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Human Animal Hybrid Created in Lab
guanno writes "National Geographic has an article stating that... "Scientists have begun blurring the line between human and animal by producing chimeras--a hybrid creature that's part human, part animal."
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I for one welcome our new rabbit-human chimera overlords.
time is a perception of a being's consciousness
time is your 6th sense, the wierd ones are 7+
I remember reading about another medical circumstance that also used the term Chimera. Apparently it's possible for two fraternal embryos in a pregnant woman to combine and become one organism, with two sets of genetics. Some beings composed this way stand out due to differing genetics manifesting different skin on the body; some don't stand out because certain organs or systems have a different genetic makeup than other systems, all internally. It's interesting, as these people have two DNA structures. When I first read Chimera in the context of the headline I wondered what this new thing had to do with the old use, but they appear to be exclusive of each other.
More here and here.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
From what I vaguely recall, one of the greatest risks of a chimera (aside perhaps from the slippery moral slope), is the risk of a genetic material from diseases that affected their species making a jump to the human species. In essence, diseases that affected that species may be dormant or preserved in those animals, and unleashed, so to speak, in the presence of foreign material such as human organs.
For example, in this case rabbits: a viral pandemic that killed all but the few naturally-immune bunnies may have left remnants of its genetic material in their DNA. All living bunnies are immune, having derived their genetic material from the bunnies that survived the pandemic. No humans however, have that immunity. Crossing the species procures the possibility of a transfer from bunnies to humans.
How plausible this is, I couldn't really say. But I seem to remember it having some merit when juxtaposed with concerns over xenogenic transplants, concerns which seem applicable here also. Though the probability of this happening may be low, the damage may be astronomical since it could concoct a disease wholly unknown to science.
sounds awesome.
"I not only think that we will tamper with Mother Nature, I think Mother wants us to."
- Willard Gaylin
The best posts are both flamebait and informative.
Honestly though, I don't care what your moral or ethical beliefs are... this is something that needs watching and a good combination of government and private control. Playing God in a petri dish is one thing, but creating a new species and bringing an unknown consiousnous with who knows what kind of mental trama to bear is just plain wrong. I'm no scientific antagonist, but this is one line that should not be crossed.
Let me play devil's advocate here, and ask: Why shouldn't that line be crossed?
If we could give dogs the brains of humans (uplift-them, David Brin style[1]), why shouldn't we?
Right now, we think nothing of breeding a new kind of corn, or a new breed of dog. For all we can tell, a dog can feel pain, feel happiness, dream, and solve simple problems. Yet, for the most part, we treat dogs as objects, to be bought or sold.
If human-level intelligence is bothering you, adult human beings make decisions every day about creating new intelligent beings. Often the decision was under the influence of mind altering drugs. The first experiment with the mind of a human will at least be brought into this world with much more planning than the average human baby.
[1] Uplifting dogs was mentioned somewhere in the first trilogy, but presumably Earthclan sacrificed the plans in one of the negotations with the galactics.
I actually would prefer if furries remained the realm of fantasy.
So many people hate other HUMANS who are different.. Imagine the hell that a real life "furry" would go through?
Remember that TV series "Gary the Rat"? I'm sure it would be about 500 times worse.
-Zorin the Lynx, but would rather stay human in real life. }:)
Funny how 8 years later, all the arguments in TFA are exactly the lame arguments Noske blasts in that book.
Noske used a neat example of research offered to Amnesty International using pigs to evaluate effects of torture on humans. Pigs make good models, because their skin is so similar -- but wait a second, if they're similar, why don't they have any rights? Oops... from TFA:
Ahem, *Sub*-human says it all: they're below, we're on top. Now don't get me wrong, I had pork for supper. But to assume we're on top for anything besides a food chain is hard to prove (and bible references don't count as proof in my books).
Most of the debate around the ethical problems posed by chimeras assume that distinction, but it never really was there.
This is why Rifkin's attitude makes more sense. What gives us the right to blur the species line in the first place? Why do we insist on splicing fish genes into tomatoes, bacteria into food plants? The risk can not yet be known, and for whose advantage are these apprentice sorcerers working?
OK, I've said my bit, and donned the asbestos underwear. Flame away if you wish
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
Cry me a river. According to your rhetoric, we should be stuck in the dark ages and stop all sorts of scientific research for ethical reasons. No more of this Physics stuff, as humans we'll just create an a-bomb and threaten ourselves. None of this Chmeistry stuff, we'll just end up finding ways to process crude oil and start a global warming frenzy. And certainly none of this Engineering hooplah, it'll simply be used to have an advantage over another civilization that will be used to exploit the less advanced cultures.
Yes, all this stuff happens. Humans aren't perfect, and they won't stop innovating either. But please stop crying like a pussy and find ways to make positive use of it, rather than try and stop it from happening. All of the examples I mentioned have negative uses. The positives, however, are overwhelming. Gather enough apples and a few will be rotten. Tough titties.
Put this in terms understood on slashdot - it would be like trying to run a full release of linux w/ all the KDE and Gnome stuff on an 8088 with 4k (as in kilobytes - not megabytes) of ram - oh and using a tape recorder for a storage device.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
I have issues with your post, too. Being myself from a mostly catholic country (and not catholic), I can tell you a couple of things:
1.- The Holy Roman Catholic Church is not rightist, or leftist. It's wherever the money is.
2.- In the US, the Democratic Party is considered to be a somewhat leftist party. In most other countries, similar behavior is considered to be right wing (although not too conservative). True leftism (even mild leftism) does not exist in the US and is actively disencouraged by the two parties (and, if they can, they'd outlaw it) by labeling they members "communists", "anti-patriots", "terrorists". Hell, right now, even "pacifist" will do.
PS: Before you tell me that I don't really know America, and how much America has helped my country and all that pre-recorded propaganda, I do live in the US.
Now on to the business.
Once again, it comes down to the old question: just what is it about a person, that we value to such an extent that we say it has rights?
If you answer that it has something to do with chromosomes or DNA, then I'm really disappointed. If you're approaching philosophy from the molecular level, you are out on the fringes. I don't give a were-rat's ass if someone programs a chile to produce some protein that I'm not getting/making enough of. But fine, go ahead and try to make a case for why some molecules are sacred and some aren't. At worst, you'll be boring and at best you'll amuse.
For the mystics, it's easy: just ask if the chimera has a soul. Since you don't have any real way of determining that other than dogma, you'll just make up an answer that you can't defend. But your answer can't be attacked, either, so you'll come off looking better than the human-DNA-is-special wackos. (But remember this: just because people aren't arguing with you, doesn't mean they take you seriously. They just don't see the point.)
I know what I value in a person. It doesn't have a damned thing to do with sperm and eggs, or DNA at all. In fact, not all people have what I value; some choose to opt out of civilization. Sit down and make yourself comfy in that electric chair, Ted Bundy. I even pay taxes for the military, with the understanding that I want them to kill people under certain circumstances.
Human behavior itself can cross the line, and you're worried about chemistry?!
If people can cross the line from this side, maybe they can come over from the other side too. I welcome this Frankenstein stuff, just like I welcome AI and little green men from outer space. I'll make up my mind about the "monster" when I meet him.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Don't you think you're oversimplifying things a little there, AC?
The atom bomb was not created by physicists who thought they "knew everything". Rather, it was an application of known science to a specific problem, undertaken by the government of the United States. Certainly, the physicists who worked on the Manhattan project were the best and the brightest the US had to offer, and certainly they could have declined to participate (some did, IIRC). But it was not arrogance that motivated the physicists to build an atom bomb -- it was the very real fear at the time that Germany might build one first; they were certainly researching it. Imagine, if you will, how the world would be different if the Nazis had beaten us to nuclear arms.
DDT is a mixed blessing. Extremely bad for you, yes -- but DDT is also responsible for the almost complete eradication of malaria in the first world. Nothing kills mosquitoes so efficiently. There are those who feel that the world-wide ban on DDT (due to its harmful effects) is what allows malaria to remain a serious problem throughout South Asia. Sure, DDT kills people, but malaria kills more. It's like chemotherapy -- you poison your own body in hopes that it kills the cancer before it kills you. Not ideal, of course, but don't pretend that it was all bad.
Genetic engineering, like everything else we've ever done, will have productive uses and less than productive ones, and probably a few lamentable applications. I for one am prepared to accept that we probably won't know what we've done wrong until after we've already done it.
Which of course doesn't rule out being cautious.
Sadly you are very correct. The Dutch in indonesia suffered from the Japanese invasion in 1942, because at that time it was a colony of Holland. In 1945 the Dutch were liberated. After the war, the Dutch however disallowed the independence of Indonesia in 1945 and sent troops to suppress the locals, the so-called 'politional actions'. (comparable with the US _not_ being at war with Vietnam). After political pressure of the US in 1949 the Indonesian independance was accepted: it had cost a lot of lives.
Mod me off-topic, mod me troll, I haven't had coffee yet and still ashamed of the Dutch atrocities.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
the link you posted was brain to body weight ratios, which is completely irrelevant to the discussion.
the parent poster was 100% correct. humans do have much brains several thousand times larger than mice, and human brain cells would not be optimal for living as a mouse.
increase the mouse's brain size several thousand times, then there might be an issue with mouse sentience.
it's rather unlikely you're going to get anything approaching sentience from 0.4 grams of brain cells.
A bigger threat is current animal only viri that may find a new path to evolve into infecting humans.
Much of the argument against such research seems to be along the lines of "this is dangerous waters", or "you're trying to play God", or, to quote from the article, "It would deny that there is something distinctive and valuable about human beings that ought to be honored and protected," said Cohen One could view this "issue" in the same way Galileo saw the universe out there in his social context. That the earth was not the centre of the universe was unacceptable back then. Fast forward to now, such research simply challenges the "Man is the centre of the universe" postulate. What ego!
heh...well, despite being a slashdotter (in some sense, at least), I'm actually pro-tech. And yet, I do think there are ethical issues here. A voice of reason is all very well, and I think a lot of people lack that, but it doesn't mean you have to agree with everything that science does. Science, after all, is done by scientists, and scientists are only humans too. Being inhumane is part of the human nature (even though it sounds contradictory).
;-)
I hate it likewise, that anyone argumenting against some scientific development or research is portrayed as being 'anti-tech', or some sort of zealot. I, for instance, I'm very much pro science, more so then the joe doe on the street, I believe. I'm neither a green animal/tree-hugger nor a christian catholic (well, exept by birth, but I hadn't anything of a say in that). I consider myself to be an agnostic.
Yet, I do think that some experiments where there is a melting of humans and animals should be severely controlled, restricted, and in some cases, forbidden, indeed. This has a very clear (and rational, btw) reason: if you start with the premise that humans can't be experimented on (because it is unethical), not even to advance science, then the melting of animals and humans obviously cause problems. Namely, when does it remain animal, and when does it become human?
Where ever one draws the line, it is clear that there is such a line, and it is also clear that that line is fully arbitrary. I would say that any chimera experiments might produce something that could be considered, at least partly, human. And are we going to allow human experiments, even if they have animal genes in them? I would say no.
Then again, we already experiment on human embryos as well, so clearly the line IS arbitrary. However, rest assured I consider that ethical burdersome too, and I think if one wants to stay consistent, one should forbid that too.
Consistency is a nice thing.
I do not develop my view out of a zealot-green or catholic beliefsystem, but rather on a basic premise and rational thinking. Somehow, this seems implausable to other people proclaiming to be progressive or scientifically minded (which I consider myself to belong too). Progress is good, but not to all costs, and I do think sometimes the price can be too high. And let's face it, in reality, in science, there is often more then one way to get the same useful data. The matter of fact is, scientists, being human, often do unethical things (sometimes downright illegal things) to cut corners or because it is more easy, not because it's the only way in the universe to proceed and progress.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
"If anyone could shed some light on A) ..."
:)
This will not create übersmart mice. At most the mice may have a bigger brain, but I wouldn't bet on it. So any reflections on the human-mouse "experience" are not very meaningful imho. The outcome of such a crossing will be a rodent.
There will be human-like traits, but these are probably not what you would expect.
E.g. these man-mice may have higher resistance to certain toxins that are harmful to mice but not to humans, but they will not have chimp-level cognitive capacities.
Dna is universal enough that a mammal organism will "understand" foreign gene code and "interpret" it, based on it's own genetical context. Erm... let me rephrase that.
If you bake dna cookies in a mouse oven, they will very probably come out mouse-like. In a rabbit-oven, they will be rabbit-like. (Ok, that metafore stinks. But you get the idea.)
In all reality, it is very hard to predict what the outcome of such a crossbreed will be. A gene is not restricted to one function, but might be involved in several processes (gestation, pigmentation, proteinfolding,...), on different hierarchical levels. Dna does not seem to have strict seperation between data and code, it's a chemical process that reuses itself as data, and the context or environment in which it "runs" has a *major* impact on the "choices" made. (parameters like temperature, sugarlevels, etc.)
Growing rabbit-embryos in humans will probably result in human-like abominations.
So, no supermodel loveslave furries !
Cows can learn to open doors -- no mean feat for an animal that has evolved with no concept at all of manipulating objects (cf dogs which naturally carry stuff) and has then been bred purely for food for a few centuries. Cows can plot a path home from today's field to the shed -- sheep will just stand there and die of cold. Cows can actually learn not to eat poisonous things, which makes them Einsteins among farm animals (horse owners will know what I mean here).
I'd say the only creatures on the farm smarter than cows are the dogs, the pigs, and mayyyybe the cats.
And maybe the people.
Although not in every case.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
It is simply silly to propose rights to great apes, because they can neither ask for them nor appreciate them on an abstract level.
Likewise, it is silly to propose rights to children with advanced cases of Down's syndrome, for exactly the same reason. Instead, we should use them for medical experimentation.
And chimps don't practice "infanticide." They prefer the term "total birth abortion."
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
I think that's far too sweeping a statement.
Some nazi "scientists" had some very weird ideas, as you say, which were promoted by the regime in charge because the findings pandered to their prejudices.
Other nazi scientists were very careful in following proper scientific method, the only problem was they viewed the people they were experimenting on as no more than animals and therefore had as much concern for their welfare as modern day animal experimenters have for theirs.
The results from those latter experiments (e.g. effects of high altitude/exposure) have been used very successfully for many years by bodies such as the USAF and have saved many lives.
In this case something good has come from something evil.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Horses and donkeys, of course, can cross-breed to create mules. I recall from one college class (physical anthropology) a discussion about the fact that, in principle, humans and chimps could also cross-breed, though of course the offspring would (like a mule) be sterile. As discussed here: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=152885 2&lastnode_id=1694132 the number of chromosomes don't necessarily need to be the same, as long as the chromosomes are "homologous" and the male has the fewer number of chromosomes. So in theory we could make a human chimera via simple cross-breeding.
From the "everything2.com" article referenced above:
"liger = male lion + female tiger
tigon or tiglon = male tiger + female lion
mule = male donkey + female horse
hinny = male horse + female donkey (jenny)
zorse = zebra + horse
zonkey or zebrass = zebra + donkey (ass)
cama = camel + llama
catalo or beefalo = buffalo + cattle
yakalo = yak + buffalo
wholphin = whale + dolphin (specifically a false killer whale and a bottlenose dolphin)
Toast of Botswana = goat + sheep
Obviously this deserves some clarification. While a sheep can be impregnated by a goat, the kid/lamb is always stillborn... except in one case in the early 1990s. This animal was nicknamed the Toast of Botswana. Since it was the only one ever known to have lived, no other name has been given to a goat/sheep combination."
I hope that after I die the one word people use to describe me is "resurrected."
But supposing we have a recession and the mice lose their jobs ... Does that mean I will have to see mice on street corners with "will work for cheese" signs?
Or maybe they'll never lose their jobs ... think of how they'll be in the rat race ... building the better mouse trap to cannibalistically catch their stupid (non-human-brained) cousins. I'll bet they make good engineers.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Remember, their job?
As a scientist, I have to say, that's not my job. My job is to find out something new. Whether it helps the world or dooms it is another matter.
Ethics is a subject that by its very nature is open to individual interpretation. The "mob" decides what is acceptable by objecting en masse or not objecting strongly enough. Whatever can be done without a public outcry will usually be done. Science is very political.
Now, above and beyond the general public, there is the scientific community. They are comprised of the same people as "the mob" but they are *on the average* more sophisticated and educated about the alternatives and professional ethics in their fields.
Religious folks who believe in a God that created people and sets them apart from animals think that there is something sacred about humanity.
Non-relgious folks don't think there is anything better than the Greater Good and Individual Rights, although these two things are at odds with each other. (I am capitalizing these ideas to illustrate that I am discussing the grand idealized versions of these concepts.)
For example, if you could take 100 people and experiment on them and cure cancer, would you do it? Pure logic says that over time you will save millions of lives. Aren't the lives of millions worth the lives of 100? Surely this is for the best. The rights of the individual, however, is part of our self preservation, and speaks up and says, "Hey, every person has the right to live and not be harmed by others as long as he has not harmed others."
Aside from these basic ethical points, everything else is a subjective mess. Should animals be tortured by excruciating experiments that could save lives? Should human cells be mixed with animal cells? There is no right anwer to these questions because there are no absolutes in Ethics. The only concrete thing you can point to with Ethics is the "greater good." Anything else is soap opera drama.
I'm not saying that we should start imprisoning people and doing mass unrestricted testing; far from it -- I personally believe strongly in individual freedom. I'm saying that no matter what your arguments, there'll be holes in it because it's about Feelings, not logic.
But, I'm just pointing out that 99.9% of the drivel posted in this forum is subjective bullshit that can be argued for a thousand years with no final arbiter in sight.
Oh, there are a few good points in among the crap here. The person who suggested that chimera could pose a threat by becoming a bridge vector for animal diseases to the human body. Excellent point.
The opposite side of that coin should be considered as well. If pigs get some extremely virulent disease and we have hogocide, we could lose out on some tasty BLTs in the future. It reduces our menu options, and we lose species variety in our biosphere, both obviously negative factors regardless of ethics.
This whole thing reminds me of that disturbing scene in one of the Alien movies where Ripley entered a room with "failed hybrids" that were being kept alive (and suffering) for some reason.
This area of research just opens up a million more questions than it answers...
wait a min here... lest we forget that humans are animals. so, they are cross breeding animals with animals... thats unheard of! just a bad way of wording things.
-Boycot shampoo! demand real poo!
What kin of geeks are you people?
Everyone mentions Pinky and the Brain. No one mentions the rats of NIMH.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.