Rise of the Chimp-men!

If it was possible for men to interbreed with chimps, somebody would have already done it - by the old-fashioned means.
Never underestimate either human stupidity or the power of beer.
 
sophia8 said:
If it was possible for men to interbreed with chimps, somebody would have already done it - by the old-fashioned means.
Never underestimate either human stupidity or the power of beer.
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Given the strength of chimps, the chimp had better be really interested in the process.
 
The worst part of it is waking up next to a hungover Tragicmonkey.


I finally had to fling poo to get him to leave.
 
Not this again. :rolleyes: While I respect Dr MacKellars attempt to... Well I'm not really sure what he's trying to do actually but the article makes him sound very agitated over the issue.

The only reason I could imagine why any sane scientist would cross a humans genome with a chimpanzees is to see how poorly they hybridize, and what parts that are the least compatible. That might tell us something about how long ago humans and chimpanzee shared a common ancestor, and better understand what genes we don't share. This in turn might help explain the genetic background of our common heriditary diseases.

The ideas of hybridization have never been about creating a human/chimpanzee child. It was about getting the early stages of an embryo inside a testtube.

As far as I know noone's interested carrying out such an experiment. The reason for this is that the Human Genome Project is finished and the Chimpanzee Genome Project is well underway. If further "hybridization" is needed it will take place in computers, not testtubes.

What's next? The revival of the mythical Army of Hitler clones?
 
Yes "a leading scientist says" is rather like the infamous "studies show".

How about if McKellar can successfully mate with a chimp, we'll stop the work. That fair?
 
Wauthan said:
The only reason I could imagine why any sane scientist would cross a humans genome with a chimpanzees is to see how poorly they hybridize, and what parts that are the least compatible. That might tell us something about how long ago humans and chimpanzee shared a common ancestor, and better understand what genes we don't share. This in turn might help explain the genetic background of our common heriditary diseases.

The ideas of hybridization have never been about creating a human/chimpanzee child. It was about getting the early stages of an embryo inside a testtube.
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Now that's rational (as is any True Scotsman :)). As I recall, there's a difference in chromosome numbers, and it would be interesting to see how cellular reproduction (meiosis and mitosis) would cope with that. That said, I can't imagine many scientists would relish the s***-storm such an experiment would provoke.
 
I was listening to the Radio Lab podcast last week (the (So Called) Life episode), and it started off with a woman who was going to need a kidney transplant, so the first thing they did was test her DNA against her two sons' and her husband's DNA. Instead of finding whether the kidney would match, they found something much more surprising - they said that the two sons did not match her DNA - not just kidneys, their DNA indicated that she was not their mom. However, their DNA did match that of the dad.

After puzzling over that for a while, someone finally came up with an answer. The woman was a chimera. She was the result of two fertilized embryos merging together when they were only a couple of days old. She developed apparently normally, but some organs of her body had different DNA than other organs. Her blood's DNA didn't match that of her eggs, therefore her two sons' DNA didn't match the mom's blood DNA. If the embryos had merged slightly later in their development, she would have been a cojoined twin.

It then went on to explain that some scientist (sorry I can't recall the details) did this intentionally with an embryo from a sheep and one from a goat. The resulting animal had some features that were like a sheep and some that were like a goat, but it lived. Subsequent repeats created chimeras with different features appearing as goats and sheep, but from the sound of it they all were viable.

It was mentioned that there is no reason to think this wouldn't work with mixing a human embryo and chimpanzee embryo.
 
I don't see what the fuss is about- if the law is banning attempts to fertilize human eggs with non-human sperm, why wouldn't it also ban the converse? If it must be banned, ban them both. If there's no need to ban one, why ban the other?
 
CurtC said:
I was listening to the Radio Lab podcast last week (the (So Called) Life episode), and it started off with a woman who was going to need a kidney transplant, so the first thing they did was test her DNA against her two sons' and her husband's DNA. Instead of finding whether the kidney would match, they found something much more surprising - they said that the two sons did not match her DNA - not just kidneys, their DNA indicated that she was not their mom. However, their DNA did match that of the dad.

After puzzling over that for a while, someone finally came up with an answer. The woman was a chimera. She was the result of two fertilized embryos merging together when they were only a couple of days old. She developed apparently normally, but some organs of her body had different DNA than other organs. Her blood's DNA didn't match that of her eggs, therefore her two sons' DNA didn't match the mom's blood DNA. If the embryos had merged slightly later in their development, she would have been a cojoined twin.

It then went on to explain that some scientist (sorry I can't recall the details) did this intentionally with an embryo from a sheep and one from a goat. The resulting animal had some features that were like a sheep and some that were like a goat, but it lived. Subsequent repeats created chimeras with different features appearing as goats and sheep, but from the sound of it they all were viable.

It was mentioned that there is no reason to think this wouldn't work with mixing a human embryo and chimpanzee embryo.
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While I'm sure this is an accurate description of what was said in the program, realistically, the above probably didn't happen quite that way.

One thing is that we don't compare DNA for organ transplant qualification. It's of no value to learn about donor/recipient DNA. Strangers are often compatible when immediate family and even twins are not. What we check are the MHC HLS markers. So that first part sounds like an incomplete description of why they would even be interested in her genetics in the first place.

The other problem is that fused-embryo chimeras almost always die during development and are overwhelmingly stillborn. There are no more than a few alive at any time, and they're often very sick.

Plenty of mosaics, though, which is a completely different genetic phenomenon and not at all rare. My guess is that this woman may have been a mosaic rather than a chimera, but who knows without more information.


Regarding chimps and humans... as genetically similar as we are in "percentage" terms, we do have a different number of chromosomes, so it sounds very unlikely that we could hybridize in any genetic way at this point, although a chimera may be possible if we have compabible biochemistries.

This is comparable to the sheep/goat chimera situation: sheep and goats are genetically incompatible, but appear to be genera that are close enough biochemically to have a tiny percentage of chimera embryos survive to birth. Again, though: they are not healthy animals.


PS: I had thought this would be a thread about the spearfishing pongoid. (now that Charlton Heston is gone, them damn dirty apes is gettin' uppity)
 
fuelair said:
sophia8 said:
If it was possible for men to interbreed with chimps, somebody would have already done it - by the old-fashioned means.
Never underestimate either human stupidity or the power of beer.
Click to expand...
Given the strength of chimps, the chimp had better be really interested in the process.
Click to expand...

I'd "recommend" bonobos, as they probably would be...

Frans de Waal (in "Our Inner Ape" IIRC)

A zookeeper with experiece of working with chimps but not bonobos wasn't surprised when a bonoo pursed his lips to kiss him. He was surprised when the bonobo put his tongue in though....​
 
jimbob said:
Frans de Waal (in "Our Inner Ape" IIRC)
A zookeeper with experiece of working with chimps but not bonobos wasn't surprised when a bonoo pursed his lips to kiss him. He was surprised when the bonobo put his tongue in though....​
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Ech!! Do they make a mouthwash strong enough for that??
 
CapelDodger said:
Now that's rational (as is any True Scotsman :)). As I recall, there's a difference in chromosome numbers, and it would be interesting to see how cellular reproduction (meiosis and mitosis) would cope with that. That said, I can't imagine many scientists would relish the s***-storm such an experiment would provoke.
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Yeah, I'm sorry for the "scotsman". Typing's quicker then my thinking. :o

Mitosis might work, though not well. Uneven chromosomes isn't necessarily a hard barrier for functional cell division. Meiosis would most likely be impossible though. So if the hypothetical 'humanzee' would ever be created it would be sterile.

And the s***-storm is propably one of many excellent reasons why this have yet to happen. I just tried to come up with a sane reason, not a wise one. :D
 
Well, I think he succeeded;

BushChimp.jpg
 
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