http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=444436&in_page_id=1770

Quote :

"Scientists have created the world's first human-sheep chimera - which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs. The sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells - and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer. Professor Esmail Zanjani, of the University of Nevada, has spent seven years and £5million perfecting the technique, which involves injecting adult human cells into a sheep's foetus. He has already created a sheep liver which has a large proportion of human cells and eventually hopes to precisely match a sheep to a transplant patient, using their own stem cells to create their own flock of sheep. The process would involve extracting stem cells from the donor's bone marrow and injecting them into the peritoneum of a sheep's foetus. When the lamb is born, two months later, it would have a liver, heart, lungs and brain that are partly human and available for transplant. "We would take a couple of ounces of bone marrow cells from the patient,' said Prof Zanjani, whose work is highlighted in a Channel 4 programme tomorrow. "We would isolate the stem cells from them, inject them into the peritoneum of these animals and then these cells would get distributed throughout the metabolic system into the circulatory system of all the organs in the body. The two ounces of stem cell or bone marrow cell we get would provide enough stem cells to do about ten foetuses. So you don't just have one organ for transplant purposes, you have many available in case the first one fails." At present 7,168 patients are waiting for an organ transplant in Britain alone, and two thirds of them are expected to die before an organ becomes available. Scientists at King's College, London, and the North East Stem Cell Institute in Newcastle have now applied to the HFEA, the Government's fertility watchdog, for permission to start work on the chimeras. But the development is likely to revive criticisms about scientists playing God, with the possibility of silent viruses, which are harmless in animals, being introduced into the human race. Dr Patrick Dixon, an international lecturer on biological trends, warned: "Many silent viruses could create a biological nightmare in humans. Mutant animal viruses are a real threat, as we have seen with HIV." Animal rights activists fear that if the cells get mixed together, they could end up with cellular fusion, creating a hybrid which would have the features and characteristics of both man and sheep. But Prof Zanjani said: "Transplanting the cells into foetal sheep at this early stage does not result in fusion at all." "

3/27/2007 2:18:14 PM

3/27/2007 2:20:18 PM

Stem cells are so fucking cool.

3/27/2007 2:22:49 PM

big deal, they've been around for years.

3/27/2007 2:23:23 PM

can they give a sheep a human vag?

because that would improve my life substantially

3/27/2007 2:24:40 PM

This is kinda freaky.

3/27/2007 2:26:10 PM

^^^ lol

3/27/2007 3:16:27 PM

OEPII1, why, in your infinite wisdom, did you think this thread was appropriate for the lounge while this one http://brentroad.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=468608 was only chitchat worthy?

3/27/2007 3:22:44 PM

i don't know... this one is serious. it is a scientific advancement, so i figure some serious discussion could arise here. i was debating whether to put it here or in the soap box.

whereas the other one, well, it is not really a scientific advancement of any sort, just a big specimen found of an existing species (had a new species been discovered, i would have put it here). and chit chat loves thread like that!

and i don't have infinite wisdom

3/27/2007 3:25:46 PM

OEPII1, do you read slashdot. Cos i swear, the last billion threads you made came from there. It's cool though.

3/27/2007 3:42:54 PM

nope... i think i have been on slashdot once ever!

i just visit like 10 different news sites everyday. (and if you follow external and internal links from the news articles, you can find lots of weird and cool stuff!)

3/27/2007 3:44:59 PM

This is ba-a-a-a-a-a-adass.

3/27/2007 4:13:15 PM

Quote :

"can they give a sheep a human vag? because that would improve my life substantially"

agreed

3/27/2007 4:27:30 PM

i wonder will they fight them?

3/27/2007 4:32:32 PM

interesting.

3/27/2007 4:48:37 PM

would it be considered bestiality?

at what ratio (50% human/50% sheep? 75/25?) do you think it no longer becomes an act with an animal and an act with another human?

I say if it walks upright, game on.

3/27/2007 4:56:00 PM

Quote :

"chimera "

3/27/2007 5:01:24 PM

"Do you watch human porn, or is there special centaur porn?"

3/27/2007 5:08:04 PM

^ what was that from? I know I've heard it.

3/27/2007 5:11:19 PM

A Christopher Walken sketch on SNL where Walken is a doctor interviewing a centaur.

3/27/2007 5:12:40 PM

haha, gg

3/27/2007 5:17:04 PM

Quote :

"This is ba-a-a-a-a-a-adass."

hahaha FTW

3/27/2007 6:07:40 PM

yay for zoonotic diseases enabled by modified species organs!

3/27/2007 11:17:28 PM

disturbing, extremly disturbing.

3/28/2007 12:21:28 PM

I want a chimera

3/28/2007 12:26:03 PM

can you put a human sized vagina on a rabbit?

3/28/2007 12:43:02 PM

^ note that I said this:

Quote :

"can they give a sheep a human vag? because that would improve my life substantially"

before the Daily Show addressed the same issue.

3/28/2007 12:45:49 PM

damn the timestamp doesnt lie!!

guess theres no need to throw out the "basketball with a human sized vagina" line

3/28/2007 12:46:30 PM

^^I remembered that when I saw it last night. Good call. Although... isn't a sheep vagina good enough already?

3/28/2007 12:51:13 PM

its nice

but variety is the spice of life

3/28/2007 12:55:36 PM

i want to se a 50/50 human/animal of any kind of mammal

3/28/2007 1:05:25 PM

^ what would the farts of such an animal smell like?

3/28/2007 5:49:17 PM