could science create a 'Humanzee'? should they? did they already?

[mopaul]

http://theplayethic.typepad.com/play_journal/2005/03/chimeras_and_hu.html

Some researchers are speculating about human-chimpanzee chimeras - creating a humanzee. This would be the ideal laboratory research animal because chimpanzees are so closely related to us. Chimps share 98% of the human genome, and a fully mature chimp has the equivalent mental abilities and consciousness of a four-year-old human.

Fusing a human and chimpanzee embryo - which researchers say is feasible - could produce a creature so human that questions regarding its moral and legal status would throw 4,000 years of ethics into chaos. Would such a creature enjoy human rights? Would it have to pass some kind of "humanness" test to win its freedom? Would it be forced into doing menial labour or be used to perform dangerous activities?

...Trunk Monkey anyone? maybe that explains PRESIDENT BUSH!???
planet of the apes for real...........

[KaliTracy]

1. Robin Cook (author/fiction) dealt with this with Bonobos and organ

harvesting... in Chromosome 6

[Sapphire Blue]

2. Yes... he was inaugurated twice & wants to rule the world

[clydefrand]

12. Could we dare call him the Chimpsapien??

[mopaul]

13. maybe he'll be the messiah?

a cult figure, created by man in his own image....sci fi stuff.

[Spinzonner]

3. It's hard to see how they could treat it much worse

than humans routinely treat each other.

But then maybe I shouldn't underestimate the human potential for evil.

[Hekate]

4. Create a person to be a lab rat? No, no, a thousand times no

Nauseating. Really. And I'm not even a PETA member.

Chimps are already our closest relatives, as far as I know, and the idea of bringing them even closer to us simply in order to use them in torturous ways and then dispose of them seems ethically and morally reprehensible. They'd be pretty much "us" except hairy all over, and somehow this would make it all right to use them for experimentation?

Brrr.

Hekate

[Pepperbelly]

5. Creepy shit, Mopaul.

Real creepy.

[Gasping4Truth]

6. It has been tried

in Soviet Russia in the 1920s.
Artificial insemination of sedated female chimpanzees. It didn't work. There's a book about it:

Rossiianov, K. (2002). Beyond Species: Ilya Ivanov and His
Experiments on Cross-Breeding Humans with Anthropoid Apes.
Science in Context 15:277-316

[Swamp Rat]

7. I don't want to find out... Dr. Cornelius.

[ET Awful]

11. Dr. Zaius Dr. Zaius

Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius!
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius!
Oh, Dr. Zaius
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius!
Troy: What's wrong with me?
Dr. Zaius: I think you're crazy
Troy: I want a second opinion.
Dr. Zaius: You're also lazy.
Chorus
Troy: Can I play the piano anymore?
Dr. Zaius: Of course you can.
Troy: Well I couldn't before.

[KlatooBNikto]

8. They have already created the following mutants:

Human-Cockroach= Tom DeLay
Human-Snake= Rumsfeld
Human-viper= Cheney

And we know who the humanzee is.

[Zynx]

9. Why on earth would you want to do something like that?

Is this one of those things just to prove that you can?

[DoYouEverWonder]

10. No thanks

we already have enough idiots running around on this planet.

[Biology]

14. unlikely

First, the moral dilemma would prevent this research from being done in most places

Second, the meiotic recombination sites between genes are very different between the two species which may cause difficult technical problems

[mopaul]

15. meiotic recombiwhat?

i'm sure they are working on that glitch, like when dolly the sheep collapsed into a pile of sheepmush. i believe there ARE mad scientists out there, with government grants, who are working on some very odd things.

[Zynx]

16. I really doubt this would actually work

I think its really unethical anyway, but there are almost certain to be fatal glitches - our track record with clones isn't exactly very good.