The Era Of Chimeras: Scientists Fearlessly Create Bizarre Human/Animal HybridsMichael Snyder So would you drink milk from a cow/human hybrid that produces milk that is almost identical to human breast milk? And how would you interact with a mouse that has a brain that is almost entirely human? These are the kinds of questions that we will have to start to address as a society as scientists create increasingly bizarre human/animal hybrids. Thanks to dramatic advances in genetic technology, we have gotten to the point where it is literally possible for college students to create new hybrid lifeforms in their basements. Of course our laws have not kept pace with these advances, and now that Pandoras Box has been opened, it is going to be nearly impossible to shut it. Scientists try to justify the creation of human/animal hybrids by telling us that it will help cure disease and help end world hunger, but what if scientists discover that combining human DNA with animal DNA can give us incredible new abilities or greatly extended lifespans? Will humanity really have the restraint to keep from going down that road? In my previous article entitled Transhumanists: Superhuman Powers And Life Extension Technologies Will Allow Us To Become Like God, I explored the obsession that transhumanists have with human enhancement. The temptation to take control of our own evolution will surely be too great for many scientists to resist. And even if some nations outlaw the complete merging of humans and animals, that does not mean that everyone else in the world will. Sadly, most of the scientists working in this field express very little concern for these types of considerations. In fact, one very prominent U.S. geneticist says that we should not even worry about hybridization because he believes that humans were originally pig/chimpanzee hybrids anyway So if we are just hybrid creatures ourselves, why should we be scared of making more hybrids? From their point of view, it all makes perfect sense. And right now, extremely weird human/animal hybrids are being grown all over the United States. For example, just check out the following excerpt from anNBC News article about what is going on in Nevada When this article came across my desk recently, I noted that it was almost ten years old. Over the past decade, things have gotten much, much stranger. For example, scientists have now created mice that have artificial human chromosomes in every cell in their bodies And researchers at the University of Wisconsin figured out a way to transfer cells from human embryos into the brains of mice. When those cells from the human embryos began to grow and develop, they actually made the mice substantially smarter So what should we call mice that have brains that are mostly human? And at what point would our relationship with such creatures fundamentally change? When they learn to talk? Scientists all over the planet are recklessly creating these chimeras without really thinking through the implications. In China, scientists have actually inserted human genes into the DNA of dairy cow embryos. Now there are hundreds of human/cow hybrids that produce milk that is virtually identical to human breast milk. Would you buy such milk if it showed up in your supermarket? The scientists that designed these cows say that is the goal. But of course this is just the tip of the iceberg. A very good Slate article detailed some more of the human/animal hybrid experiments that have been taking place all over the planet And Discovery News has documented even more bizarre human/animal hybrids that scientists have developed As technology continues to advance, the possibilities are going to be endless. One professor at Harvard even wants to create a Neanderthal/human hybrid. He says that he just needs an adventurous female human to carry the child I dont know about you, but that sounds like a really, really bad idea to me. And right now, the U.S. federal government is actually considering a plan which would allow scientists to create babies that come from genetic materialdrawn from three parents Many scientists believe that these kinds of technologies will change the world. They might be more right about that than they ever could possibly imagine. When we start monkeying with human DNA, we could be opening up doorways that we never even knew existed. If we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. Hopefully scientists around the globe will understand the dangers of these types of experiments before it is too late. This article first appeared here at the American Dream. Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here. 