Are hybrids of animals and humans possible?

Quite contradictory thoughts arise in your head when you start thinking about creating hybrids by crossing animal and human cells. For a long time, scientists have created hybrid embryos in their laboratories, all this is done to find possible methods of treating a wide range of diseases. However, such experiments with nature can go too far. Will there ever be hybrids of animals and humans? What place will they take in this world? These kinds of questions are directly related to the topic of confrontation between science and ethics.

Hybrids in the animal kingdom

Can you create hybrids of animals and humans? Some people may immediately have terrible images of people with a tiger's head, a fish's tail, a bird's beak, shaggy hair, and so on. Can scientists in their laboratories create genetic modifications as simply as in a video game? In the animal world, an example of interspecific hybrids is the mule, the result of mating the donkey and the horse. This is a completely healthy animal, which, however, has lost its ability to reproduce itself because of the different number of chromosomes in the donkey (62 chromosomes) and the horse (64 chromosomes).

By the way, mules are not the only example of inter-species crossing. Many related species can mate to produce sterile offspring. For example, lions and tigers (their cubs are called ligers), zebras and horses. The closest relative of man can be called primacy, but only one thought of creating hybrids of animals and humans, namely humans and monkeys, by combining genomes is almost not possible.

The immune system rejects foreign cells

Most of the human immune system functions in such a way that even the cells of another person are not always successfully accepted by the body, for example, during the transplantation of internal organs, not to mention the inhuman, animal cell. Any foreign tissue will be immediately detected, and a powerful immune response - rejection - will follow.

Exclusively for the benefit of mankind

Scientists engaged in genetic research, there is no purpose to create monsters, where the hybrid of man and animal is something terrible and terrible. In addition, the public will never accept the idea of creating any mutants. They are not interested in working on these kinds of things, stem cell research and therapeutic cloning are conducted exclusively in the interests of the individual, and are primarily aimed at combating many incurable diseases.

Not so simple

One can imagine that hybrids of animals and humans (a photo that reflects the public's notions of them, see below) are still possible, since the genetic code of DNA is universal for almost any living organism. For example, protein in horse cells is synthesized in exactly the same way as in humans. However, everything is not so simple: to try to make a hybrid, you have to go through a huge number of trials and mistakes, the question is how many people need to sacrifice to make, for example, a mermaid. It can take a lot longer than it might seem at first glance.

It is comparatively trivial to add human genes to animals and plant, and quite the opposite is the case. But individual genes determine only a specific protein, they can not magically transform an organism into something completely different, for example, a chimera monster. Individual genes make up only a small part of who we are, and who the dog or jellyfish is. The species of an individual depends on a number of often similar genes, packed into a complex set of functional nodes, which can be completely different in certain species of organisms.

The hybrid of man and animal: how is this being called from the point of view of science?

From a scientific point of view, this issue is considered beyond imaginary and mythical contexts. In real life, the creation of such creatures as animal and human hybrids is the subject of legal, moral and technological discussions in the context of the latest achievements in the field of genetic engineering. Do I need to do this at all? Will this be capitulation to low-lying human desires or self-improvement? Such a hybrid of a man and an animal is called a "couple-man". They also refer to cytoplasmic hybrids - the cybrid.

Hybrids as examples of interspecific friendship

Interspecific friendship in the animal kingdom, as well as between humans and their pets, provides the basic root of the popularity of such creatures. In various mythologies throughout history there were many famous hybrids, including as part of Egyptian and Indian spirituality. According to one artist and scientist Pietro Gaetto, "the ideas about hybrids of man and animal always have their origins in religion."

A hybrid of man and animal is an entity that includes human and animal components. For thousands of years, these hybrids have been one of the most common themes in animal stories around the world. The absence of a strong gap between man and nature in several traditional and ancient cultures provided a basic historical context for the popularity of fairy tales, where people and animals have a mixed relationship, as a result of which one turns into something completely different.

Is a human and animal hybrid a fictional character or a possible reality?

At present, hybrids of animals and humans remain, in effect, fictional characters, whose images are often used in video games and popular science fiction films and books. Invented hybrids play different roles, from villainous mutants to divine heroes. As for ancient beliefs and mythology, here you can find a huge number of hybrids, for example, Pan is a deity in Greek mythology, which symbolizes wild and unrestrained nature, he was worshiped by hunters, fishermen and shepherds. This naughty cheerful character has hind legs with hoofs and goat horns, and otherwise his appearance looks quite human. Another famous mythological hybrid is the Egyptian god of death named Anubis.

In Chinese mythology, a deity named Chu Pa-Tse for his evil deeds and licentious activities is expelled from heaven to Earth. By mistake, he enters the uterus of the sow and eventually is born half human, half pig, with a pig's head and ears in combination with the human body. The inner essence of this mythological hybrid does not change for the better.

After he kills and eats his mother and brothers, the pig-like monster finds refuge in the mountains, where he spends his days hunting unguarded travelers who were not fortunate enough to cross his path. However, thanks to the efforts of the good goddess Guan Yin, traveling in China, he was persuaded to take a more noble path and accept the priesthood.

Experiments to create hybrid embryos

Is it possible to create a hybrid of man and animal? A hybrid embryo is a mixture of human and animal tissues. There are several types of hybrid embryos, for example, cytoplasmic embryos are created by transferring nuclei containing DNA from human cells into an animal egg from which its own genetic information was previously removed. The resulting embryos are grown in the laboratory for several days, then collected to create stem cells. The latter can become specific types of tissues.

This method of creating stem cells is used to study various diseases and is considered a good alternative for human eggs proper, which are available in a more limited number, unlike animals. Scientists do not intend to actually create a hybrid of man and animal, a creature capable of independent life.

Risks of mixing genetic material

Mixing human and animal genetic materials can lead to the risk of creating new diseases, but advances in this field can bring tremendous benefits to humanity in a global sense. As scientists say, these are just cells, not real beings. This avoids the use of human ova in research. The genetic contribution of the animal to the embryo is so small that it is essentially a human embryo (99.9%). Since the latter was not produced by human fertilization, it can not be regarded as human.

Human and animal rights are not violated, as the embryo will never be allowed to become a human or animal. Biologists are engaged in mixing DNA of different animals since the 70s, but the idea of introducing animal genes into humans remains taboo. And the violation of these prohibitions can, in the final analysis, not only save mankind from a huge number of diseases, but also fundamentally change our entire species.

Transgenesis is able to use as several separate cells, and the entire body. The hybrid of man and animal (the name "chimera" was used in Greek mythology) is also referred to as a transgenic entity, which in the future can be used to model specific human diseases, the production of new materials, tissues and much more. About forty years ago, specialists learned to transport and modify the genes of plants and animals. Until now, the issue of the use of human material, in particular, for moral and ethical reasons, remains controversial.