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The Chimera Dilemma Manifested in Sheep
Rollie Hawk writes "While many limits on stem cell research exist in the United States, scientist are finding wants to straddle or at least blur the line between man and animal. It's not quite The Island of Doctor Moreau, but it's bringing a pantheon of ethical dilemmas, nonetheless.
The creation of chimeras, named for the mythical beast composed of parts from several different animals, has been in the news off and on for the last few months. The latest case involves around 50 sheep said to possess at least partially human organs.
These heavily modded sheep are growning human-like organs such as livers, hearts, and blood. All of these could eventually be close enough to the real thing to be harvested as replacements parts.
If that doesn't shock you, consider one other human organ that is being grown in some of these sheep: human brains. While it is doubtful that anyone would want a brain transplant from a human-sheep chimera, it does hold the possibility for doing brain research that would never be allowed on human beings.
That is, unless, the brains end up being too human. Just the possibility of a human mind bouncing around inside a sheep's head is a scary proposition."
Well, the wife never complained when she found I was part horse.
What has the world came to?
Haven't we done that? Timothy is a living example of a Sheep grown brain transplanted into a human ;-)
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
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I've seen several versions of this article recently, and have been resisting (until..uh..now) asking a question:
If I slaughter and eat one of the sheep am I guilty of cannibalism?
Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.
I thougt I got picked on at school .. At least I didn't have a sheep's body!
Joking aside, can you imagine a sheep with almost human intelligance? Man, that is freaky. Perfect fodder for horror movies, though.
That Skittles got to this story first. FYI: Skittles has been playing a commercial with two sheep with human heads are eating Skittles. They comment on how they could manage to cross two completely different flavors into one candy.
Because it's new? Are you a luddite?
Two researchers were discussing this topic on Science Friday last week.
The thing that kept running through my mind as I listened to the discussion was how someone with enough money could run circles around these ethics panels and produce chimeras off-shore.
Now that Bush has made the political (rather than scientific) decision to limit stem cell lines, this activity will most certainly occur outside of the US and beyond any jurisdiction of American ethics organizations.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
While it is doubtful that anyone would want a brain transplant from a human-sheep chimera
It would explain how the Patriot Act and the DCMA got passed.
Ba dump bump! Thanks, I'll be here all week. Be sure to tip your waitresses.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Human brains in sheep? Now that's just plain *COOL* Hacking the genes.. loads of fun!
I don't know why so many people get upset about this kind of thing.. I mean, if my mom had something like CJD from eating euro-beef 10 years ago, and you could sacrifice a legion of humo-sheep hybrid brains to save her.. Sacrifice away! Myself, I have a damaged heart.. if I could have a new one, I'd kill any number of chimera sheep to get it. I want to watch my boy grow up, not die at 35. Oh, and you go tell that hypotetical burn victim why he'll be deformed for the rest of his life, because he can't have the artificial skin developed from chimera sheep in Qwai Pong Province china, because his narrow minded government doesn't think it's ethical.
In the balance of life, they're sheep. Who cares? Grow them in vats for all I care. As long as this is all done in a clean room environment, so we can minimize the risk of having superbug's crossing the sheep human barrier...
-=-Ze End-=-
Just injecting some human brain cells into a sheep or even transplanting an early human brain from a fetus is unlikely to produce any kind of human sheep. The human brain doesn't just develop from a genetic blueprint but also requires a huge amount of deveelopmental cues and responds to hormones and signaling molecules (like sonic the hedgehog) to develop properly. Not to mention a host of enviornmental stimuli needed to encourage the brain to wire itself correctly.
In short it isn't just human neurons which make us human but the whole brain development system at work in babies. This isn't the sort of thing which could be duplicated in a sheep without extensive genetic modification or hand controlling all the developmental signals. If this is possible at all it is far beyond our current level of technology.
So don't get freaked out yet people. They are just growing human neurons in sheep at the moment there is no chance we will make a person trapped in a sheep body.
God damn these popular stories can be misleading.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
"Liiisssaaaa, don't eeeaaatttt meeeeee."
:)
If you kill it, it'll stop creeping you out by talking.
Anyone remember the song, "Cows With Guns"?
the committee recommended closely monitoring the mice's behavior and immediately killing any that display human-like behavior.
You know when considering a solution to that particular ethical dilemma that wasn't the first idea that came to mind...
I stole this Sig
Just try and let that freak sheep mutant get near me with my opposable thumbs and a large caliber handgun.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
"Stanford law professor Hank Greely, who chaired the ethics committee, said the board was satisfied that the size and shape of the mouse brain would prevent the human cells from creating any traits of humanity. Just in case, Greely said, the committee recommended closely monitoring the mice's behavior and immediately killing any that display human-like behavior."
OK, I can just see it now:
"Same thing we do every night, Pinky, try to take over the" [splat!]
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
It's always fun to see how the reporters particular bias will come accross.
He can't wait to examine the effects of the human cells he had injected into the fetus' brain about two months ago. "It's mice on a large scale," Chamberlain says with a shrug. As strange as his work may sound, it falls firmly within the new ethics guidelines
They've allready painted him as a mad scientist, eagerly rubbing his hands together in glee over having fought Gods plan. All the while shrugging his shoulders at the cocern of the good people of the world.
Everything will be taken away from you.
That Skittles got to this story first. FYI: Skittles has been playing a commercial with two sheep with human heads are eating Skittles.
Available on their site, quicktime or windows media: Taste the sheep boys.
I miss the beautifull surreal skittle ads, the creepifying ones don't make me want to eat their stuff: I might get the same horrible nightmare vision they do.
You can't take the sky from me...
Why isn't this in the hardware section?
...
Stupid editors
Injecting human DNA into sheep is nothing new to lonely shepherds..
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
In Soviet Russia, the sheep count you!
please change me. - sig
Just in case, Greely said, the committee recommended closely monitoring the mice's behavior and immediately killing any that display human-like behavior. If they DO start behaving like humans and have vastly increased intellect, wouldn't this be considered murder? Wait.. I forgot.. Mice ARE more intelligent than men. So are dolphins. Nevermind. It would be a priviledge to the mice to be put out of their misery. All jokes aside, seriously, if they are "human" in consciousness and intelligence, killing them because they're "human" would be murder. It's also rather ironic if you think about it.
and sheep have many uses
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
I have to say, as a medical student, that I am quite excited about the possibilities presented by this type of research. To be able to conduct research on tissue systems that are more human will provide better models for treatment of disease in humans. Thus making medicine more effective and safer. That being said, I am appalled at the prospect of ANY form of human hervous system running around in ANY other type of creature. True, it could provide tremendous insight into how the human brain works. However, it is my belief that the brian is the center of our humanity. It is the seat of who we are as a species, and is unique in the world. To artificially develop this type of tissue in an animal mode really seems to be an ethical misjudgement. A public backlash to this type of research could jeopardize research in general, which would be a disservice to the scientific community.
I despair of scientific literacy in this country.
The real threat isn't sheep with human brains, it's cows with guns
Actually, I was thinking that this was really close to the bit in "The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe" Where the cow tells Arthur that it looks forward to being eaten. Surely this is all this new tech is building up to?
I really could care less about the moral bullshit surrounding this. If it weren't for some people cracking open some skulls well before most of us were born, we wouldn't be able to perform surgery the way we do now. I'm not saying we should grab someone off the street and start experimenting on them, but growing almost 100% human brains in a sheep and then experimenting on it does not bother me. Unfortunately, there are far too many people who whine about this and make noise. I really hope the research is going on without anyone knowing, and we gain knowledge without having to answer to some religious crackpot protesting that some damn sheep has a human heart.
For fuck's sake. It's pretty much just agreed the world over that science will be constantly used to create new and horrible weapons that could kill increasingly large numbers of people in increasingly horrible ways, but that strangely enough it's expected will never be used. You tell someone about Russia restarting its nuclear weapons research program and people just shrug and go, meh, they do that.
But if it turns out science might be at some point to do something that, rather than being horrific and violent, is merely strange, people freak the fuck out. A bomb that can kill billions in a single moment is shrugged off as normal. But tell someone that someone might be growing sheep with human livers, and what's the response? Oh no! What a horrible perversion of nature! Why do we continue to let such horrible things happen! Never mind that this, you know, has the capacity to save lives or create useful technology on a huge scale. It's "unnatural!" Of course, so is fire and clothing and the internet. But for some reason those are okay and genetic engineering is not.
Mankind has the capacity to do strange and wonderful things, and instead of trying to find exactly where our capacities lie we're holding back everywhere just based on pure grossout factor.
If the reason we're holding back scientific progress is actually "ethics"-- people complaining about genetics and such keep using that word, I am not sure they know what it means-- I want to know why they're worrying so much about sheep in laboratory conditions with some slightly strange DNA in their brains and totally ignoring the relatively horrible conditions that totally normal sheep, chickens, etc are being bred and harvested in on a worldwide scale. The worldwide march of technology and progress has brought a lot of horrible things, but we shrug, decide we don't care, and eat our chicken mcnuggets anyway. So why freak out so much over these sheep? If the rediculously unlikely situation we turn out to have created sheep with thinking, feeling human brains, okay, give them legal rights and a social security card and move on with your lives. I assure you, this isn't worse than what happened to the contents of those chicken mcnuggets, just a little bit wierder.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Hmm... next step after geting a human like brain is to instigate Alztimers (spelling? im lazy) and see if we can figure out how to stop it, and, probably impossible, but reverse it.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Was your source the interview with the designer? Well, they did leave the possibility of human survivors open.
Come to think of it, it would have been a very interesting story. In the game, it becomes clear that some sort of underground computer network exists, which controls the weather. These Orbs are just terminals. Thats exactly what the designer said.
Now, what if some humans put themselves into some sort of cryosleep beneath the surface, ready to be reawakened when all signs of the virus are gone?
Just imagine... humans, while rebuilding their civilization, encounter the Morphs. A really weird close encounter of the third kind, with the humans being the advanced aliens.
Last but not least this game makes me wonder if our world is really as bad as many pessimists say. For the morphs, it appeared to be a miracle world. After playing through this game, seeing all those magnificent human constructions so empty, forgotten and desolated, somehow I just didn't want mankind to end like this.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
City Gent -- Good afternoon.
Rustic -- Afternoon.
City Gent -- A lovely day isn't it.
Rustic -- Eh, 'tis that.
City Gent -- You here on holiday or...?
Rustic -- Nope, I live 'ere.
City Gent -- Oh, jolly good too. (surveys field; he looks puzzled) I say, those are sheep aren't they?
Rustic -- Ar.
City Gent -- Yes, yes of course, I thought so...only...er why are they up in the trees?
Rustic -- A fair question and one that in recent weeks has been much on my mind. It's my considered opinion that they're nesting.
City Gent -- Nesting?
Rustic -- Ar.
City Gent -- Like birds?
Rustic -- Ar. Exactly. Birds is the key to the whole problem. It's my belief that these sheep are laborin' under the misapprehension that they're birds. Observe their behavior. Take for a start the sheeps' tendency to 'op about the field on their back legs. (off-screen baa-ing) Now witness their attempts to fly from tree to tree. Notice that they do not so much fly as...plummet. (sound of sheep plummeting) Observe for example that ewe in that oak tree. She is clearly trying to teach her lamb to fly. (baaaaaa...thump) Talk about the blind leading the blind.
City Gent -- But why do they think they're birds?
Rustic -- Another fair question. One thing is for sure; a sheep is not a creature of the air. They have enormous difficulty in the comparatively simple act of perchin'. (crash) As you see. As for flight, its body is totally unadapted to the problems of aviation. Trouble is, sheep are very dim. Once they get an idea in their heads, there's no shifting it.
City Gent -- But where did they get the idea from?
Rustic -- From Harold. He's that sheep there over under the elm. He's that most dangerous of animals, a clever sheep. He's the ring-leader. He has realized that a sheep's life consists of standing around for a few months and then being eaten. And that's a depressing prospect for an ambitious sheep. He's patently hit on the idea of escape.
City Gent -- Well why don't you just get rid of Harold?
Rustic -- Because of the enormous commercial possibilities should he succeed.
"Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." - Denis Diderot
Okay, just because you have human brain cells does not automatically make the brain capable of human intelligence. First of all, human brain cells taken as individual neurons are by no means superior to any other animals. Second of all, this is definitely a case of "it's the size that counts." Not only does the brain's structure play a role in how the brain works, but its size matters, too. A brain that is too small is going to simply lack the critical mass to develop past a certain level of intelligence. Finally, it's like pouring water into a container: the water takes on the form of whatever it's in. So whereas there's a remote possibility that the sheep might be smarter than average (and that's assuming a lot), the sensory inputs to teach the brain are completely wrong; it will be a human brain that thinks it's a sheep.
Let's put it this way: how do you know you're not a sheep's brain trapped in a human body?
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
Go hug some trees.
I second that. Let's have a look through history at what all of the human-brained sheep have done so far:
The Crusades, The Spanish Inquisition, The Hundred-Years War...
Yup. You just described Christianity. They are described in the Bible as Sheep, no?