Scientists Give Human Organs to Lamb

TK Interior writes "Myrtle Beach Online reports the existence of a lamb-human chimera-- a blend of two different species. Not only has a lamb been given a human liver and heart, but mice are sporting human brain cells. At what level is a chimera 'too' human? Where do you draw the line between human and animal? How will this affect evolution?"

Comments

Seen them before

[oexeo]

These things aren't new, they've been posting on /. for years!

I don't like it.

[Anonymous Coward]

This can only be ba-a-a-a-ad.

Re:I don't like it.

[goon america]

The full quote is, "four legs good, two legs bad"

Some animals are more equal than others.

Re:I don't like it.

[double-oh three]

The fuller quote is:
" 1. Whatever goes on two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes on four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal. "

After a few revisions it ends up as; "
1. "Four legs good, two legs better!"
2. No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets.
3. No animal shall drink alcohol to excess.
4. No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.
5. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Too human?

[Saven Marek]

Too human is perhaps the point when, if, we get to making an animal that can perform as the midspecies link between two diseases?

A disease that affects sheep maybe can gestate over years in a flock of sheep and then suddenly because they have many human organs its affecting humans too. It opens a door of potentials not all of which are good

The nets biggest nude anime gallery's

Re:Too human?

[RichDice]

I think this is an interesting take on things, but I have to ask, does this mean that pigs and fowl -- as is -- are "too human"? Diseases from these jump over to the human populations in SE Asia, and then to the rest of the world, all the time. They're called this year's new strain of flu.

Cheers,
Richard

Re:Too human?

[Xyrus]

With all science there is some risk.

But why do this?

With the massive shortages of organs for transplantation, we need to do somehing.

Using stem cells to grow new organs or repair damaged ones was a good idea until Bush nipped that in the bud.

So instead of that relatively safe research, scientist are looking to alter animals to grow the organs for us.

But, as you point out, there are many risks involved. Transpecies pandemics is just one of them.

~X~
"If ignorance is bliss then Bush must be living in a fucking paradise."

Re:Too human?

[sosegumu]

This is the problem: The Law of Unintended Consequences. As complexity of an endeavor increases so do the amount of unintended consequences.

I'm not saying that there aren't compelling reasons for pursuing this type of thing, I'm just saying that the downside risk is just too great. Like any other great catastrophe, this potential one would come from an unforeseen unknown/error.

Re:Too human?

[gad_zuki!]

Exactly. There's a need for cures and treatments. Custom grown organs save lives, but I'm afraid the theocratic elements in the US would rather fight their "holy war" over zygotes than cure juvenille diabetes. To them, people living in "the world of sin" deserve to get sick. These people disgust me.

Re:Too human?

[flyingsquid]

It's such a strange debate, this "rights of the zygote" stuff. The rest of the western world got over this years ago, and continues to progress. The U.S., with its constant, energy-sapping moral debates fueled by religious irrationality, is so anachronistic.

You heartless bastard. What about the rights of the sperm? Are we just going to sit by idly as millions- billions of sperm are mercilessly slaughtered, as if somehow a single flagellated cell was worth less than an entire human being? We need a constitutional ban on masturbation! Masturbation is MURDER!

lamb with a human liver is no more human...

[Anonymous Coward]

than a human with a pig heart is a pig. It's about DNA, not body parts.

Re:lamb with a human liver is no more human...

[HalfFlat]

No it's not about DNA.

Such thinking is behind all the current nonsense concerning abortion and stem cells research.

If you believe DNA is what determines human-ness, then all the cellular detritus that you leave scattered about every day is just as human as you are. You would have to claim that the snot you pick out of your nose has the same human rights as your mother. It's just daft.

What counts as human is not the DNA.

What constitutes human then? The sensible answer is my view (and others) is that it depends upon the thing's ability to be part of a society with other 'humans', and to have qualities such as empathy, self-consciousness and the like which are regarded as human qualities. Without those, a thing is no more human than its DNA might be.

I imagine that every time I sneeze, I eject more 'human' than there is in a 3-day old embryo -- by the DNA line of reasoning. It's just silly.

DNA is simply something that current humans have in common. Given how unimportant it really is, it seems quite possible in the future that there will be (human-constructed) things which are human in all the important senses, even if they don't have the same DNA as my toe-nail clippings.

Yay!

[Hamster Of Death]

I welcome our 5 assed overlords!

Not really a Chimera?

[ilyanep]

I wouldn't consider transplanting human organs into an animal a chimera. When they can put human DNA and make human organs grow naturally in an animal, then we'll have a chimera (and a little problem on our hands).

Evolution

[Claire-plus-plus]

"How will this affect evolution?"

Many things effect evolution... Medical science has been effecting evolution for a very long time as people who would have died because of genetic illness have lived on through medical science. The human species has not had real natural selection for a long time because we do not die from genetic problems as often.

The only evolution humans are likely to undergo is a scary one. Stupid people are having more children than smart people, therefore people are going to get stupider. Maybe it's already happened

Re:Evolution

[Ralph Yarro]

The human species has not had real natural selection for a long time because we do not die from genetic problems as often.

Nonsense. You might as well claim that birds don't face natural selection because their parents feed them as babies instead of letting them starve or that that they don't face natural selection because their nests help keep them warm.

A bunch of people helping each other to survive is a product of natural selection, not its absence.

Part of our environment is now the existence of hospitals and scientists. Some people thrive in that environment who would die childless in other environments. Again, this is natural selction at work.

Re:Evolution

[Claire-plus-plus]

If you say that you are somewhat lacking in your sense of natural selection. Natural selection occurs when an individual dies before breeding or otherwise fails to breed, thus not handing on their genes. Among humans pretty much everyone lives long enough to breed, and thus genetics that do not select for survival are passed on. I am not saying that we should stop people with genetic diseases from breeding, just that by removing selective pressures from the species we might be stopping evolution.

Birds do indeed feed their young but if the parents believe that the young are incapable of surviving adequately they are thrown out of the nest to die in a lot of cases. People thriving because of hospitals is not natural selection, it's artificial - a kind of eugenics.

Re:Evolution

[phizzits]

So true. Diseases like diabetes, which were once fatal, are now affecting more and more people just because we can treat it. And diabetes seems to be a somewhat dominant gene or set of genes, so in a couple hundred years we could all be carrying around insulin pumps and buying it at the local pharmacy in the Insulin isle. Many such diseases and deformities exist. And with comsetic surgery, teeth straightening, and laser eye surgery getting cheaper all too fast, we can see an end to sexual discrimination as well. It's ironic, however, that the idea of genetic engineering has come around the time of our genetic demise.

Re:Evolution

[Ralph Yarro]

I didn't say the behavious of birds didn't arise from evolution, only that it doesn't effect evolution.

OF COURSE it affects evolution. It's part of the environment that the chicks are born into.

Scenario as outlined so far: Birds lay eggs. Eggs hatch. Parents feed offspring. Parents eject less viable offspring, enhancing the food and other resources devoted to the more viable offspring, and thus enhancing their chances of survival.

How does can you say that this doesn't affect evolution? By your standards the parent birds are interfering in the process.

Re:Evolution

[kalidasa]

First of all, no species has ever been shown to evolve into another species. No scientific experiment has ever proved this.

Actually, species have been OBSERVED evolving into other species. Bacterial species. You may have experienced the result yourself: antibiotic resistance.

Re:Evolution

[tgibbs]

So true. Diseases like diabetes, which were once fatal, are now affecting more and more people just because we can treat it.

Fears of genetic disease increasing because of treatment prolonging survival are largely misplaced. Unless people with the disease have more children than people without it (i.e. if the "disease" is in some sense beneficial in a fitness sense) their reproduction will not contribute to an overall increase in disease frequency. So if the treatment is perfectly effective, then the frequency of the disease will only increase at the rate at which new carriers of the disease allele arise by spontaneous mutation. However, most treatments are not perfectly effective (i.e. people with diabetes are still a lot more likely to die young than people without it) and the mutation rate is low. So increase in genetic disease frequency due to medical treatment is unlikely--at worst, it will decrease more slowly.

And eventually, it will be possible to correct all identified genetic diseases at the DNA level, and the problem will become moot.

Re:Evolution

[DarkBlackFox]

Parents eject less viable offspring, enhancing the food and other resources devoted to the more viable offspring, and thus enhancing their chances of survival.

I believe this is the major difference between birds with natural selection/evolution, and what you procure as human "evolution." The bird has no qualms ejecting less viable offspring, while a human baby born with any defect is treated to the maximum extent of avaliable medical attention, usually regardless of cost. In this sense, rather than eject the less viable offspring, more resources are spent keeping it alive than would otherwise be spent on other healthy offspring. Thus natural selection in it's purest form is circumvented- the weak, unable to care for themselves, or worthy of parental care, die off before they can pass their weakness on to offspring. Modern medicine defeats the process by saving as many lives as possible, regardless of weakness or genetic deficiencies (which I'm not saying is a bad thing at all, just differing from common knowledge of natural selection).

Duh

[CGP314]

How will this affect evolution?

Not at all since the reproductive cells are not affected.


-Colin

too human

[MadFarmAnimalz]

At what level is a chimera 'too' human?

Slashdotter: ...?
Goat: Not tonight honey, I have a headache.

Goat Sheep

[CGP314]

In science, an animal is a chimera if the cells throughout the animal are from two different animals. This is accomplished by mixing the zygotes (see the geep). You don't get a chimera through organ transplant.


-Colin

Ask and you shall receive

[kalel666]

http://www.ntk.net/media/developers.mpg

Dangerously human

[goombah99]

The danger I think is that viruses in the host animal will now have an opportunity to learn how to invade human cells under favorable conditions. We are gaurenteeing our own extinction by disease.

As it stands asia is the source of virtualy all flu and africa the source of all Ebola. In both cases it's believed to be because of the biological conditions that put animals and humans in close contact where the viruses can jump between species. In the case of flu the host animal is birds which then jumps to mamals via pigs. Pigs are close enought o human that the jump to human is easy. and then it's flu season. In the case of Ebola no one knows what the host animal is. Apparently its not harmful to its host since it would slauter it wholsesale if it were as deadly as it is in humans. When it jumps to human's the only good nes is that it is so lethal it tends to kill it's host quicker than it spreads in rural africa. NY city might be a different story.

Some people think that ebola's natural host is a monkey or an ape.

Apes get many diseases we dont. For example Simian Aids. What would happen if we were to put human cells in an ape, then simian aids learned how to infect these cells. Then it jumped to the human population.

We are porting disease from the antire animal kingdom to our own without considering the consequences

Re:Dangerously human

[lawpoop]

I hear a gargling sound.

I suggest you have a look at _Guns, Germs, and Steel_. Most, if not all, of our diseases have come from herd animals that we domesticated. We've gotten this far after 6,000 years with the filthy beasts; I hardly think we'll become extinct now, especially with our new-fangled medical technology.

As far as simian AIDS infecting humans, human AIDS is probably the exact same thing -- a bug some human picked up from an ape around 70-100 years ago in Africa. What would happen if simian AIDS jumped again? Probably what's going on now with regular AIDS.

"We are porting disease from the antire animal kingdom to our own without considering the consequences." This is nothing new. We've done fine so far.

Re:You don't draw the line...

[efatapo]

Well, you may have passed your high school biology class (and I stress may) but you certainly haven't followed that through with upper level classes.

Although humans could technically breed with sheep (and living near Wales, I should know...), the offspring would be sterile...

Technically, no they couldn't. The sperm-egg recognition factors (proteins that stick out of the egg) have specific receptors on the sperm. Most animals will not recognize the receptor-ligand interaction of other animals. Additionally, the egg secretes molecules that the sperm uses to find the egg and these are also not conserved between species.

Additionally, I'll let the other posters explain to you the many many differences that separate humans from animals. Sorry bud, but you're way off on this argument. There's a lot more to life than biology when it comes to distinguising animals and humans. Not my field though...biochemistry is.

Re:But the Scotsmen will.....

[K1-V116]

Or so the Scots would have it. ;)

Never heard this old saw?: "Why do Scotsmen wear kilts? Because sheep can hear a zipper a mile away...."

And yes, I have Scotch blood, so I'm allowed to poke fun. Or is that Scotch in my blood? Bother....I can never remember.

Re:But the Scotsmen will.....

[Anonymous Coward]

-East Coast Americans believe it's the West Virginians
-For Canadians, I've heard it's the "Newfies" (Newfoundlanders)
-In England it's the Welsh
-The Irish think it's the Scottish
-The Scottish think it's the Aussies
-Aussies and New Zealanders accuse each other having intimate relations with Lamb Chop on a regular basis
-and, apparently South Africans think we Aussies are the sheep-fuckers...

If you think about it, it's really the sheep who are the sluts.

Making Chimeras is dangerous...

[Simonetta]

These things have the potential of being extremely dangerous. Unknown viruses that have become harmless to the animal may be lethal to humans. In a chimera, the virus may mutate to be able to pass from one human to another, even through airborn contact.
This is the greatest nightmare of the Centers for Disease Control. They strongly discourage experimentation and research involving chimeras, even (and especially) research using animal organs for human transplant.
This is not a joke, or poorly written science fiction.

Re:Mod parent up!

[flyingsquid]

No, the same people who claim Darwin was right and that there is no God, also feel some compelling need to try to prove Darwin wrong by protecting those who are not able to survive by natural means.

Speaking as an evolutionary biologist, I'd say the above post was the work of someone who has the higher brain functions of a chimp with a botched lobotomy. Lemme put that in small words so you can understand it: you're a fuckin' idiot. Plus, anyone who would "me too!" it is a moron.

Darwin did say life was tough, and that therefore those least fit to survive the struggle, tend not to survive. This is a statement about how the world is. It does not logically follow that the world oughtto be this way. It's simple, morals = how the world ought to be, science = how the world is, so the two do not have a lot to do with each other. Jesus fucking Christ. Read a philosophy book once in a while. For that matter, read a book once in a while.

Re:Mod parent up!

[Jeremi]

And the higher brain functions that we have evolved seem to be serving a purpose of actually _weakening_ our species, rather than strengthening it.

Two things here:

1. It may be that protecting the weak and the sick does not in fact weaken our species, but strengthens it. Any weak/sick person that we nurse back to health now is someone who may become very useful to us later. And even if they remain weak/sick, in today's high-tech world weak/sick people can nonetheless be very useful if they have skills/knowledge/talent (cue image of 98-lb computer genius here).
2. Even if, for the sake of argument, we assume that modern customs are weakening the species... it is very likely still the right thing to do. Since our species is already more or less the dominant species on this planet, there is no particular reason for it to need to become stronger. So if "strengthening the species" is no longer the primary goal, what is? The answer might be "improving the quality of life for all", in which case caring for the weak/sick is just the thing to do.