Half Animal, Half Human!

When science allows human DNA to merge with animals, here’s what happens!

Heard of Lord Narasimha? Popular Hindu deities, as evidenced in early epics, iconography, temples and festivals for over a millennium are often visualized as half-animal and half human. As much as we’d prefer
believing them to be part of our epic history and nothing else, today, science gives an explanation. Surprised? Don’t be!

Human Sheep

We hear of so many people dying of organ failure. If they had a donor, their lives could have been saved. Unfortunately, the waiting list for organs is longer than the supply.

So, in 2007. when scientists at the University of Nevada-Reno announced that they could grow livers in sheep (made up of 20 percent human cells), their research was encouraged wholeheartedly!
As the circulation systems of sheep and humans are similar, Dr. Esmail Zanjani injected human stem cells into growing sheep fetuses.

The study hasn’t yet peaked, but who can say?
Soon, no human would die of liver failure, and we’ll have Baa Baa Black Sheep to thank for it!

Humanzee

They say that humans share over 98 percent of their DNA with chimpanzees. So, would it be impossible to create a human-chimp hybrid – a Humanzee? Scientists thought not!

As immoral as it may sound, in the 1920s, Ilia lvanov, a Soviet biologist artificially inseminated female chimps with human sperm Unfortunately, that did not work.

In 19705, a chimp named Oliver was thought to be a humanzee since he walked upright. But, genetic testing in the 90s disproved it.

Human Rabbits

Who would’ve ever thought these tiny furries could be the answer to tissue growth?

Chinese researchers at the Shanghai Second Medical University successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. The eggs were allowed to develop for several days before the scientists destroyed the embryos to hanrested their stern cells. They hope that this process can one day be used to grow cells or tissues for transplantation.