Slashdot Mirror


Scientists Create Sheep That Are 15 Percent Human

anthemaniac writes "Professor Esmail Zanjani and colleagues at the University of Nevada-Reno have created sheep that are 15 percent human at the cellular level. Half the organs in the sheep are human. The idea, of course, is to harvest those organs to transplant into human patients. From the article: 'He has already created a sheep liver which has a large proportion of human cells and eventually hopes to precisely match a sheep to a transplant patient, using their own stem cells to create their own flock of sheep.' One scientists worries, however, that the work could lead to new viruses that cross from animals to humans."

13 of 475 comments (clear)

  1. Sweet! by AxemRed · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We're one step closer to real sheeple.

    1. Re:Sweet! by cliffski · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Research is welcome, and great, but big business does not work to the long timescales required to ensure that the research is thorough and poses no risks to humans. You only have to see the feverish way in which GM Food companies try to ram their product into europe, against firm customer resistance, to realise that what seems to really matter is the bottom line, not health, safety or curing diseases.
      I'd love to be able to read about this kind of research, happy that its being carreid out with the right motives and will have no ill effects, but these days, there is always someone wanting to rush things ahead to boost this years stock price.

      --
      DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
  2. !5%.... by fudgefactor7 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So, at what percentage does the sheep begin to obtain certain "unalienable rights"? Or; "When is a toaster not a toaster?"
     
    And yes, I'm aware that "unalienable" is wrong, but it was good enough for the Founding Fathers, so it's good enough for me. Grammar Nazis can keep their mouth shut.

    1. Re:!5%.... by TheMeuge · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Every time I read articles like this, and get to hear the inevitable mudslinging that ensues, I don't know who I want to beat over the head with a biology textbook - the writers of the article, or the readers.

      These sheep are not 15% human, there is no such thing - they're 15% antigenically identical. There is no percentage at which they will become human, because their basic structure is still of a sheep!

  3. If the far pro-lifers can be taken at their word.. by C10H14N2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One cell would suffice.

    Boy is this one going to piss them of no end... /My captcha was "Pounded"

  4. Sheep by Sporkinum · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Bleating and babbling I fell on his neck with a scream.
    Wave upon wave of demented avengers
    March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream."

    --
    "He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
  5. This is a good idea, BUT . . . by cashman73 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I would be interested to know whether the right wing right-to-lifers would be pissed off that you're raising innocent animals for the sole purpose of slaughtering and harvesting them for their organs,...

    Or would the left wing animal rights naked PETA supporters be pissed off that you're raising innocent animals for the sole purpose of slaughtering and harvesting them for their organs,...

    On the bright side, we might have actually found an issue that both the left and right wingers actually agree on!

  6. Re:Human arrogance towards life and God by ksalter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Genesis 1:26 & 28 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

  7. Where in the bible does it say not to do this? by spun · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I want a clear quote that mentions genetic engineering specifically, not just your interpretation of some obscure passage. I mean, seriously, where do you so-called Christians get off making shit up and then claiming, "God said so?" Just because you get creeped out by human-sheep hybrids doesn't mean that God does.

    I'm agnostic. I think if there is a God, he doesn't give a rat's ass what we do. If he did, he would have made it a whole lot clearer. He wouldn't have just had humans write what he said in a book, because that is so easy to fake. not to mention, everyone seems to have their own book. Which one is right?

    Assuming you are Christian, didn't God say to dominate nature for our own purposes, putting fear and terror into the hearts of all animals? Heck, that's pretty much license to do whatever we want to nature, don't you think? But no, of course not. You know God better than anyone else, right?

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  8. Yes, 15% by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 4, Insightful

    These sheep are not 15% human, there is no such thing - they're 15% antigenically identical. There is no percentage at which they will become human, because their basic structure is still of a sheep!

    These are not hybrids or the result of genetic engineering. They are chimeras: Organisms composed of two separate clone of cells. Some of the cells are 100% human, some are 100% sheep. The total animal has 15% of its cells being 100% human (surface antigens and all), not 100% of its cells having 15% human traits. (The immune system matured in the presence of both so it doesn't attack either.)

    The cells are in coherent lumps, too. Entire organs - including the brain - may be 100% human tissue. (Though they may be morphologically similar to the sheep equivalent because they were exposed mainly to sheep growth factors while forming.)

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  9. Ethics anyone? by guruevi · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I wonder if they are trying to desensitize us to circumstances like the movie "The Island" portrays. Creating clones of humans for the sake of replacement parts. This sheep is now 15% percent human, so we can harvest them.

    But when it becomes 50% human, or even 75%, at what point do we call them humans and at what point do we give them rights as humans. I recently raised the same question on another forum and everybody was all up in arms that we couldn't kill clones of ourselves so we can replace our own 'malfunctioning' parts because they are human. Now these ...things?... are partly human, at what point can we stop killing them for our own good?

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  10. Re:Sheep shagger jokes... by fucksl4shd0t · · Score: 1, Insightful

    When the sheep has a human vagina, then it's no longer bestiality.

    --
    Like what I said? You might like my music
  11. out of order? by freaker_TuC · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I would think that's out of order. Ok to procreate but to create new species is beyond our knowledge if we can't even get our own species settled right. To my opinion and it can sound dark; we should not mess too much with crossbreeding ourselves and animals on foodchain; we'd never know what we would become in the future by one stupid little mistake; If any disease gets spread it might be hell to fix this ...

    We should not become what we fear the most, movies like the Matrix where humans are harvested sounds very dark for most among us, why would we do the same on partial sheep/partial human chimera? What makes us have that right anyways ? All in the name of science? ok, we need to improve and survive but why not do it on a less risky way?

    Nature always finds a way to survive, what if this sheep gets loose and interbreeds, gets >15% human? What if it does not comprehend our actions against its sisters? Does it get civilian rights if it gets to a certain amount of humanity?

    --
    --- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..