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Human-Animal Hybrids Fail
SailorSpork writes "Fans of furries and anime-style cat girls will be disappointed by the news that attempts to create human animal hybrids have failed. Experiments by British scientists to create embryonic stem cells by putting human DNA into cow or rabbit eggs had raised ethical concerns, but the question of how we would treat sub-humans will have to wait until we actually figure out how to make them."
I believe that, at least in the case of cat-girls and bunny-girls, that question has already been answered.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Maybe we should resolve the ethical concerns before we perform the science ...
This is opening Pandora's Box.
"Man is nothing without the works of man" -- Helvetius
Rabbit eggs? I guess the easter bunny has to make money somehow in the off-season.
...but the question of how we would treat sub-humans will have to wait until we actually figure out how to make them.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Hell, we're still dealing with how people should treat other actual humans.
This guy's the limit!
This has a lot of the same false problems that seems to plague morality based discussions of human cloning. The idea that a clone is going to be some sort of non-human entity with no moral standing one way or the other is just plain nuts. If you clone a person then that person has all of the rights any other person would have. It's really just a complicated way of giving birth. Even these human-animal hybrids are badly named, as they aren't going to be catgirls or manbearpigs or anything of the sort, just normal people with a really weird birth.
The only time ethical concerns should really come into play is when you're attempting to convict someone of a crime based on DNA evidence, but it's not like the law has not had to deal with this sort of problem before. Identical twins have already generated plenty of precedents to draw from.
It drives me crazy when congresspeople are spending hours and hours talking about how cloning is an affront before god and has to be stopped, but can't seem to make a good argument as to why other than citing bad movie plots or vague "They won't have a soul!" type arguments.
I read the internet for the articles.
Hierarchy of geekdom. Published scifi authors at the top, furries at the bottom, erotic furries below that.
http://www.brunching.com/geekhierarchy.html
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
The chimps wouldn't hold still while the scientists tried to have sex with them.
Have gnu, will travel.
Whatever happened to doing things because we *could*, rather than because we should?
The point of the hybrids mentioned isn't to make freakish movie monsters or vile fringe-wank material; but to substantially lower the cost and difficult of generating and working with stem cells. Getting human DNA is trivial(cheek swab, skin cells, blood, whatever) human sperm is also pretty easy; but obtaining human eggs in any quantity is an unpleasant experience for the donor, requires some costly and potentially risky procedures, and is an all around nuisance. Monkeys might be modestly cheaper; but nonhuman primates are still quite expensive to work with, and are often subject to greater scrutiny than other animals.
Cows and rabbits are super cheap, and are slaughtered by the thousands all the time. Obtaining needed tissue should be relatively simple. That is the point of the exercise.
I really find myself wondering, where's the "duh" tag for this article? Sheesh. We've known for *decades* that radical hybridization simply don't work. Anyone remember the totato / pomato? Not the grafted gimmick plant, but the actual genetic hybrid? Yeah, didn't think so. That didn't work either.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
"putting human DNA into cow or rabbit eggs"
No wonder it doesn't work. Cows don't even lay eggs!! Must be the UN scientists...
You haven't played WoW recently, have you? Those Tauren babes . . . well, let's just say they serve a damn fine milkshake, if you know what I mean.
The point of the hybrids mentioned isn't to make freakish movie monsters or vile fringe-wank material
Now he tells me. I'm off to drop out of my graduate genetics program.
In what way is an embryo sentient? Sentience is the ability to feel or perceive subjectively. Absent any nervous system, an embryo, even a purely human embryo, is not sentient.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I would like to propose an addendum to Rule 34.
If you can imagine it, there is porn and a wiki for it.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
No, I don't know what you mean, thank God!