Have you ever seen a Texan?

That.

>>27082732
First off, humans ARE apes. I assume you mean a DIFFERENT type of great ape than us.

>Is it possible to create an human/ape hybrid?
With modern science, yes. You would have to do it in a lab, because they are reproductively incompatible with each other.

>And how would this creature be?
It would depend entirely on what you did. You could either take a human embryo and splice in cells from another type of ape to get some kind of effect, or splice human cells into an ape embryo. By mixing and matching you could make all sorts of combinations.

>>27082732
George W. Bush
Obama

>>27082732
... did some Soviet nutjob try something like this? Like, he wanted to make a race of half man half gorilla soliders or something along those lines.

>>27082732
Ask Stalin. He tried, as I recall.

>>27082864
>>27082867
Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov

>>27082732
>Is it possible to create an human/ape hybrid?
In theory yes.
>And if yes, through which means?
Standard sexual intercourse or In Vitro fertilization.
>And how would this creature be?
Unknown, we do not know what alleles and phenotypes are more dominant between the two species.

>>27082935
>Standard sexual intercourse
No, no that really won't work.

Seriously, like, at all.

>>27082935
>20th century pls go

>>27082864
In all likelihood yes.

Nazis might get all the press, but Soviet Mad Science is a special kind of ridiculous.

Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family

by H.P. Lovecraft

>>27082960
There is less chromosomal difference between humans and chimps than there is between horses and donkeys. Those two can hybridize.

>>27082999

Nazi stuff at least had a vague expected outcome. Soviet science seems to be based on the foundation of "WELL THIS -SEEMS- LIKE A GOOD IDEA".

>>27082835
>>27082732
>>27082935
All of you have NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!

Genetics lab technician here. No. Its not possible. It really just isnt. Why do you ask?

>>27083270
Bullshit.

I saw a documentary about mice with human genes.

>>27083270
sorry, forgot link: the number of chromosomes doesnt line up. They have the same genetic information, its just not arraigned correctly to be comparable with humans, and vice versa.

>>27083270
I highly doubt you know what you are talking about.

>>27083251
To be fair, most of the actual scientists during that era were executed for wrecking and other stupid shit.

Isn't the only real problem that we have one extra chromosome compared to chimps?Or is it that they have an extra one? I can't remember, but it's something about chromosomes.

Maybe someone with Down's (Or a chimp with Down's equivalent, depending on whether we've got more, or they've got more) could do it, but I'd imagine that it'd either be stillborn, or miscarriage before it leaves Zygote stage.

>>27083295
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanzee

You fuckass, you can give an animal human genes, thats simple, but a full hybrid in the truest sense is impossible. If just "having human genes" is the only qualification, then apes already are humans!

>>27083318
I do friendo. I didnt do 8 fucking years of school learning this shit jut to NOT know what Im talking about.

>>27083327
athiests 1 - christians 0

>>27083251
>Nazi stuff at least had a vague expected outcome.

This. They were basically experiments with human labrats, and the data was incredibly useful to the US and NASA in particular.

Look up Operation Paperclip.

>>27083323
Found it, we have one fewer pairs of chromosomes, which means we'd need a human with Down's and a chimp with... Nega-Down's. Then the chromosome number lines up.

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>>27082864
>>27082867
>>27082875
WRRRRRRRONG.

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4219
Stalin's Human-Ape Hybrids

Did Josef Stalin order the creation of an army of half-ape, half-human hybrids, and did these experiments take place?

tl;dr Podcast Link - http://skeptoid.com/audio/skeptoid-4219.mp3

>>27083364
It was the Soviet dictator's dream: Soldiers with no fear, with superhuman strength and endurance, who would follow any order, eat anything, and ignore pain or injury. Workers who could do the labor of ten men without complaint, with no thought of personal time off, and no desire for pay. A force to carry the Soviet Union through its Five-Year Plan for economic development, and to make the nation invincible in war. Stalin's goal, according to modern mythology, was no less than a slave race of scientifically bred beings that were half human and half ape; a race he hoped would combine tremendous physical strength, dumb loyalty, and a human's ability to follow direction and perform complex tasks. But how much of this is true, and how much of it is the invention of modern writers and filmmakers looking for the sensational story?

It's no secret that a renowned Russian biologist, Il'ya Ivanovich Ivanov, spent much of his career working on just this. Around 1900 he gained great fame and national acclaim with his work on artificially inseminating horses, increasing the number of horses that could be bred by a factor of about twenty. For a preindustrialized nation, this was a tremendous economic accomplishment. Primarily funded by the Veterinary Department of the Russian Interior Ministry, Ivanov carried this technology to its next logical step, the creation of specialized hybrid animals for agricultural and industrial purposes, as well as for the sake of advancing the science. His artificial insemination experiments successfully crossed many closely related species: donkeys and zebras, mice and rats and other rodents, birds, and various species of cattle.

>>27083361
finally someone does some reading instead of just saying "yeah, I know its possible because I say so". Popular science is the only thing that makes me this mad.

>>27083372
As early as 1910, Ivanov lectured on the possibility of crossing humans and apes, citing artificial insemination as the method of choice due to prevailing ethical objections to, well, interspecies partying, for lack of a better term. However, before he could make any progress, Ivanov's work came to an abrupt halt in 1917 with the Russian Revolution, which effectively dissolved most existing government programs and eliminated all of his funding. The new Soviet government was committed to technical innovation and science, but it took seven long years for Ivanov to rebuild his network of support. Ivanov's entire career could be fairly characterized as a constant fundraising effort, desperately seeking resources for his hybridization dream and other projects, and failing nine times out of ten. He should have been so lucky as to have the government come to him with an offer, much less an order.

Interestingly, many modern articles about Ivanov portray his work as a religiously motivated crusade. It's often said that the Russian and Soviet governments funded Ivanov not for any practical purpose, but merely out of atheist activism to prove evolutionary biology and to show that creationism has no place. Amid the developing nation's immense problems with famine and agricultural development, this would seem to be a bizarre reason to explore the capabilities of animal insemination. Nevertheless, there's an element of truth to it. In voicing support for Ivanov's 1924 grant proposal, the representative of the Commissariat of Agriculture said:

"...The topic proposed by Professor Ivanov...should become a decisive blow to the religious teachings, and may be aptly used in our propaganda and in our struggle for the liberation of working people from the power of the Church."

>>27083332

Be less mad, friend.

>>27083381
It's not clear whether this was the Commissariat's actual position or whether it was simply a sales tactic; either is plausible. Ivanov himself is not known to have ever expressed interest in this interpretation of his work; after all, he'd been studying reproduction as a scientist for almost 30 years, since long before the Soviet state existed.

It took another year for this particular proposal to be funded. Apes were prohibitively expensive and rare in Russia, so Ivanov set off for Africa to set up a new lab. After some false starts, he finally launched his own facility in Guinea with chimpanzees netted for him by local hunters. Using sperm from an unidentified man, Ivanov made three artifical insemination attempts on his female chimps. Because Ivanov observed that the local Africans viewed chimps as inferior humans, and viewed humans who had had contact with chimps as tainted, he performed these inseminations in secret with only his son present as an assistant. Ivanov knew that a mere three attempts was inadequate to hope for any success, but the difficulties and expenses of maintaining and inseminating the chimps was too great. So he conceived a more sustainable experimental technique: Collecting the sperm of only two or three male apes, and then using that to artificially inseminate human women.

>>27083390
He found no support for his plan in Africa — in large part because he had proposed to inseminate women in hospitals without their knowledge or consent — so he returned to the Soviet Union with his remaining chimps and founded a primate station in Sukhum (today called Sukhumi) on the Black Sea. Only one mature male survived, an orangutan named Tarzan. By 1929, the plan was to have five women be artificially inseminated, and then live at Ivanov's institute with a gynecologist for one full year. But just as the first woman volunteer was secured, known only to history as "G", Tarzan died. Ivanov ordered five male chimps, but just as they were delivered, his life suddenly turned in a new direction, driven by the constant turmoil of philosophies and favoritisms in the Soviet Union. Ivanov was accused of sabotaging the Soviet agricultural system and various political crimes, leading to his arrest a few months later. G never visited the Sukhum station, and no sperm was ever harvested from the new chimps. Ivanov died after two years of exile.

Ivanov's primate station survived, however, and became his only real legacy. By the 1960's it had over two thousand apes and monkeys, and was employed by the Soviet and American space programs. But nobody ever followed his ape-human hybrid research there, though conventional artificial insemination was often employed among its primate population.

So, does this history support or contradict the claim that Stalin wanted an ape-man hybrid race of slave super warriors? Well it certainly doesn't confirm it. Contrary to the modern version of the story, Stalin personally had no connection with Ivanov or his work, and probably didn't even know about it. No evidence has ever surfaced that Stalin or the Soviet government ever went out looking for someone to create an ape-man super soldier, though it's certainly possible that someone evaluating Ivanov's proposal may have made such an extrapolation.

>>27083381
>>27083372
Its ironic that the Russians only funded him due to a desire to prove evolution and spit in the eye of the Church, when at the time the Russian scientific community believed in the flawed evolutionary model of Lamarkism.

>>27083396
Yet, in 2005, the Scottish newspaper The Scotsman reported the following:

The Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the creation of Planet of the Apes-style warriors by crossing humans with apes, according to recently uncovered secret documents. Moscow archives show that in the mid-1920s Russia's top animal breeding scientist, Ilya Ivanov, was ordered to turn his skills from horse and animal work to the quest for a super-warrior.

The latter claim, that Ivanov was "ordered" to shift his work, we've found to be demonstrably untrue. The former claim, that "secret documents" have been uncovered in Moscow, is a little hard to swallow. The article gives no information whatsoever about these alleged documents, and no source is even mentioned. A search of Russian language newspapers reveals no news stories about this at all, prior to The Scotsman's article. Certainly there are documents somewhere pertaining to the grants Ivanov received from both the Russian and the Soviet governments, but if these are what The Scotsman referred to, they are wrong when they describe them as secret, as recently uncovered, and that they showed Ivanov was ordered to create a super-warrior.

>>27083270
>>27083312

The Horse (64 chromosomes) and the Donkey (62 chromosomes) of the Equus genus can have hybrid offspring (aka Mules or Hinnies) with 63 chromosomes.

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>>27083415
From what I can see, The Scotsman's story was merely another in a long line of cases where a journalist fills a slow news day with a sensationalized and/or fictionalized version of very old news, just as the National Enquirer did with the Roswell UFO story in 1978. In that case, the TV show Unsolved Mysteries picked it up and broadcast an imaginative reconstruction based on the article, and launched a famous legend. In this instance, the show MonsterQuest picked up The Scotsman article and broadcast a 2008 episode called Stalin's Ape Man. The Internet has been full of articles about Stalin's supposed experiments ever since. Interestingly, a very thorough and well researched episode of Unsolved History on the Discovery Channel called Humanzee, which was all about human-ape hybrid experiments, did not mention Stalin or the Ivanov experiments at all. Why not? Because it was made in 1998, seven years before The Scotsman published its unsourced article, and introduced a new fiction into pop culture.

Humanzee focused on a particular chimp named Oliver, still living as of today, who has a bald head, prefers to walk upright, and has a number of other eerily humanlike tendencies. Although Oliver has been long promoted as a hybrid, genetic testing found that he is simply a normal chimp. This result was disappointing to cryptozoologists and conspiracy theorists, but it did not surprise primatologists who knew that each of Oliver's unusual features is within the range of normal chimps. In fact, this was established 20 years ago by testing done in Japan, and again in 1996; it's just that nobody reported it since it was not the sensational version of the story.

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>>27083425
Oliver is not a hybrid; Ivanov produced no hybrids; and other scientists have at least looked into it and never created any. There are the usual unsourced stories out of China of hybrids being created in labs, and even one from Florida in the 1920's. Desmond Morris, author of The Naked Ape, reported rumors of unidentified researchers in Africa growing hybrids, but even he dismissed it as "no more than the last quasi-scientific twitchings of the dying mythology." None of these tall tales are supported by any meaningful evidence.

But is it possible? Biologists who have studied the question are split, but the majority appear to think it is not, at least not from simple artificial insemination. But one conclusion can be drawn as a certainty, at least to my satisfaction: The urban legend that Stalin ordered Ivanov (or anyone else) to create an ape-man super soldier is patently false. It has all the hallmarks and appearance of imaginative writers creating their own news, and it was done at the expense of Il'ya Ivanov, whose proper place as a giant in the field of biology has been unfairly overshadowed by a made-up fiction. Treat this one as you would any urban myth: Be skeptical.

>>27083388
I really cant. I spend nearly a decade of my life learning things, things you people wouldnt believe, and then these chucklefucks come in here acting like they know a goddamn thing.
>You are now aware that 40% of your body's energy expenditure is used on regulation of sodium.
>You are now aware that there is a virus that will cause the cadherins holding your cells together to break down.
>You are now aware that the cleanest way to kill laboratory mice for dissection is by hand with a pithing needle to the back of the skull.
>You are now aware that there are more than 4 bases in DNA
>You are now aware that there is an entire second set of inherited code that is effected by lifestyle that the human race has spent the last 3000 years fucking in the ass.
>You are now aware that it is impossible to stick a human brain in a jar/mechanical shell, as there are thousands of background signals originating in the body that it relies on to function, and we have only the barest hint of an understanding as to how that works.
>You now understand that humans could be functionally immortal if our ethical framework didnt forbid harvesting of clones for organs and tissues.
And thats just the tip of the iceburg.

>>27083448
>>You are now aware that there is an entire second set of inherited code that is effected by lifestyle that the human race has spent the last 3000 years fucking in the ass.
What's it called?

>>27083323
>>27083361

You've got that wrong.Down Syndrome is cause by having one to many copies of chromosome 21 causing problems in expressing the information on it,

>>27083416
its not just number of chromosomes, its assortment of genetic information. If we were to make a human-ape hybrid we would not only lose one of our (possibly critical) chromosomes, but we would also potentially end up with an effective trisomy due to overlap. The reason that certain hybrids work despite chromosomal mispairing is due to a proper (see: lucky) alignment of chromosomal information. Also the birth rate of such crosses is reduced because of the chance of improper mispairing. tl;dr its not just chromosome number, its how the genes are spread across those chromosomes.

>>27083425

>dat file
>.jpg

How in the fuck?

>>27083467
the epigenome. Its a series of methyl or acetyl groups on the outside of your DNA. It has an effect on how your genes are transcribed and activated and it is both effected by your lifestyle and biological conditions, as well as being passed down by your parents. Destructive activities such as smoking, drinking, and excessive sex cause regulatory issues in the epigenome. I wish I were kidding. Modern life has been poisoning us for thousands of years, and its been so long that we have no idea what the epigenome SHOULD look like.

>>27083448
>You are now aware that it is impossible to stick a human brain in a jar/mechanical shell, as there are thousands of background signals originating in the body that it relies on to function, and we have only the barest hint of an understanding as to how that works.
So... no Robocop then. Detroit is fucked.

>>27083467
Not him, but I assume that he's referring to epigenetic information.

>>27083513
finally someone who doesnt just read yahoo news for their information on the sciences!

>>27083491
renamed .gif
check it out in notepad

>>27083503
Actually, if I understand his wording correct, it's impossible with our current understanding. Give it time.

>>27083448
For the chucklefucks further up the thread who thought they knew a damn thing; genetics as it is taught in highschool is only about 10% of the whole story. Genetics is simple in principle but FUCKHUGELY complex in its specifics. Yes, in general, similar animals can hybridize. Does that mean there are no other factors: HELL. FUCKING. NO.

>>27083540
Doesn't that sum up sciences in general? If you look at broad strokes, it's generally simple, but the fine print is complex as all fuck.

Might just be because of all the abstractions, though.

>>27083538
You dont seem to understand, we know more about blackholes than we do about those signals. The randomly oscillate and shift in frequency, and they seem to be effecting fucking everything in subtle ways. Basically, by the point we understand how it all works, we'll understand the brain well enough to just simulate it on a computer and render the human experience obsolete.

>>27083435

Why do people do this?

And by this, I mean post massive "quotes" of an article instead of just letting people read it from the source.

That being said, I've found such behavior to usually be on /pol/, not here.

>>27083558
Id say its especially so in genetics. Like, there are more than four bases in DNA, that shit they told you is an outright lie, but the other bases only matter when you REALLY get down to the nitty gritty, but they do still matter. Like, they may not tell you the whole story in other subjects, but for genetics they tell outright lies at the highschool level.

>>27083569
Because even if you provide links, people are too fucking lazy to use them.

>>27083569
what behavior?

>>27083483
Which is why I said it was theoretically possible and never said it was probable.

>>27083612
my point is that the level of understanding required would render the endeavor moot. That would be like if the technology for a flying car required teleportation for some reason; you're better off just using the teleportation.

And while we're on the subject, all you fucking transhumanist faggots can eat a dick. Nothing is better than meat. Meat is made of godamn self replicating, self repairing nanomachines that can turn nearly any hydrocarbon into fuel. Loose a limb? Its REALLY easy to clone one, but people are too damn scared at the ethical implications of creating a human fetus then slaving it into just being an arm. Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo fucking hoo.

>>27083589

Quoting articles in massive multi-post responses and then flinging around a bunch of toxic sources.

>>27083637
That's still a form of transhumanism. It's just bio instead of metal.

>>27083637

I believe in hybridizing Meat and Machine...

>>27083651
fuck those dudes. They just repeat what they find because they dont understand shit.

FUCK IT.

DRUNK GENETICIST THREAD.

QUESTIONS WILL BE ANSWERED!

IM GETTING ANOTHER BEER!

>>27083560
Makes sense. The brain is a system where everything affects everything else in countless feedback loops, and to a lesser degree, so is the rest of the body.

But still, assuming that progress continues apace, I'd expect us to have it mostly figured out by the end of the century.

>>27083651
Thanks I forgot to cite the sources.

References & Further Reading

Davis, W. "Hybridization of Man and Ape to Be Attempted in Africa." Daily Science News Bulletin. 1 Jan. 1925, Number 248: 1-2.

Hall, L. "The Story of Oliver." Primarily Primates Videos. Primarily Primates, 21 Jan. 2008. Web. 15 Aug. 2010. <http://www.primarilyprimates.org/videos/ppvid_Oliver.htm>

MacCormack, J. "Genetic testing show he's a chimp, not a human hybrid." San Antonio Express-News. 26 Jan. 1997, Newspaper.

Morris, Desmond and Ramona. Men and Apes. London: Hutchinson, 1966. 82.

Rossiianov, K. "Beyond species: Il'ya Ivanov and his experiments on cross-breeding humans and anthropoid apes." Science in Context. 1 Jun. 2002, Volume 15, Number 2: 277-316.

Schultz, A. "The Rise of Primatology in the Twentieth Century." Proceedings of the Third International Congress of Primatology, Zurich. 1 Jan. 1970, Volume 2, Number 15.

Stephen, C., Hall, A. "Stalin's half-man, half-ape super-warriors." The Scotsman. 20 Dec. 2005, Newspaper.

>>27083663
the only thing machines are good for are sensors, its the only thing they do better than meat. Id agree that we could use some fresh metal eyes and maybe even ears, but the rest of it meat does better.

I always love to laugh at the engineering students who talk about nanobots and I look at them like "dude, self replicating microscopic machines that follow a set program? You're made of those!"

>>27083669
I dont because nobody is researching it. I read a LOT of articles for work on a LOT of topics, and Ive never run into anything related to that research coming out of Germany, America, or Japan, which are the only places that could get that shit done.

You'd be surprised how many crazy technologies are just within our reach but we dont research them because there is no immediate economic incentive.

>>27083666
Bioethics. Assuming that popular consesus changes, how you do think it would take for the academic consensus to follow?

And secondly, is its current state a matter imposed on the academia externally, or does it have its source among scientists (or both, neither, etc.)?

>>27083682
What about making Lovecraftian/zerg/tyranid biological machines? Possible? Reasonable?

Hm... that epigenome tidbit is just what I needed.

I have a friend that can't seem to lose his smug sense of self-satisfaction over his wild teenage years (homelessness, rampant meaningless sex, using nearly every drug known to man).

"Hurr durr it's necessary to have the entire spectrum of experiences to become a complete adult." he'll say. Now I know he's most likely screwed his progeny, genetically speaking.

>>27083737
lol, the academic consensus already wants to do it, we just dont have the money. Ive fucking made piles of my own stemcells (yay, we just figured out how to make stemcells from fucking ANYTHING) and Ive dicked around with them a lot.

Its not everybody (there are some of the REALLY old pre-70's dudes who still dont like the idea) but most geneticists are pretty open to the idea of just saying fuckit. All we care about is the dangers involved, which we fully understand and have well in hand. Once you've killed 100 mice in 2 hours with your bear hands, ethics start to fade into the background noise.

>>27083702
I'm saying that mostly because I believe that once opinions change, the currect dearth of research will be quickly rectified - even if it happens in thirty or fourty years.

Plus, tools will continue to improve regardless, so a year of zero research in this particular area will amount to a lower amount of time once things get rolling.

Of course, this is an uninformed opinion of an outsider, so if you're saying that things will not work out that way..

>>27083448

>You are now aware that there are more than 4 bases in DNA

What? Really?

>>27083746
Its totally possible and totally reasonable. There are already experiments underway to make bioprocessors by making self replicating subunit based neural nets. Psst, we've been using biological machines as a power source for thousands of years, they are called horses! Look up Folistatin (or better yet google "complete myostatin inhibition); give that shit to a horse and it turns into a godamn dump truck!

>>27083702
Yeah, not a lot of Science for Science's sake right now.

>>27083502
>excessive sex causes regulatory issues in the epigenome
Ain't that some shit. Too much passing on your genes is bad for passing on your genes.

>>27083770
see thats the thing about being on the outside; you REALLY dont understand how much work is done behind the scenes. Nothing just "get done", and for everything that does get done, there are 20 other labs that couldnt get it to work. Seriously, I know exactly where you're coming from; this whole "progress marches onward" perspective, but it just aint so.

>>27083784
yeah, sure, wikipedia wont tell you that shit. Take Methylcytosine for example? Misreads as cytosine on most screenings, but its functionally distinct.

>>27083448
>You now understand that humans could be functionally immortal if our ethical framework didnt forbid harvesting of clones for organs and tissues.
what, would that fix cancer?

>>27083805
yeah, its a mechanism to prevent over population, we inherited it from back when we were fucking plants!

>>27083820
sure, just cut off as much as you want and replace it with fresh cloned tissue.

>>27083491
>>27083521
Or it was the bug where people two people posting at the same time have their images swapped.

>>27083821
or rather, prokaryotic phytobacteria, but who's counting? Basically everything has that epigenetic regulator.

>>27083827
that doesn't seem like it would work on everything.

anyway, is that reliable? no complications?

>>27083811

I had to take a Genetics class for the Biology B.S. I'm working on and learned some interesting stuff, but apparently I don't know shit yet.

Do you know how this stuff affects Biotechnology at all? I thought it was pretty straightforward, but with what you're saying it sounds like DNA recombination is a lot more complicated than I had previously thought.

>>27083785
>There are already experiments underway to make bioprocessors

So, the work is continuing on those? I wondered, since the last time I read anything about them was a couple of years ago, when simply connecting rat(?) neural tissue to silicon electronics and using it to calculate stuff was the height of progress.

I still think that chemical computers (i.e. DNA based) would be better for many applications, especially since the way their architecture works isn't all that dissimilar to current computing.

But I suppose that the whole advantage of neural networks in general lies in the fact that you don't need to provide software yourself, but simply datasets large enough to train them.

>>27083784

Pharmacologist here with very minor genetics training; there's more than 4 but for the purposes of anything below undergrad you don't need to know about them. Its good for making you question what you were taught in school, though.

>>27083799

Its because science for science's sake is usually done by lone rich people in big labs. Modern science is expensive as balls and tends to involve pretty large teams; those kind of resources are tough to throw around and most find nothing of practical use. While "Yeah, this does nothing" is of _some_ use, most companies don't share that kind of data so its no good to science as a whole.

In short; science is done with very clear aims in mind, and those aims are directed by businessmen. On the plus side, this model of science is pretty self-sustaining (ie; science to make you rich, will let you keep doing science), but can shut down good ideas.

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>>27083835
No, it's possible to have animated .jpg's.

>>27083821
Ah. Well that make sense. So if I'm understanding this correctly this breakdown of the genome would mean that there's an increased chance of inherited defects that relate to a person's genes? (Sorry if I seem so ignorant right now, because I am)

>>27083785
Holy Shit! You can just grow muscle. You don't even need to lift.
What I meant earlier is stuff like living houses and spaceships and stuff.

>>27083874
saying "DNA recombination" is like saying "aircraft repairs". There are some parts of it that are simple because we have proteins that occur in nature that do it for us. However, like John Constaintine says, its never like it is in the book kid. Shit doesnt take all the time in recombination for no godamn reason. Sometimes you get it on the first try, sometimes the 50th, sometimes never. Biotech is all about rapid adaptation to slowly changing situations. Also its so boring you'll want to claw your eyes out at first. I suggest you find a lab with funny/drunk people in it and become one with their funny/drunk-ness.

>>27082835
>>27083270
>You would have to do it in a lab, because they are reproductively incompatible with each other.

I was just watching a thing about the Humanzee and how it is theoretically possible, but no one is getting the green light to try it out and/or anyone who is trying is getting raided by various government organizations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanzee

>>27082732
No.
Consider how many people have had sex with donkeys, sheep, and cattle. Just... consider the sheer number of it. Now, it's almost impossible to imagine a human hasn't had sex with a gorilla, right? So if it was possible, we're apt to have heard about it. Not to mention bonobos are little slut-chimps, so if someone had sex with a bonobo, then claimed the bonobo initiated it, I'd probably believe them.

The point is, no. True, some species are capable of cross-reproduction--mules, ligers/tigons--but there's a reason humans, chimps, gorillas, orangutans, and gibbons are separated not just by species, but by genera. Theoretically, I think you could cross-breed a chimp and a bonobo and maybe get a sterile offspring, but definitely not humans.

If you want to launch ahead a few decades/centuries into the future, perhaps you could break apart a non-human ape's genome and put selected segments into a human embryo's, then Dolly it. Perhaps. Not only is that so far off technologically I can't tell you how'd they do it, I couldn't even tell you if it was possible.

Incidentally, there was an unusually human-like chimp called the "humanzee" who was a circus attraction some years ago, but he was genetically just a normal chimp was was unusually smart and friendly.

>>27083913
*called the "humanzee" and claimed to be half-human

>>27083904

Well, mainly I'm learning it to be marketable. My real goal in life is to get a Ph.D. in Entomology and be a professor. I really want to study ants.

>>27083348
The official catholic word on evolution is that it happened by was guided by the hand of god to create the current form of man. Humans being in god's image is more about free will, advanced sapience and having verbal language. "The Word was God" afterall.

>>27083926
The Catholics are actually surprisingly cool about the whole "evolution" thing. They never even denounced Darwin or disparaged evolution even during the Scopes era.

>>27083894

Think of it not in terms of a single organism, but all the organisms as a whole. Having just one outbreed and strangle out everything is actually a detriment. By the time breakdown starts to occur, you've already bred so much you're probably doing pretty damn well.

Going into it in a more complex way; if this didn't happen, lets take organism A. Organism A out competes its rivals and becomes the sole organism. Oh no, a slight environmental change that A can't deal with but some of its rivals could! Now everything is gone.

With how it is now, there's more survival, more organisms, and evolution marches on. Genetics isn't my field, but that's my take on it.

>>27083880
the problem with chemical computers is they're several orders of magnitude less precise, at least as we understand how to use them. Also, living computational systems are inherently in constant flux, so they are best used for comprehensive activities such as recognition of basic shit, or maintaining order of other living systems. Bioprocessors are kindof a pipe dream in the long run, there's little they can do that regular processors cant, the only real upside is that they are self-replicating and easy to maintain over a 20 year period.

>>27083894
Imagine your genes are like a book and the epigeome is like someone's notes in it; they can be helpful in bookmarking or highlighting things, but if they are abused they can totally black out text. However, the text is still there, you just have to either "undo" the editing (which can be done in genes more readily than a book) or learn to read through them.

>>27083899
Now kid, if someone offers you Folistatin just say no, it depletes your stem-cells in your muscle fibers; you'll die of full body muscle wasting by 50. Also, there are those in the plant community talking about growing whole houses, but it would take a prohibitively long time. It is theoretically possible to make a biological spaceship, it would just be REALLY hard. Thats about all I care to say about that.

>>27083913
>bonobos
>slut-chimps

That a very, very, very oversimplifying way to put things.

>>27083910
it cant be done, too much overlap in genetic information on the chimp's "extra" chromosome.

>>27083921
Dude, ants are the shit. I used to do genetics on them and they dont afraid of anything, not even radiation. Most organisms get cathartic after a few dozen generations in captivity, but not ants. Those fuckers are scrappy.

>>27083881
This guy fucking gets it!

>>27083959
Yeah, thats the mindset we have about genetics, that we are all just continuations of a single human machine, like our cells inside of us; similar yet chemically identical, unique yet cut from the same cloth.

>>27084002
fuck "cathartic", I meant lethargic. TIME FOR ANOTHER BEER!

>>27084002

What genetics work were you doing on ants?

>>27083959
That's pretty close, yeah. It's kinda-sorta a form of altruism, which as a naturalism term is pretty similar to its standard definition--reducing your own genetic viability for the good of the larger group. Of course, you could also think of it as "ensuring there will be enough good mates for your offspring in the future".

Sasquatch is human/ape.

>>27084025
nothing ant-specific, just general research on nerve-sorting in the ventral nerve cord. This was fucking years ago tho, back when I was a little sprat with a twinkle in my eye and hair on my head

>>27084060
If he were, he'd be sterile. Is that the case, or are there dozens of sasquatchlings running around the Pacific Northwest?
God, think for a second.

>>27084077
maybe men are half sasquatch and half alien? Ever think of that. Bet you didnt. Scrublord!

>>27084060
gr8 b8 m8 i r8 it an 8/88

>>27084125
you. I like you.

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>>27084104

Pardon the off-topic, Mr. Geneticist, but how viable are biology careers? I'm more into evolutionary biology and ecology, but can you offer any insight into the state of the field?

>>27084183
Any degree in the sciences is all about selling yourself and your own usefulness long enough to get a resume large enough to do anything. I have no earthly idea what you could do with either of those degrees, but if you go to a college that offers those degrees do one of two things; 1. Find a department that already does research you're interested and network like afucking bodysnatcher, or 2. Go to your college's research grant department, find the nicest (see: stupidest) lady working there and HYPE THE FUCK OUT OF YOUR AREA OF STUDY. Make it seem old as science itself, but still hip fresh and ever expanding. Make them think its a HUGE PROBLEM that they arnt doing ecology research!

>>27084220
Thank you for your cynical but useful words of wisdom.

>>27084240
I mean, either Im just being an ass and a job will just fall into your lap, or Im right and now you know what to do. Either way you win. Also, just love what you do and make sure you keep on the look out for others who feel the same way. Being in the sciences means being your own boss more often then you'd think, so make sure you keep your shit together. Also, just keep your undergrad GPA above a 3 and you'll e fine; if you're not going to UCLA being top of your class means fuckall in the long run.

Since this topic isn't really going anywhere anyway, in your opinion, Mr. Geneticist, what would you classify Elves as, assuming that fertile half-Elf, half-Humans are possible, and it's not just "lolmagic"?

>>27084303
Possibly a subspecies of humans? Honestly in that case they're just the ubermensch. Whenever I run a setting tho halfies arnt a thing and my elves are always a little "different".

>>27084349
what about dwarfs? orcs? halflings?

>>27084378
In my own campaign? All totally distinct races each with their own physical and psychological characteristics that make them unique on several levels. I could get into it but Id need another beer and another hour of your time.

>>27084303
It'd be subspecies; for a comparison, many anthropologists believe that Homo neanderthalensis should be reclassified as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis and that interbreeding between Neanderthals and Cro-magnons was commonplace.
There are a number of ways to define a species; in this case, we're sticking with reproductively, but morphologically, it'd be much easier to define humans and elves as separate, considering elves live for centuries and thus probably have very different internal functions.
Orcs would be a better case, since while they are larger and dumber, they do live for about the same length of time as humans and most of the differences are with structures like teeth, bones, and skin which are more prone to change over time than hearts and lungs.
Art and character designs of half-elf half-orcs do crop up occasionally, so if we're going with the "popular consciousness" interpretation, saying that elves, humans, and orcs share a species would reconcile that. And consider that barnacles are crustaceans; closely related things can act very differently.
Now that I think of it, though, I know that half-elves are generally fertile but I can't say for sure about half-orcs.

(There's also a hypothesis that rumors of creatures like trolls were derived from pockets of Neanderthals that survived up until a few millennia ago, which I don't think is particularly likely, but interesting, if true.)

>>27083767
Scientist are essentially wizards - no sense of right and wrong.
Also:
>bear hands

>>27083270
It totally is, though.

It's just against the law to even begin attempting it in like, every country. It's also pointless, because why would you do that?

>>27084539
dude, I just spend half a thread going over specifically why it is NOT possible. Read a book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlKL_EpnSp8

>>27084517
thats what three pints does; makes you angry and turns bare hands into bear hands.

Also, scientists do know right from wrong, we just have a better understanding of the reality of what is being done than the public. I like to laugh at all those fuckers who are afraid of GMOs in their food, when that shit's been around since the 70's.

>>27084585
Seriously, dawg. It's like not shaking hands with someone because they were an in vitro fertilization.

Hadozee.

>>27084637
or thinking clones are people! They are, but if you made 'em and they dont have a functioning brain, you own them! Fuck the Greeks for promoting human philosophy lol

>>27084692
Anyway, thanks for the thread. Lots of interesting stuff.

>>27084789
we try

>>27084692

What good would a person with no brain be? Organs?

>>27085204
yep, delicious delicious organs! Knees getting bad? REPLACE BOTH LEGS! Heart acting up on you? REPLACE IT! Vision getting a little sketchy? Fucking REPLACE THAT SHIT!

So, in regards to what you(or maybe someone else) earlier in the thread said about growing whole houses being unfeasible, what about using plants that grow incredibly fast?

Say, kudzu, or some kind of lab-modified kelp. Specifically breed it for growth rate and use that. Would that help or even put a dent in the feasibility of the hand-grown house?

>>27085532
doesnt matter, still takes too long to make an entire stable structure without making the energy throughput required for growth so great that it kills the organism. You can only grow so fast.

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>>27082732
>still using the harkness test

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>>27082732
>Is it possible to create an human/ape hybrid?
Russians tried several times throughout I believe it was the 70s. Unfortunately, pic related never happened as a result of it.

A living house doesn't have to be all made out of one organism.

Something like Bamboo would make great support structures and walls. Some kind of vine could be the roof. Moss floors. Furniture made out of . Giant mushrooms shaped into chairs and tables.
All genetically modified for durability and shape, of course.

>>27084559
Bullshit. If we can create plants that have bioluminescent jellyfish cells in them and construct other types of chimeras in test tubes you can totally hybridize humans and apes given enough time and funding.

>>27085712
>it's
Other than that, breddy good.

>>27085835
you fuckass
read:
>>27083327

>>27085869
All I'm reading is that we didn't try hard enough.

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>>27085835

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>>27085904
FUCK YOU

GET BACK TO WORK AND DON'T STOP UNTIL WE GET SOME HOT MONKEY ASS

>>27085621
What is your opinion on the ethics of growing meat from human DNA in a lab and then selling it as an exotic food source?

>>27086007
How fairs the enzymes that make you go mental if you have too much?

>>27086007
>>27086026
why bother?

>>27086026
Engineer those motherfuckers out obviously.

I want Long Pig Restaurants to take the fuck off.

>>27086043
WHY BOTHER SHAVING AN ORANGUTAN AND MAKING HER A PROSTITUTE?

WHY BOTHER SHOVING AN ORTOLAN IN A BOX AND FORCE-FEEDING IT THEN COOKING IT ALIVE?

DECADENCE MOTHERFUCKER I AIN'T GOTTA EXPLAIN SHIT

>>27084072
What about fruit flies? Have you worked with those?

>>27082732
Hey OP welcome to SciShow, and "How to Make A Humanzee" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nfg-Y9ketE

>Captcha: Lord jmtwou

Why would anyone want to make a human/chimpanzee or human/gorilla hybrid? Humans are psychopathic enough without adding that extra layer of fucking crazy to the mix. At least splice them with a chill primate like a lemur or something. Lemurs don't give a fuck about anything.

>>27086125
they thought they would make a perfect subhuman workforce that would be satisfied with basic rations and housing and without the ethical problems of sending untrained workers into hazardous conditions.

>>27086125
Because science.

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>>27086043
>>27086047
If food scientists have the tech to eliminate Kuru and other prion diseases than don't they have the tech to simply find an equal alternative to eating people in the first place?

Also for those wondering what Kuru is...

>http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002355/

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_%28disease%29

>>27082732
>>/sci/

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>>27086151
>they thought they would make a perfect subhuman workforce that would be satisfied with basic rations and housing and without the ethical problems of sending untrained workers into hazardous conditions.

Please, like we have any qualms about treating other humans like a subhuman workforce.

>>27083448
>You are now aware that the cleanest way to kill laboratory mice for dissection is by hand with a pithing needle to the back of the skull
Huh. I haven't experimented wih much mice, but they've taught us to snap their necks. We do kill frogs that way though.

>>27086201
What I don't get is lack of prudence. If you are engineering a race of people that are stronger than you and going so far as to train that race in warfare, what's to stop said race from conquering you, the weaker party? This is the same problem the Romans had with the Gauls and it bit them in the ass.

>>27083372
Sound like he wanted some robots

>>27083448
>You now understand that humans could be functionally immortal if our ethical framework didnt forbid harvesting of clones for organs and tissues.

I could see us being able to replace organs but what about bones? The brain? Those still degrade as you age and you can't exactly slap a brand-new brain in a person.

>>27086191

Yeah, I don't think it's possible to eliminate prions from something while still keeping it edible.

>>27086329
cant replace the brain, but you CAN replace bones pretty easily with a good surgeon, and to a limited extent the degradation of the brain is tied to the degradation of the body.

>>27086372
I imagine that once we reach a certain level brain replacement will be a cell-by-cell sort of deal.

That brings about the whole "Ship of Theseus" issue but fuck it.

>>27083397
>implying we haven't found evidence supporting lamark's views in epigenetics.

>>27086372
The only problem with the theory of replacing our bodies with cloned parts as we age is that, at least right now, cloning is expensive. Only rich people would be able to afford that shit.

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>>27084002
Wait you mean too much reproduction or too much sexual activity of any kind? I'm getting worried here

>>27086425
cloning isnt expensive at all. Not even a little bit. It was years ago, but recent developments have made it pretty fucking easy. Granted we dont have everything figured out because all you in the public wont let us (waaaaaaaaaaah western moral ethics, waaaaaaaah the human soul). But its not that hard anymore

>>27086448
sexual activity of any kind...how would your own body detect successful reproduction? Regretting all that jacking off boy? Dont worry, you're only doing 5% at best of all your ancestors combined!

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>>27086425
Anybody else read this in elementary school?

>>27086480
Middle School, but yup.

>>27086464
The surgery would be expensive, though. At least, if you lived in America.

>>27086480
I did

>>27086329
>>27086372
This has also been bugging me since you posted it. Isn't Telomere degradation what causes this to be infeasible? Unless you use an older sample as the "seed," isn't the newly cloned tissue going to end up with the same remaining lifespan as the part it is replacing?

>>27086492
better than being dead. I mean, any cure always has its cost. Fuck, there are still places where people get polio.

>>27086425
Well I doubt lower will just sit by and let the upper class become immortals. If we ever do get to some kind of cyberpunk enhanco-thon where only the rich can get the benefits of such technology I fully expect a French Revolution sort of thing to occur.

>>27086491
>>27086495
I bring it up because it had a similar premise to what he was saying.

>>27086523
*lower classes

>>27086510

Telomerase can be used to lengthen telomeres.

>>27086510
na man, new tech allows us to make any cell into a stemcell. Part of that involves use of telomeraces to fix telomeres. This has been figured out for a while now.

>>27086535
YEAH BOY!

Glad to see someone's got their head on!

>>27086476
aw man cyberpunk orgies won't be feasible anymore

>>27083502
The only goddamned thing epigenetic defects do is cause you mental retardation and cancer. You missed the entire point of epigenetics.

>>27086562
do what you want. In 50 years or so we'll figure out how to fix it, we're already using a shitty fix for the epigenome to fix certain cancers.

>>27086578
I said it caused "problems". Retardation and cancer are among those "problems".

>>27086607
Read Simmons' paper again, more carefully next time. God damn I hope you're not in the fucking workforce.

>>27086626
Its not like I said "epigenetics are not a problem" I just didnt elaborate on what those problems were. Chill the fuck out broham.

>>27084516
So if human/elf hybrids are viable, and human/orc hybrids are viable, would that automatically make orc/elf viable?

>>27089488

Not necessarily. Humans may be somewhere in between elves and orcs, letting both of them breed with humans, but not each other.

I'm not the namefag, just giving my answer.

>>27086007
Isn't that a really good way too cause prions to form?

>>27090523
no. you cant "cause prions to form" thats not a thing. Prions form randomly and self perpetuate by nature.

>>27083580
>Like, there are more than four bases in DNA, that shit they told you is an outright lie, but the other bases only matter when you REALLY get down to the nitty gritty, but they do still matter. Like, they may not tell you the whole story in other subjects, but for genetics they tell outright lies at the highschool level.
DAMN IT! I want to be a geneticist and this is pissing me off.

>>27091074
It shouldnt piss you off, just be aware of it. Also, dont go trying to learn too much on your own; a lot of genetics is niche special cases you'll learn when you need them, and learning about them beforehand is a waste of time. Dont give up, my friend!

>>27091436
I don't plan on it. It's either I get my degree or I spend the rest of my life as a handyman on my father's ranch.

>>27091486
where do you live, I can see about getting you a job when you graduate.

>>27083502
The Human Genome Project was pretty cool. The Human Epigenome Project will shatter the world of medicine and biology as a whole.

>>27091615
Central Texas. I am still years and years away from graduating.

>>27091688
to some degree. There's no telling what all is in there. We already know to a limited degree what to expect but you never know what you'll find when you start exploring something new.

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If one has reason to create a 'custom lifeform' (let's face it, most all of the reasons for doing so are sketchy as fuck) a good way to go about it may be using a printer.

A 3d printer using customized stem cells would be invaluable in this pursuit. Not going to vouch for the longevity or continued health of the creature as it's genetics take over from the initial design, but it would allow for some whacky design shit with even standard cells.

If human x chimp is impossible, what about human x orang utan, gorilla or bonobo? They're not as closely related, but that might not be the deciding factor.

>>27091892
I wonder if we'd be able to insert a printer into a body, paired up with a desintegrater, and replace shit right there.

>>27083581
>implying anyone actually all that shit

>>27083448
as a tipsy intensivist I would like to say that functional immorality requires medical capacity and knowledge beyond present as well. having access to replacement tissue and organs would only be one(though large) element.

>>27085418
It seems like that would cost fucking bank and be accessible only to rich people. Or at least that's the feeling I get, and one of the things that helps me sleep at night is knowing that richfags my age are going to be just as dead as me in 100 years.

>>27086201
Indeed. Pretty much anyone who works in a factory or a retail store gets that treatment.

If you are still here, oh Drunken Geneticist, thank you for your drunken rambling. It's been quite entertaining so far.

>>27094900
Yeah, nah, they're well on their way to that already. Have you seen Stallone lately?
And someone above claimed that cloning has become way easier.

>>27082732
>>27095477

>>27096268
it has become a shitload easier with the advent of Induced Pulripotent Stemcells.

>>27094788
I imagine that with cloned practice dummies and some lax ethics we could work out the kinks in, say, 10 years?

>>27091892
NOPE. WRONG. The best way to do it is just through experimentation. Consider the following: you print an organism, it dies, you need to print a new one and hope it works the same (anyone in life sciences will tell you that experimental repetition is always a little off). Alternatively, you engineer an organism properly, and it can self replicate. Done. No fuss. No Muss.

>>27100621
Splice-kun, is it possible to engineer a lifeform that would live in space as its natural habitat? Say, a giant plant that lives off photosynthesis and camel-like stockpiles of minerals from occasional devoured asteroids.
You said that growing a house is hard, but what about growing it in zero g?

>>27103262
Its theoretically possible; there are bacteria which can survive in space. However Id say it would be prohibitively difficult due to radiation. Bacteria which survive in space only do so in an inert state and by having great enough numbers to ablate death/mutation by radiation. The real problem, however, is the vacuum of space. Photosynthesis requires constant water and vapor exchange, which you cant do in space.

Im gonna say "no" for now. However, if we discover higher order organisms which CAN survive in space that may give us some fresh ideas about how to achieve something like that.

>>27103262
I should also mention that zero gravity, though interesting and challenging for biological engineering, is not by any means prohibitive for things like this.

>>27103262
space is pretty empty. the question would be if it can survive on whatever asteroid it's on.

>>27103674
>pretty empty
Top lel, "pretty empty" he says!

>>27103666
One quick question for you: given that we've done the ground work on 3D printing organs, how possible would it be to print, say, a small mammal? Would (if the tech is even feasible) it be easier to print designed species than to implant their embryos in a surrogate?

>>27104017
Living systems are dynamic and in constant flux, especially during their development, which means "printing" an organism in a standing state would be very difficult. What you really dont seem to understand is how much easier it is to work from a system that already exists; all the code for biological development is already written, we just need to figure out how to game the system. Starting from scratch would be so disgustingly complex I wouldnt even entertain the idea. What you're suggesting is that we essentially reinvent the wheel. There are already well understood protein complexes and other signalling systems which, as part of embryonic development, regulate the location and growth of highly specific tissues. Printing them is a waste of time when we already have the capacity to make them print themselves.

>>27083871
It's nonsense, you can't replace brains, and they still degrade as any old person will tell you.

>>27104017
>>27104123
That said, it IS theoretically possible to print an organism given sufficnent understanding of the endeavor, but the complications are so complex I cant even begin to imagine how a single designer or even a team of 50 could coordinate well enough to create a workable print template. You would need hundreds if not thousands of different cell types, all identical and mutation free, you would need to plan every biological network by hand, and ensure that cadherins were bound properly and contact in inhibition was maintained, then you would need a way of ensuring the system would come to life when you finished and not before. On top of that you would need a totally sterile system as well as a printer with unmatched accuracy.

Most 3D printing we do with organics is for cosmetic purposes, or to replace simple components such as cartilaginous bits, heart valves, or individual muscle fibers.

tl;dr
Printing organisms is theoretically possible, but it is prohibitively difficult in ways you cannot possibly fathom.

>>27083827
>>27104163
This is true, you CANNOT replace a human brain, but by keeping the support systems of the body healthy you may enable a longer shelflife for the brain.

As for viability, its extremely doable. We already transplant tissues that arnt even biologically identical, or even synthetic temporary replacements. Artificially grown components would literally be the masterclass of replacement organs/tissues.

>>27083327
Hm.. silly question after I watched Ghost in the Shell: Stand alone complex.

Can you make pigs have your genes to make an organ bank if you are in need in the future?

>>27082732

Ask Soviet.

>>27104222
The pigs would reject the human organs you implanted into them. Theoretically you could place the pigs in a sterile containment and dope them to the eyeballs with antirejection drugs, but at that point you'd be better off just using a decent bioreactor to grow an organ whenever you needed it; the pig is only needed for longterm storage, which isnt entirely necessary.

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Hey Drunk Geneticist, how long until I can buy a bio-booster Guyver suit in the gunstore? I want my chest bio-laser cannons today.

>>27104268
Dont even get me started on how impractical laser weapons are. A biological suit of some kind is possible to construct, but if you can create a biological system that is better than your own and does not conflict with your own biology, you're better off just grafting it to yourself as a replacement than wearing it as s suit. The nature of any kind of biologically enhanced soldiers is that their enhancements will be to their own biology, as its pretty inefficient to have two organisms with two of everything running independently as opposed to just having one organism with the best parts of both.

>>27104244
Oh, I just thought that it could be an efficient way to 'clone' your own organs and harvest them when you need it, like if you suddenly loose a lung or something like that.

>>27104306
>Dont even get me started on how impractical laser weapons are
I'm curious. How?

>>27104312
Its just as easy to clone an organ from scratch as it is to grow them in a pig, if not easier due to aforementioned lack of rejection risk. Basically we've gotten to the point that we can create stemcells from any kind of human cells. From those stemcells we can create an embryo from which we can steal the precursor cells which will give rise to specific organs. Then all you have to do is provide the organ with a sterile environment as well as a few hormones to promote normal growth and function and then its ready to go...theoretically of course. The whole "killing an embryo" thing hasnt really gotten the approval of western society yet...

>>27104346
Goddammit anon, you had one job. ONE JOB. And that job was to not get him started. Prepare your body.

>>27104346
He's talking about battery power.

A biological weapon shooting lasers would need an insanely advanced form of powering itself.

>>27104355
I've heard they found more efficient mother cells in other parts of the body, or am I fooled by the church?

>>27083910
>Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov was the first person to attempt to create a human–ape hybrid.[9] As early as 1910 he gave a presentation to the World Congress of Zoologists in Graz, Austria, in which he described the possibility of creating such a hybrid by artificial insemination.

God, Austro-Hungaria was such an awesome nation.

>>27104346
The energy of a laser weapon decreases with the cube of the distance it travels. There was a study done on laser weapons in the 70's with some unconventional results but they're all banned by international treaties. Basically it was figured out early on that laser weapons in the most traditional sense would be totally inefficient for transferring destructive energy (compared to a projectile or an explosive charge), but they did design a large laser array for covering troop advances; the idea was you'd elevate it on a tower or from an aircraft (it releases an invisible band of laser light), then if anyone points a lens at your advancing ground forces the lens would concentrate the laserlight and instantly blind whoever was trying to look at you (snipers, scouts, mortar crew spotters, etc). It was supposed to be a terror weapon, making enemies afraid to face you head on for fear of being permanently blinded. However, such weapons were banned (I dont remember by which body banned them) because they essentially function solely to maim soldiers (by blinding them permanently).

Consider the following: it requires a lens the size of a dinnerplate and a capacitor the size of a traincar to melt through glass at about 300ft, while a slingshot can do the same thing without any problem (with the exception that it breaks the glass instead of melting it).

>>27104355
Surely cells produced this way would be epigenetically different from the body cells of the host, what's to stop them being rejected, apart from anti-rejection drugs?

>>27104403
There are "mother cells", but they have been restricted to only producing a few kinds of cells. Take bone marrow for instance; it indefinitely (relatively speaking) generates blood cells of all kinds, but it cannot make any other kinds of cells.

>>27104461
There is no system in the body which reads epigenetics. Epigenetic alterations effect chemical changes, but do not fundamentally change the identity of cells. Cell identity for purposes of rejection is via hundreds of proteins on the cell surface that humans are statistically predisposed to having different combinations of (say you have 100 proteins and 4 variations of each, that alone gives you 1.6E60 total unique identities). Epigenetics dont figure into it. In fact, most cells in your body are quite epigenetically diverse, hell even chromosomes in a single cell may have different epigenetics.

>>27104466
I see...

So you can't do real copy of organs or limbs with those cells?

And finally I can ask a geneticist that won't turn me into a chimpanzee like in space station 13.

>>27104510
Thats the thing, it doesnt matter anymore. The state of the science is that we can take skin cells from your dandruff (though thats not the best source to use) and make them into stem cells which in turn can be used to make anything.

>>27104441
That's still like speculating about the futility of nuclear weapons right after madam Curie died of cancer.

>>27104529
Oh cool.

And when we'll be able to mix our genes with the animal kind? just wondering when we can be genetically inmortal (at least not die of old age) like lobsters, some jellyfishes and fishes?

Dear drunk geneticist,
If we do get cloning of replacement limbs on track and into the common health care system, how easy would it be to start engineering 'upgrades' to the body, instead of just replacements?

>>27104533
No, its the laws of physics. A laser weapon imparts its energy on everything it comes into contact with evenly, while you can store and deliver energy much more quickly kinetically. Consider that it takes minutes for you to get a sunburn using, say, a supercharged tanning booth, but you can get 3rd degree burns in seconds from simple chemical reactions like combustion. Light simply isnt a good carrier for energy at short distances and through an atmosphere. In space, yeah, energy weapons may be more practical because you lose energy less quickly and you dont have to worry about losing half your energy to elastic collision. But as weapons for terrestrial forces, the laws of physics just dont allow it to be efficient.

>>27104574
Doesn't really matter.

If you get better batteries, you can just brute-force your way through, and the tactical advantages of lasers make them still viable weapons, once you're able to get some proper battery technology.

An invisible anti-materiel death beam... that invaluable, no matter how inefficient the weapon is.

>>27104533
Nuclear weapons dont use radiation as their killing method. Thats not the only defining teait, it was just that radioactive elements were not clearly understood at the time.

Lasers, we fully understand. We made them. We know how they work and why, and we know that they arent effective weapons. Even the most powerful lasers would cause minimal damage, but have huge power costs. They just arent feasible. They arent an 'upgrade', people just think they are cool.

Its the same reason we will never have flying cars. People THINK they are neat, but they would be vastly more deadly, and harder to regulate (its much harderto make a road for a flying car, then just spreading some tar and calling it good enough.)

>>27083327
as a medical student i second this anon

>>27104622
>but have huge power costs.

Which is the only problem. The power cost. But we're not even a tech level 1 civilisation, so this isn't much of a surprise.

>>27104558
they only manage that because they are more biologically simple. The laws of thermodynamics say that the more complex a thing is the less stable it is. Extend that to the highly complex mixture of chemicals that defines your unique conscious mind and immortality requires an absurd amount of energy, its the reason our minds are so mercurial relative to things like computers: you are chemically a different person than you were a second ago. Biological immortality is a flawed premise which assumes that we are always the same person, and that it is a valuable pursuit to preserve that. Nothing lasts forever, but you can live on in your genes and through the impact you have on the chaotic empathy that defines life as a whole.

>>27104567
Some "upgrades" are easier than others; there are fixes to our eyes and senses that are easy enough to make but not evolutionarily favorable. You should always remember that things are the way they are for a reason; you cannot metabolize sugars fast enough to have super-strength, and the amount of upkeep required for ultra-powerful biological machinery isnt worth it if you're not going to use it every day. Animals that need to go fast every day evolve to do so, because the costs of doing so out weigh the risks of not. Animals that need to lift enormous weight evolve to do so, because the costs of doing so outweigh the risks of not. Humans have no real constant NEED of these things. The moment you start adding things you'll find that you'll need to start taking some other things away, to a greater or lesser extent.

>>27104558
not during our lifetime, probably

>>27104622
> They arent an 'upgrade', people just think they are cool.
Pretty much this. Science fiction has ruined every field of scientific study.

>>27104622
There are already lasers mounted on ships to destroy missiles and small aircrafts/

>>27104617
Its not about inviability, its about inefficiency. If you can store that kind of energy in a battery you're better off using it to drive a chemical reaction which purifies a highly explosive ionic substance, or a railgun. No matter how good we get, laser weapons will be inefficient compared to more traditional solutions. Im not kidding when I say that that is dictated by the laws of physics.

>>27104647
>Tech level 1
Now who's being speculative? The whole tech-level thing is based on some pretty unfounded assumptions about the universe.

>>27104676
They dont destroy them, they just mess with their guidance or overheat their systems, and they have to be aimed steadily and constantly at a target on a constant trajectory.

>>27104657
I see... well, it is a bit sad we can't be genetically inmortal but I'm satisfied with your awnser.

I guess that asking for a cure of type 1 diabetes and other damages produced by that isn't asking too much, is it?

>>27104412
...for hosting conventions like everyone else?

>>27104676
Thats utility, not offensiveness. You are using it to prevent destruction, which the power output is worth. You only need to cause a small amount of damage, to prevent a much larger amount.

Causing destruction is much harder. Lasers are PRECISE, which makes them lousy warfare weapons. Precise weaponry is used on single targets, VIPs. It is not a destructive weapon. It will not be a destructive weapon. This isnt something thats debatable dude.

>>27104720
Oh yeah, there are many ideas on how to fix diabetes. I personally submitted a grant thats a little off the wall; the problem with diabetes is that you need to insert a replacement insulin-producer with access to both the GI tract and the blood. What does both of those? Anyone? Anybody? Ill tell you what does! Tapeworms. Thats right. I submitted a grant to use a biologically engineered tapeworm to fix diabetes.

>>27104744
wow, also you can fix Hypothyroidism with any other kind of crazy creatures?

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For more information on laser weapons, read the IEEE Spectrum article titled "Ray Guns Get Real" on their website.

>>27104773
There are already some pretty efficient drugs to fix that. Hypothyroidism is theorized to be caused by defects/inefficiencies in a bunch of different proteins. It would be too much work to try to fix those proteins in-vivo (change your genes while you're still alive), so drugs are pretty much your best option short of getting a really fancy re-engineered thyroid.

>>27104789
ah crap.

Well, anyway. Talking about modified microorganisms, can you make a biosuit to allow you, for example, breath underwater?

>>27104981
You'd be better off making either a mouthpiece which "strains" the dissolved oxygen out of the water and releases it into your face (you'd need to hold it in a contraption that would seal it to you face), or just make a large aquatic creature with an internal bladder that it filled with survivable levels of oxygen. The whole "bio-mechanical suit" thing isnt really a good idea; it would need to be made to size, and it would shrink or sag based on its level of hydration and other health factors.

>>27105026
Now you said something about creating creatures, could nature make a fantasy creature work? like giants, dragons or chimeras?

>>27105026
>>27105382
Second, can we create a fire-breathing anything, and how large can an avian-lizard-whateverthefuck chimera get.
DG, help us.

>>27105382
Large creatures require higher atmospheric concentrations of oxygen than are available to day. This is the reason that after the fall of the dinosaurs nothing quite so large stepped up to fill the void.

>>27105466
So basically large creatures can only survive in oxigen rich atmospheres?

>>27105466
Basically, thats also why bugs are only as large as they are; because they pull in oxygen in a much less efficient way than other animals.

>>27105461
Fire-breathing? Probably not gonna happen. I cant even imagine how you could get that to work...

>>27105642
>Fire-breathing? Probably not gonna happen. I cant even imagine how you could get that to work...
napalm. don't some bugs already do similiar stuff?

>>27083270
Fellow Lab guy here,

In the conventional method, You are right. You cannot create a human/ape hybrid through combining the chromosomes directly (IE: insemination)

However, it could very well be possible to create a human with apelike features or vica-versa.

We could take a plasmid with an ape gene and inject it into a human birthing cell, than that could create a hybrid.

However, it is not possible with modern lab equipment and known tools to do such a thing,
but perhaps in 20 years or so.

>>27083320
No they weren't Stalin had them executed when he got paranoid. He killed a lot of scientist because they were free thinkers.

Infact, pre-stalin Soviet Russia was famous for it's scientific community back then.

>>27083448
>more than 4 bases of DNA

Do you mean the U, Uracil? that shit is only in RNA, which is derived from DNA.

>>27108169
>You cannot create a human/ape hybrid through combining the chromosomes directly (IE: insemination)
Given mules, why not?

>>27111975
Protein and cell structure incompatibilities. Imagine if every cell of your body was allergic to itself.

>>27113485
It's more like if every second cell of your body was oil and the rest were water.

The shit just don't mix.

>>27104688
>you're better off using it to drive a chemical reaction which purifies a highly explosive ionic substance

What would a weapon like that look like? What would the bullet or expelled force look like as a weapon?

IM BAAAAACK. WHO SHIT ALL OVER THIS THREAD? YALL NEED TO DO SOME READING BEFORE YOU GO POSTIN!

>>27115465
you'd use the highly concentrated ionic explosive to drive a projectile.

>>27108288
Try methylcytosine, Illicine, etc

>>27111975
>>27113485
>>27113516
Read the thread, Ive explained why. Its due to a misalignment of genetic information leading to a situation in which viability is nearly impossible.

>>27108169
Well met

>>27117093
Link to the post where you say the difference between human/chimps and horses/donkeys.

>>27082759
hey

>>27120687

Here you go
>>27083483

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>>27104744

>Using worms to improve the health of the populace

I approve

>>27082732
>wanna fuck?
>of course

That is one slutty snake thing.

>>27083448
>>You are now aware that it is impossible to stick a human brain in a jar/mechanical shell, as there are thousands of background signals originating in the body that it relies on to function, and we have only the barest hint of an understanding as to how that works.
strictly speaking, just because we can't actually do it with our current level of understanding doesnt actually make it "impossble"

>>27125077
As Ive explained, its prohibitively difficult to the point that it provides no benefit to do so. The idea of putting a brain in a can assumes that it is somehow more beneficial than leaving it in the body. Signals aside, there are so many hormones and nutrients that your body makes for you, you're better off just leaving it in. Why build a bipedal platform for holding, nourishing, and supporting a brain when evolution has already given us one thats pretty fuckin TOIT

>>27124206
I thought it was creative, then again I was drunk when I came up with it...

>>27083540
>genetics as it is taught in highschool is only about 10% of the whole story.
I'm guessing you know the other 90%.

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>>27124206
Deirdre, your environmental-maniac followers are are critical threat to the future of human society on this planet. There's no way a stable world government can exist with your lunatic minions upsetting the peace and calm we're trying to establish! However, I can see a solution to this developing problem - and if you could lend me your data on Centauri Psi, I'm sure this crisis could be resolved quickly.

Hey Drunk Geneticist.
You wouldn't happen to be the same guy as the "Mad Geneticist" that posted semi-frequently on /d/ a couple months back, would you?

If I recall correctly, he was trying to make cowgirls using gene therapy, or something.
Kept going on about how it was completely possible, and that the only thing stopping him was the lack of his own lab and equipment.
Because he'd ruin his career if he got caught squandering someone else's resources on a project like that.

>>27130572
>Because he'd ruin his career if he got caught squandering someone else's resources

He never considered going to prison to be a big deal?

>>27130658
Why would he have?
It's not like he was planning to kidnap test subjects off the street.

Unless you mean going to jail for stealing supplies, then yeah, that's probably accounted for under "career ruining".

>>27083926
hence why he said "christians".

I don't mind catholics much. I mean, they have a super fortress guarded by guys with halberds. Probably are running some vatican superspy business all up in there. Or vampire hunting.

I love you Drunk Geneticist. I would like to ask you what you were like when you got into this field of work and what are you like now? what was your goal when you started and what is it now?

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>>27082732
>GRONK

Every god damn time.

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>>27130048

Where's my technology Lal

Don't make me holy war your ass

>>27082759
Shouldn't you be participating in a letter-writing campaign to keep Doonesbury published in your local newspaper while upvoting something on reddit.

>>27083348
What?

>>27083381
But the Soviets disputed genetics and heredity. They even promoted the Lysenkoism bupkiss as an alternative theory.

>Does it have human intelligence or greater?

This one bothers me.

If it's smarter than you, doesn't that make it immoral for it to have sex with you since you're not as smart as it?

>>27132154
I think it's using "human intelligence" as an equivalent for "sapience" or whatever the proper term is.

>>27132154
Remember, "human intelligence" doesn't mean "smart human intelligence" it just means that as long as it wouldn't count as mentally incapacitated or sub-human if it *was* a human it's fine.

>>27105642
>Fire-breathing? Probably not gonna happen. I cant even imagine how you could get that to work...
process that produces a flamable gas, we already make methane so that not that hard.

Specialized cells that trap and transport that gas, or develope blood cells so as to also trap and transport that gas. Specialized organ that contains that gas under pressure.

Release preasurized flamable gas at the front of the mouth, organ directly in front of it that produces a tiny spark, likely from friction. OR skip that last step if the gas combusts on exposure to oxygen

That should do it.

>>27132295
>>27132337

What I'm asking is what if a non-human sees it as immoral to fuck a human because humans are much less intelligent?

Like say a fictional race of Gronkoids existed and were much more intelligent than us. If they applied an equivalent of the Harkness test, they would find it immoral to fuck us because we don't have Gronkoid-level intelligence.

>>27132836
the point about 'human intelligence" is "can the being in question give informed consent".

So as both the human and the Gronkoid are capable of giving informed consent, it doesn't matter that one is smarter than the other.

>>27129967

>>27130572
I actually am...You've discovered my dark secret! I actually met up with a few girls from /d/ and some shit went down.

>>27130658
>>27130688
I wouldnt go to jail, Id just never work again is all. You know, 10 years of work down the drain.

>>27132726
You're obviously not in the business of actually making things like that a reality. Creating specialized cells from scratch as well as organs with novel function? that shit is totally unheard of in the current state of the science. Is it possible? Yeah, sure. But like a lot of other things we've discussed its prohibitively difficult to the point that it will probably never happen.

>>27133110
oh, I'll admit it isn't easy. Just saying that would be the steps needed to do it, as you said "I cant even imagine how you could get that to work".

You can already light your farts on fire, so what you need is to have way of separating and storing the fart gas, expelling it near the mouth, and generating the spark needed to initiate combustion.

It's why some say the idea of something evolving that shoots flames from an orifice isn't outside the realm of possiblities. Now that didn't happen, and making it happen in a short period of time would be very difficult.
But start with basic carbon based oxygen breathing life, give it a billion years of evolution and the chances of a firebreather are non-negligible.

>>27133025
>So as both the human and the Gronkoid are capable of giving informed consent, it doesn't matter that one is smarter than the other.

Yeah, but you're overlooking the fact that the original image just treats "Human intelligence" as the dividing line.

According to half the boards on 4chan, dolphins can initiate sexual contact, demonstrating a willingness to fuck, and they do communicate with each other, even if not with words. Say a human tried to fuck a hyperintelligent Gronkoid that communicated telepathically with others of its kind. It might see us as a dolphin-equivalent. Even though we look ready to fuck, the Gronkoid might find it morally reprehensible since our species is so far beneath theirs. We'd look like dirty animals to them.

>>27133219
The biggest issues are as follows:
>how to achieve ignition with a biological mechanism
>how to ensure isolation of the accelerant from the ignition area to prevent internal combustion.
>biologically flame-proofing the area surrounding the source of the flame.

and thats just off the top of my head

>>27133276
>even if not with words
If it can't communicate with you in a completely unambiguous and clear method of verbal communication in a language you speak, then it isn't okay.

Dolphin fuckers work really hard to try and justify themselves, just like all beastialiasts.

>>27133276
>According to half the boards on 4chan, dolphins can initiate sexual contact, demonstrating a willingness to fuck, and they do communicate with each other, even if not with words
INFORMED CONSENT
dolphins can't demonstrate that they are aware of the risks involved, are aware of your intentions.
That's what informed consent means.
A 10 year old can say "I want to fuck" but they aren't capable of giving informed consent. Because they don't have the mental capacity to be truly informed.

The dividing line is lower limit, as long as you reach the lower limit your fine. Basically "you must have this much intelligence to give informed consent" once you do, anything above that is irrelevant.

>>27133312
>how to achieve ignition with a biological mechanism
possible, They might just swallow flint and keep that in pouch near the mouth. Sure that doesn't qualify as purely biological, but fuck it, animals use stones as part of their biological processes. Not outside of the realm of possiblities.

Or create an electric current, but my biology isn't good enough to tell me how possible that is in air instead of water

ow to ensure isolation of the accelerant from the ignition area to prevent internal combustion.
I don't see this as a big problem. You farts don't cause your intestine to explode, even if you have a lighter in your back pocket.

>biologically flame-proofing the area surrounding the source of the flame.
admittedly a problem. Doing it out of the mouth would probably be a bad idea, as that issue is sensitive. But it would be possible to evolve tissue capable of withstanding short periods of moderate heat from fire. Have the orifice that expells the gas and the flint pouch both surrounded by the tissue.

there are issues, but they don't feel insurmountable for carbon based life.

>>27133312
>Ignition
I was about to say something about swallowing stones, but >>27133551 did it first.

>>27104777
>THEL
It left out
>Canceled because Israel kept selling the weapons data to China.

>>27133428
>If it can't communicate with you in a completely unambiguous and clear method of verbal communication in a language you speak, then it isn't okay.

What if this hypothetical alien species communicated telepathically? They could construe the flappings of our vocal chords as automatic reflexes.

>>27133551
>Because they don't have the mental capacity to be truly informed.

What's to say that an alien doesn't think the same about us? What if in some alien's mind, a human doesn't have the mental capacity to be truly informed?

Not advocating dolphinfucking. Just saying that an alien race might see humans as lower forms of life, and if they applied the same standards to us, they would find sex with humans morally reprehensible because we only have a fraction of their intelligence just as a dolphin has a fraction of our intelligence.

>>27133551
>>27133584
The problem is, in order to create a spark you need to create an electric charge which jumps a small distance to get to ground; if you generate a charge in-vivo the easiest way for it to get to ground is through the body, not across a path full with flammable gas.

>>27133710
>What if in some alien's mind, a human doesn't have the mental capacity to be truly informed?
I think you're problem comes from thinking humans occupy one spot on the level of intelligence.

They don't, they occupy a massive range. Some of this is below the level of being able to give informed consent, say a ten year old or someone with severe developmental disabilities.

Others are aboved it, but they range a whole lot.
Lets say Richard Feynman, genius, renaissance man, all around cool do, is still alive, and he wants to have sex with Paris Hilton (extremely shallow and not very smart, but not to the level of developmental disability), and she wants to have sex with him.

That would be totally cool, even though the difference between the level of intellect is massive.

There is a line, that line is the ability to give informed consent, human beings can be both above this line and below it. All that matters is being above that line.

An alien who doesn't think that a healthy human adult has to mental capacity to be truly informed to conduct an act that perform after communication, and even fucking philosphizing about, has no fucking basis for that belief.

So it's not because dolphins are dumber than us, someone dumber than me might still be able to give informed consent, its whether their above the line of giving informed consent.

>>27133754
okay, so that's why electric eels work but you can't do that on land.

So were back to having two pieces of flint.

>>27133843
Oh, you can do that on land, but it takes a lot more energy to overcome the electrical resistance of fucking air.

Also, in order to use flint or something like that you'd need to be able to differentiate and physically separate flint from other quartz, which I have no idea how you'd even begin to accomplish.

>>27133754
What about something like bombardier beetles?
Sure it's not technically fire, but I don't think anything on the receiving end of a 3rd degree chemical burn is going to appreciate the difference.

>>27133818
Your problem comes from assuming human intelligence (broadly defined) as a point of reference because we only have human intelligence to work with.

Let me put this in perspective: say a sexually undeveloped member of an alien race is still much more intelligent than your average human, but the race considers sex with that member as immoral because it isn't intelligent enough. That being the case, sex with a human would be even worse since our intelligence is far below that.