Slashdot Mirror
OH Senate Passes Bill Banning Human-Animal Hybrids
An anonymous reader writes "The sci-fi movie Splice seems to have scared the Ohio's State Senator Steve Buehrer. The Ohio Senate has passed Sen. Buehrer's bill banning 'the creation, transportation, or receipt of a human-animal hybrid, the transfer of a nonhuman embryo into a human womb, and the transfer of a human embryo into a nonhuman womb.' So much for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."
No pig heart valves for you then when your own stops working.
So much for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
The ninja turtles were mutants, not hybrids!
I guess it just goes to show how quickly a field is progressing when 2/3 of the comments on a slashdot story ignorantly assume it's still science fiction and couldn't possibly require legislation. However, I hope this is defined very carefully not to preclude important medical research. Growing a human ear on a mouse, for example, might seem like a gross waste of time, but perhaps not if you're a soldier whose soft tissue was burned off by an IED. (That image is from way back in 1997 BTW).
the law seems to forbid human hybrids with other mammals. That leaves a huge area of potential nobel prize research for human hybrids with funguses, reptiles, invertebrates (bugs, jellyfish, worms) and plants, without even having to put out the call through seti for extraterrestrial volunteers.
this cups not half empty, it's half full!