When King Minos of Crete was given a magnificent bull by the sea god Poseidon for a sacrifice, he could not bring himself to kill it. In anger, Poseidon enchanted Minos’s wife Pasiphaë to be filled with lust for the creature. The result of their trans-species mating was the bull-headed monster the Minotaur. Hybrids of humans and animals throng within myth and legend: centaurs, mermaids, goat-footed Pan. We’re both fascinated and uneasy about the.
Scientists Are Now Growing Human-Monkey Chimeric Embryos zerohedge.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from zerohedge.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
In a breakthrough new study, scientists have created human-monkey chimera embryos for the first time. These chimeras pave the way for more accurate models of human biology and disease, which could open up a range of new medical benefits. But of course they also raise some complicated ethical concerns.
A chimera is, put simply, an organism that contains cells from more than one individual. It can occur naturally during development, such as when non-identical twins merge early on, or it can be an artificial process – technically, organ transplants create chimeras.
But it doesn’t necessarily need to be cells from the same species. Scientists have been experimenting with interspecies chimeras for decades, merging similar animals like mice and rats, and sheep and goats. And in the new study, researchers from the Salk Institute and Kunming University of Science and Technology successfully created chimeras of humans and monkeys.
Researchers Generate Human-Monkey Chimeric Embryos labmanager.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from labmanager.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.