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Scientists Create Sheep That Are 15 Percent Human

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the dollie-partof dept.

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."

27 of 475 comments (clear)

  1. This worries me by Harmonious+Botch · · Score: 4, Funny

    I can't figure out if it means we'll have more republicans or more democrats, but either way it worries me.

    1. Re:This worries me by NMerriam · · Score: 4, Funny

      Are there really so many atheists on the internet


      it is admittedly disproportionate representation, since the true believers are still checking the Bible to figure out which of the Internets to sign up for.
      --
      Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
    2. Re:This worries me by had3l · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hah, in Soviet Russia, humans are 100% sheep.

    3. Re:This worries me by Fordiman · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Chill. I doubt he fears you or your arguments - especially that they seem to come from a sense of frustration.

      And it's true. Mostly, atheists are talking to each other when making logical arguments against religion - mostly to provide each of us with "make the proseltyzer feel stupid so he'll leave me alone" ammo.

      Most of us realize that you'll drop the imaginary friend in your own time, or maybe you won't; either way, nothing we say will change it. For that segment of us, it's to create a bullet-proof anti-preacher sheild. What fun is it, for example, to be told you're going to hell if you don't have a good argument as to why hell probably doesn't exist?

      That said, the majority of us aren't really looking for an argument. We know arguments happen; we're quite outnumbered in the world, and it's very hard to keep the fact that you don't actually believe in God to yourself. You know. It comes up - and nine times out of ten, when it does, you end up getting the third degree by someone who was satisfied with 'Because God made it that way' for their whole lives or the 'flavor of the month' theist who is newly converted and wants to share (read: force) her new insights with you. Initially, argument prep is self-defence, though it often migrates to preemptive defense and outright flaming.

      We should be more mature than that, and in fact, most of us are. It's just that, like any group, you get the teenagers and the adults who never left high school who are so damned sure of themselves that they can't be bothered to respect the choices of others.

      I try to reprimand my fellow atheists occasionally when they step out of line; responses to insane proseltyzing that includes threats of damnation don't get rebuffed, but once in a while you'll get the genuinely curious question about atheism and the vitrolic atheist auto-reponse - and I'll shoot that down every time.

      I can't moderate all the 'fuck God!' posts. I'd go crazy. But I just want to let you know that most of us aren't actually like that. We're good, normal people who just happen to not believe in a deity or deities.

      --
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  2. Sweet! by AxemRed · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We're one step closer to real sheeple.

    1. Re:Sweet! by dattaway · · Score: 5, Funny

      Next we are going to have to send the sheep to public schools. And humans are going to complain that they are taking over our jobs.

    2. Re:Sweet! by Beardo+the+Bearded · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Upset the food chain?

      They feed chickens to cows, cows to chickens, fish to both, and GM corn with antibiotics to the chickens in the first place. The food chain looks like a fractal, not a line with humans at the top.

      This won't fuck up the food chain any more than we already have.

      And if I was dying (at a faster rate than the default) then I'd try out any new thing that could give me hope or maybe help out some other folks after me. So what if I have a sheep's liver, a robotic heart, and an embedded neural stabilizer?

      --

      ---
      ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
    3. Re:Sweet! by buraianto · · Score: 5, Funny

      One has already been to school with Mary, though it was against the rules. It made the children laugh and play.

    4. Re:Sweet! by ThomK · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They feed chickens to cows, cows to chickens, fish to both, and GM corn with antibiotics to the chickens in the first place. The food chain looks like a fractal, not a line with humans at the top.

      I totally agree, which is why I'm a Vegan. I switched about a year and a half ago and have since lost 70 pounds (I started out at 240) and my cholesterol and heart rate are down the line perfect. I'm not a PETA supporter, I still wear leather, I can not stand most animals and for the most part am just an average Joe. I'm not a Vegan for the sake of the animals, I'm a Vegan for my own well being.

      The book at this link: http://www.drfuhrman.com/weightloss/about.aspx/ convinced me to become Vegan. If you are having any health problems (like sleep apnea or type 2 diabetes) you should run, not walk, to amazon.com to buy that book (I think you can get it used for under $5), it will change your life.

      There is a lot of confusing information about diet out there, this book cuts through all that and basically tells you what's up. I want to walk up to overweight people and shake them and say "There's a better way! Read this!"

      To end my commercial (for which I get paid nothing) I'd say: It has a very "Hack your body" feel to it, which is perfect for the Slashdot crowd. He goes into the details of the numbers of calories, nutrients, protein, fat, sugar, etc. It's an amazingly fast read, especially for a technical person.

      --

      TK

  3. I'm more worried ... by khasim · · Score: 4, Funny

    about its effects on the international haggis market.

    1. Re:I'm more worried ... by beckerist · · Score: 4, Funny

      Wait, I thought Scottish Farmers had been making these for AGES!

  4. Science and Sensationalism... by posterlogo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When I saw this, I thought the amazing thing was how the human organs managed to maintain much of their functionality in sheep. The idea of harvesting them for later use back in humans seems cool, but sensationalist at this point. IMHO, the most remarkable thing here is that one could get a very realistic model of human diseases in animals, upon which to dissect out the mechanisms of diseases and look for/test treatments.

  5. 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"

  6. How to flirt with the sheeple by L.+VeGas · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hey, Lamby, you got any human in you?

    Just 15%? What do you say we make it 20?

    --
    Best Windows Freeware
    1. Re:How to flirt with the sheeple by Cervantes · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hey, Lamby, you got any human in you?

      Just 15%? What do you say we make it 15.2% ?

      Fixed that for you...

      --
      If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
  7. Sheep-Human disease transfer? by RyanFenton · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I hope they isolate these sheep from other sheep populations. If the diseases can adapt to attack the human organs in the sheep environment, then we've potentially got a very large set of new diseases waiting to trickle in to the human population as they adapt to the new organs.

    I believe there's already been at least one fictional book on this topic already. Ah, here it is.

    Ryan Fenton

  8. At what percentage.. by myth24601 · · Score: 5, Funny

    When they get to 51% human can you marry them?

    --
    No matter where you go, there you are.
  9. 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!

  10. 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!

  11. brings new meaning to by Kierthos · · Score: 5, Funny

    Mary had a little lamb.

    --
    Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
  12. THE most important question related to this topic! by IgLou · · Score: 4, Funny

    Ok, if I ate a sheep that was 15% human would that make me 15% cannibal?

    And don't go looking at me like it hasn't crossed any of your minds!

    --

    Oops, how did this get here?
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  13. No probaalem. by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 5, Funny

    I don't see a probaalem with doing this. It sounds useful and baaenificial.

    --
    She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  14. 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."

  15. Re:Don't give them brains... by boyko.at.netqos · · Score: 5, Funny

    If sheep have human brains, does that mean they can finally consent?

    I'm getting really ticked off at the whole "Baa means no!" crowd.

    --
    I used to work for NetQoS. I no longer do, but want to keep the excellent karma attached to this account.
  16. 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
  17. Re:Where in the bible does it say not to do this? by JAMDoc · · Score: 4, Interesting
    As a geneticist, this is very exciting, but not as revolutionary as you might think. This is not really a genetically engineered sheep, it is a hybrid, a "chimera". Injected stem cells from a human (from bone marrow) are introduced into a developing sheep such that they take root and join in the sheep's development, replicating and differentiating to form organ tissue which is of human origin. It's more like cell culture than genetic engineering and no one has any problem with cell culture. The mention of the viral concern is very important and could essentially kill or at least delay this whole project if it is not dealt with. Every human and every animal is constantly infected with scads of different viruses (from birth on) that stay with us and do little or no damage to us our whole lives. Recent studies have found that we produce enormous amounts of viral proteins constantly, some of which almost certainly BENEFIT us, odd as it may sound. However, it is not easily predicted what a virus comfortable in sheep might do in a human host. Bottom line however, if the options are risk or death, go with risk. As a Christian, I've got no major problem with this and most Christians who really understand it will agree. We eat these animals and wear their skin and fur as clothing. If anything, this is a way to waste as little as possible. Anyone who has a problem with growing organs in animals better not be eating them or wearing leather... or taking medications, or wearing makeups, or using soap, or etc. etc. (All these things required extensive studies in animals before we ever saw them.) One sheep might feed a family for a week, but in this case, one sheep could save a person's life and save us all $$ that would be spent on anti-rejection drugs. btw:

    didn't God say to dominate nature for our own purposes, putting fear and terror into the hearts of all animals?
    No, He didn't. He assigned us the job of caretaker of earth and its animals/everythings, essentially.
  18. The Bible XOR Vegetarianism/Veganism by grolschie · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you even as the green herb have I given you all things." - Genesis 9:2-3

    "And saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth: Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. A nd there came a voice to him ``Rise, Peter, kill and eat''." - Acts 10:11-13

    "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils: Speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron, Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth." - 1 Tim 4:1-3