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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.
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.
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.
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.
knowing how rabbits multiply
New Chinese policy: Only one baby rabbit per couple!
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
They're way ahead of you. From the article:
The team said it retrieved foreskin tissue from two 5-year-old boys and two men, and facial tissue from a 60-year-old woman, as a source of skin cells. They fused those cells with New Zealand rabbit eggs from which the vast majority of rabbit DNA had been removed.
If you thought rotten.com was bad, just wait until foreskinrabbitface.com goes live.
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.
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Adobe's anti-counterfeiting softw
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)
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. =====
In other words, this IS important research, that has the potential of providing important material for research projects that might take medical science huge leaps forwards.
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
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.
Let me know when they can make a monkey with four asses.
They already can. Actually, it's five asses. The prototype one they have developed is named Darl McBride and the asses are named Sontag, Bench, Wilson, Hunsaker and Broughton
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
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?"