Absolutely contradictory thoughts arise in the head when you begin to think about creating hybrids by crossing animal and human cells. For a long time, scientists create hybrid embryos in their laboratories, all this is done with the aim of finding possible methods of treatment for a wide range of diseases. However, this kind of experimentation with nature can go too far. Will hybrids of animals and humans ever be created? What place will they occupy in this world? These kinds of questions directly concern the topic of the confrontation between science and ethics.
Hybrids in the animal world
Is it possible to create hybrids of animals and people? Some may immediately have creepy images of people with a tiger head, fish tail, bird's beak, shaggy hair, and so on. Can scientists make genetic modifications in their laboratories as easy as in a video game? In the animal kingdom, an example of interspecific hybrids is the mule, the result of mating between a donkey and a horse. This is a completely healthy animal, which, however, has lost its ability to reproduce its own kind due to the different number of chromosomes in a donkey (62 chromosomes) and a horse (64 chromosomes).
By the way, mules are not the only example of interspecific crossing. Many related species can mate to produce sterile offspring. For example, lions and tigers (their cubs are called ligers), zebras and horses. The closest relative of a person can be called a primacy, but only one thought about creating hybrids of animals and people, namely humans and monkeys, by combining genomes is almost not possible.
The immune system rejects foreign cells
For the most part, the human immune system functions in such a way that even the cells of another person are not always successfully accepted by the body, for example, during transplantation of internal organs, not to mention the inhuman, animal cell. Any foreign tissue will be immediately detected, and a powerful immune response will follow - rejection.
Exclusively for the good of humanity
Scientists involved in genetic research do not have the goal of creating monsters where the hybrid of man and animal is something terrible and terrible. In addition, the public will never accept the idea of creating any mutants. They are not interested in working on these kinds of things, stem cell research and therapeutic cloning are carried out exclusively in the interests of man, and are primarily aimed at combating many incurable diseases.
Not so simple
One can imagine that hybrids of animals and people (a photo reflecting the public’s ideas about them, see below) are still possible, since the genetic code of DNA is universal for almost any living organism. For example, protein in horse cells is synthesized in exactly the same way as in humans. However, everything is not so simple: to try to make a hybrid, you will have to go through a huge number of trial and error, the question is how many people need to be sacrificed to make, for example, a mermaid. This can take much longer than it might seem at first glance.
It is comparatively trivial to add human genes to animals and plants, and quite another thing - on the contrary. But individual genes determine only a specific protein; they cannot magically transform an organism into something completely different, for example, a chimeric monster. Individual genes make up only a small part of who we are and who the dog or jellyfish is. The species of an individual depends on a number of genes that are often similar to each other, packaged in a complex set of functional units, which can be completely different in individual species of organisms.
The hybrid of man and animal: what is the name of this creature from the point of view of science?
From a scientific point of view, this issue is considered outside of fictional and mythical contexts. In real life, the creation of creatures such as hybrids of animals and humans is the subject of legal, moral and technological discussions in the context of recent advances in genetic engineering. Is there any need to do this? Will it be capitulation to base human desires or self-improvement? Such a hybrid of man and animal is called "para-man." They also belong to cytoplasmic hybrids - cybrids.
Hybrids as examples of interspecific friendship
Interspecific friendship in the animal kingdom, as well as between people and their pets, provides the basic root of the popularity of such creatures. In various mythologies throughout history there have been many famous hybrids, including as part of Egyptian and Indian spirituality. According to one artist and scientist Pietro Gaitto, "ideas about the hybrids of man and animal always have their origins in religion."
The hybrid of man and animal is an entity that includes human and animal components. For thousands of years, these hybrids have been one of the most common themes in animal stories around the world. The absence of a strong gap between man and nature in several traditional and ancient cultures provided the basic historical context for the popularity of fairy tales, where people and animals have mixed relationships, as a result of which one turns into a completely different one.
Is a human-animal hybrid a fictional character or a possible reality?
Currently, hybrids of animals and people remain, in fact, fictional characters, whose images are often used in video games and popular science fiction films and books. Invented hybrids play different roles, from mutant villains to divine heroes. As for ancient beliefs and mythology, here you can find a huge number of hybrids, for example, Pan - a deity in Greek mythology, which symbolizes wild and unbridled nature, he was worshiped by hunters, fishermen and shepherds. This mischievous fun character has hind limbs with hooves and goat horns, and the rest of his appearance is quite reminiscent of a human. Another famous mythological hybrid is the Egyptian god of death named Anubis.
In Chinese mythology, a deity named Chu Pa-tse is expelled from heaven to Earth for his atrocities and promiscuous acts. By mistake, he enters the uterus of the sow and, as a result, is born half human, half pig, with a pig head and ears in combination with a human body. The inner essence of this mythological hybrid does not change for the better.
After he kills and eats his mother and brothers, the pig-like monster takes refuge in the mountains, where he spends his days hunting for careless travelers who were not lucky enough to cross his path. However, thanks to the efforts of the good goddess Kuan Yin, traveling around China, he managed to persuade him to take a more noble path and take the priesthood.
Hybrid Embryo Experiments
Is it possible to create a hybrid of man and animal? A hybrid embryo is a mixture of human and animal tissues. There are several types of hybrid embryos, for example, cytoplasmic embryos are created by transferring nuclei containing DNA from human cells to an animal egg, from which their own genetic information was previously removed. The resulting embryos are grown in the laboratory for several days, then collected to create stem cells. The latter can become certain types of tissue.
This method of creating stem cells is used to study various diseases and is considered a good alternative for human eggs themselves, which are available in a more limited number, unlike animals. Scientists do not intend to actually create a hybrid of man and animal, a creature capable of independent life.
The risks of mixing genetic material
The mixing of human and animal genetic materials can lead to the risk of creating new diseases, but advances in this area can bring great benefits to humanity in a global sense. As scientists say, these are just cells, not real creatures. This avoids the use of human eggs in research. The genetic contribution of the animal to the embryo is so small that it is essentially a human embryo (99.9%). Since the latter was not produced by human fertilization, it cannot be considered as human.
Human and animal rights are not violated because the embryo will never be allowed to become human or animal. Biologists have been mixing DNA from different animals since the 70s, but the idea of introducing animal genes into humans remains a taboo. And the violation of these prohibitions can, ultimately, not only save mankind from a huge number of diseases, but also fundamentally change our entire look.
Transgenesis is able to involve both several individual cells and the entire organism. The hybrid of man and animal (the name "chimera" was used in Greek mythology) is also referred to as a transgenic entity, which in the future can be used to model specific human diseases, the production of new materials, tissues, and much more. About forty years ago, specialists learned to transport and modify plant and animal genes. The use of human material remains controversial, particularly for moral and ethical reasons.