[extropy-chat] Here come the chimeras

[Giu1i0 Pri5c0]

Washington Post, via BoingBoing: In Minnesota, pigs are being born
with human blood in their veins. In Nevada, there are sheep whose
livers and hearts are largely human. In California, mice peer from
their cages with human brain cells firing inside their skulls. These
are not outcasts from "The Island of Dr. Moreau," the 1896 novel by
H.G. Wells in which a rogue doctor develops creatures that are part
animal and part human. They are real creations of real scientists,
stretching the boundaries of stem cell research.
Biologists call these hybrid animals chimeras, after the mythical
Greek creature with a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail.
They are the products of experiments in which human stem cells were
added to developing animal fetuses. Chimeras are allowing scientists
to watch, for the first time, how nascent human cells and organs
mature and interact -- not in the cold isolation of laboratory dishes
but inside the bodies of living creatures. Some are already revealing
deep secrets of human biology and pointing the way toward new medical
treatments.
But with no federal guidelines in place, an awkward question hovers
above the work: How human must a chimera be before more stringent
research rules should kick in?
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/11/20/here_come_the_chimer.html