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The genetic horror of a hundred science fiction novels has now apparently come to fruition: Chinese Scientists are creating animal-human hybrids - true chimeras. The hybrids, a mixture of human and rabbit cells, were allowed to develop for several days before being destroyed and their stem cells harvested for further research.

Of course, such an action raises certain moral and ethical questions and will likely spark an international debate.

What do you think?

Read all about the chimeras here (nationalgeographic.com).

Hawke wrote: The genetic horror of a hundred science fiction novels has now apparently come to fruition: Chinese Scientists are creating animal-human hybrids - true chimeras. The hybrids, a mixture of human and rabbit cells, were allowed to develop for several days before being destroyed and their stem cells harvested for further research.

Of course, such an action raises certain moral and ethical questions and will likely spark an international debate.

What do you think?

Read all about the chimeras here (nationalgeographic.com).


Scary stuff for sure. I guess while we debate the mores of this insinuation of humans into the creation train then they'll try to get the edge on the Western culture. Could be that they're po'd that they only invented gun powder and not guns. Damned Christians.

Just what we need. More timid vegetarians. Or would they be hairy meateaters with buck teeth?

I think the aliens would give us a serious butt kicking if we did that.

koan wrote: Just what we need. More timid vegetarians. Or would they be hairy meateaters with buck teeth?

I think the aliens would give us a serious butt kicking if we did that.


No. I think you have it wrong. It would be hairy vegetarians or timid meat eaters with buck teeth. I could be wrong and they could be timid, meat eating vegetarians with rows of buck teeth.

I don't know we'll have to wait 'til the aliens arrive.

I'm all for the hairy vegetarians. I'll kick their butts myself! Bring it on!

koan wrote: I'm all for the hairy vegetarians. I'll kick their butts myself! Bring it on!


Think of the resources that we will save when we can get the cattle to fly to the slaughterhouse.

Think of the resources that we will save when we can get the cattle to fly to the slaughterhouse.


I know a few people with dna we could use for that. I think the cows are too smart though.

koan wrote: I know a few people with dna we could use for that. I think the cows are too smart though.


Guess there'd be a whole new meaning to pigs flying. Huh?

kensloft wrote: Guess there'd be a whole new meaning to pigs flying. Huh?


Are you refering to breeding cops with eagles? There would be no escaping them then. (Sorry Lady Cop)

Guess the Island of Dr Monroe should be required viewing in school.

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koan wrote: Are you refering to breeding cops with eagles? There would be no escaping them then. (Sorry Lady Cop)


Not a chance. To me a pig is someone that makes money hand over fist while hiring police to keep the poor at bay. This way the cops get the bad rap and the hogs get off scott free. I would think that the chimera that a cop should be would be dependent on which department they are in.

LottomagicZ4941 wrote: Guess the Island of Dr Monroe should be required viewing in school.


"The Island of Dr. Moroe" by H.G. Wells. The doctor used surgical techniques in the story - this is more like genetic engineering. Will GE be applied to humans in the next 10 years?

Bill Sikes wrote: "The Island of Dr. Moroe" by H.G. Wells. The doctor used surgical techniques in the story - this is more like genetic engineering. Will GE be applied to humans in the next 10 years?


I hope not because... ? You can fill in the spaces.

There is so much that we don't know. Maybe I'm being paranoid but I don't think so. When there are no guidelines then you have people, as Dr. Moroe, that will do what they think is right as opposed to what should be done.

I think it's scary...

We shouldn't be messing around like this, the average age of dying is getting higher naturally (knowing old people in there 90's who have a past medical history of child birth only).

Still I would like to know what they would look like, curiosity and all that.

letha wrote: I think it's scary...

We shouldn't be messing around like this, the average age of dying is getting higher naturally (knowing old people in there 90's who have a past medical history of child birth only).

Still I would like to know what they would look like, curiosity and all that.


Although satisfaction brought it back, it was curiousity that killed the cat. We are not cats and we only have one life. Scary or what?

Just think what somebody like hitler would have done with this kind of technology. If you think these kinds of concerns are new do a search under eugenics. It might surprise you to see which countries have had such programmes in the past.

gmc wrote: Just think what somebody like hitler would have done with this kind of technology. If you think these kinds of concerns are new do a search under eugenics. It might surprise you to see which countries have had such programmes in the past.


You just had to increase the fear factor didn't you! Now I'm going to go to bed and look under it to make sure that they haven't created real bogeymen. We'd be in deep poo-poo if they made a cross between hitler and a chameleon. Shudder.

*loading my Mossberg and peeking out the window*

Let one of them buck-toothed hairy vegetarians fly by MY window....

[QUOTE=gmc]Just think what somebody like hitler would have done with this kind of technology.



Ever hear of Dr. Josef Mengele from the Austiawitz Nazi concentration camp?

Hawke33 wrote: [QUOTE=gmc]Just think what somebody like hitler would have done with this kind of technology.



Ever hear of Dr. Josef Mengele from the Austiawitz Nazi concentration camp?


Yes, but they didn't have genetic knowledge like this at the time. Just imagine if they had.

You might find this one interesting

http://www.five.tv/programmes/extraordi ... wininside/

A series of tests had shown that Karen was a ‘chimera’ - a term derived from the Greek mythological creature that was a mutation of more than one animal. Shortly after conception, the female egg that was to become Karen became fused with another female egg. As a result, the fused egg contained two entirely separate DNA blueprints which were combined in Karen. This means that, biologically, Karen is more than one person.

This situation is not as rare as we might think. In fact, most pregnancies begin as twins, with one embryo absorbing the other. Karen was actually lucky; if the second egg had fused with the first at the same time and been male, Karen would have become a hermaphrodite. If it fused later, when the eggs had started developing, she would have become one half of conjoined twins.

You know, this sort of thing is really scary.

What I mean is, what else is going on behind closed doors in some countries?

How much do we reall know about China? North Korea etc, etc?

I think that would be cool in time we will all be partially some thing else animal or alien so why delay it I say bring it on outn and well see how it works if it don't work then we just screwed up major

Pulled From:discover.com/issues/may-06/rd/chimera/

The case for chimeras.



By Jessica Ruvinsky



DISCOVER Vol. 27 No. 05 | May 2006 | Biology & Medicine



In his State of the Union address, President Bush named "human-animal hybrids" as one of "the most egregious abuses of medical research." That declaration made a lot of people wonder:Who is creating such hybrids, and why?

Chimeras”organisms composed of cells from two or more animals”have actually been a staple of experimentation for decades. In 1988 mice with human immune systems helped scientists prove that HIV causes AIDS, says Irving Weissman of Stanford University, and implanting human tumors in mice has allowed scientists to identify the cells that cause several cancers.

More recently, researchers have suggested that chimeric sheep could grow human organs for transplantation. Stem cells injected into lamb fetuses have created livers that are up to 10 percent human, says Esmail Zanjani of the University of Nevada at Reno.

Biologists are also moving stem cells across species boundaries to test therapies for seemingly incurable diseases. Human fetal stem cells injected into the brains of vervet monkeys may help treat the simian equivalent of Parkinson's, says Eugene Redmond of Yale University. Partially paralyzed rodents walk almost normally after human embryonic or fetal brain stem cells repaired their spinal cord injuries in recent studies. The FDA recently approved the first clinical trial of a human neural stem cell therapy, developed by StemCells, a company in Palo Alto, California, to slow the progress of a fatal childhood neurodegenerative disorder called Batten disease.

"We know people who are dying of these diseases," Weissman says. "Which of these treatments should we not study as hard and as fast as we can?"



This Is a good reson why chimeras may be neccesary in the future.