Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Hybrids and I'm Not Talking Cars Here........

Interesting article. I guess it's a morbid fact that a chimp-human hybrid can be created. Yuck. No doubt the resulting individual would need some back waxing. I thought the items at the bottom of the article on hybrids amoungst other animals were interesting and are quoted below the whole article link:

http://realitysandwich.com/the_cryptic_cosmology_synchromysticism

EVEN though hybrids of humans and animals have never been created, many other creatures have been crossed successfully.

Lions and tigers have been bred to create ligers, the world's largest cats.

And there are also zorses (zebra and horse), wholphins (whale and dolphin), tigons (tiger and lion), lepjags (leopard and jaguar) and zonkeys (zebra and donkey).

As well as these hybrid mammals, there are also hybrid birds, fish, insects and plants.

Many hybrids, such as mules, are sterile, which prevents the movement of genes from one species to another, keeping both species distinct. However, some can reproduce and there are scientists who believe that grey wolves and coyotes mated thousands of years ago to create a new species, the red wolf.

More commonly, hybrids mate with one of their parent species, which can influence the genetic mix of what gets passed along to subsequent generations.

Hybrids can have desirable traits, often being fitter or larger than either parent.

Most hybrid animals have been bred in captivity, but there are examples of the process occurring in the wild.

This is far more common in plants than animals but in April 2006 a hunter in Canada's North-west Territories shot a polar bear whose fur had an orange tint.

Research showed that it had a grizzly bear father, and it became known as a pizzly.

In 2003, DNA analysis confirmed that five odd-looking felines found in Maine and Minnesota were bobcat-lynx hybrids, dubbed blynxes.


OK now it really gets weird. No shit. You can't make this stuff up:

Scientist sent to Africa in Stalin's plan for species that felt no pain

THE controversial fascination with crossing humans and chimpanzees has a colourful history.

Records suggest that in 1926 the Russian dictator Joseph Stalin decided he wanted to try to create a new species of superhuman.

Kirill Rossiianov, of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, has studied Soviet archives that detailed the wor

His findings, published in the journal Science in Context in 2002, outlined how Russia's leading animal breeding scientist, Professor Ilya Ivanov, was ordered to turn his skills to the quest for an ultimate soldier by crossing humans with apes.

Stalin reportedly told the scientist: "I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat."

Ivanov was sent to French West Africa and on 28 February, 1927, he wrapped two female chimps in nets and inseminated them with sperm from a local man. On 25 June, he inseminated another chimp with human sperm, this time using a special cage and knocking her out with ethyl chloride.

None of the three became pregnant, and at that point he changed tack. He reportedly went on to ask the authorities whether he could, instead, inseminate native women with the sperm of a dead male chimpanzee in a local hospital.

He even suggested the experiment could be carried out without the women's knowledge because he was concerned they would resist.

According to records, the authorities refused permission because the studies would be taking place in a hospital.

Instead they suggested the procedure could be done outside, where no regulations existed, but Ivanov was apparently offended, believing his research should take place in a clinical setting.

It is believed that Ivanov left Africa with a number of primates and went to the Soviet Republic of Georgia.

There, it is thought he worked in a government primate station, where rumour has it he attempted to arrange further experiments on the artificial insemination of women volunteers. No evidence exists that these experiments actually took place.


No evidence, eh? A quick google search yielded this nugget and many more to boot:

http://tinyurl.com/5wt78v

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