that it is not the catgirl you fuck. It is only yourself.
I believe a human life begins, not at conception, but rather, when the "group of cells" has reached sentience. I don't have the medical research to know when this is, be it long after the baby is born, or long before (or somewhere in between), but either way, I believe that before sentience, it's just like killing a tree. Am I happy when the forest outside my house gets chopped down? No. Do I think the constructionists should be charged with murder? No. I think, legally, it isn't murder until the baby is able to think for itself. In that light, I am pro-abortion, though I still believe that the choice should be made before the mother is pregnant, not after. I still think abortion is wrong, but looking at it from a LEGAL standpoint...
[Sorry for the delay in response, I'm in the Detroit area, so I haven't had e-mail for a couple of days.]
Now I have a definition, but the ambiguity isn't gone yet. What exactly constitutes a 'fully functional human being'? Is a new-born baby 'fully functional'? What about 20 minutes before it's born? It certainly can't talk, walk, or do any of the other things which we attribute to full-grown humans. Is it OK to experiment on them? What about toddlers who can't talk, or pre-teens who haven't gone through puberty yet. They can talk and walk, but they can't reproduce yet.
And what if I become blind? What if I lose a leg? What if I don't have the mental capacity to read words bigger than 4 letters? Am I still 'fully functional', or can I be torn apart for someone else's benefit?
And turning it around, isn't an embryo fully functional? It's alive and growing, doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing at that stage of development. There's nothing broken about it at all. How is it not 'fully functional'? If the embryo "couldn't exist outside of a host", then the embryonic stem cells would be useless. If you mean, "Will die without some sort of external interference", a newborn baby is in the exact same boat.
So you see, you haven't done anything at all to bring clarity. Give me a consistent definition that gives all the right answers to the above questions.
Saying, "Human organisms inside someone else's body don't have rights" or "Human organisms that have existed less than 12 weeks don't have rights" is just as arbitrary (and unjust) as saying, "Human organisms with black skin don't have rights."
TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.
1) "La vie en rose" is a throwback to her fantasy-world vision of herself at Gamers
or 2) "La vie en rose" is the name of a competitor to Victoria's Secret.
Or is it both (or all 3!!!)
I think all 3.
It's like, why is Trinity called Trinity?
1) Christian symbolism in movie.
2) Name of actual hacker in real life.
3) Name of infamous nuclear testing site has ominous ring to it.
Finally, why is my name pr0ntab!?!?! I'll leave that one to you.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
...someone did the unthinkable and cloned Pat Robertson...I guess they used that new cloning process involving mineral water from the Dead Sea that he sells on the 700 Club...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Your rhetoric is so 60s. Nowadays, the only acceptable way to defend an idea is to claim that people who disagree with it are "kneejerk" or some other hot-button term.