Thursday, May 17, 2007

Human Nature Up for Grabs [SK]

Human-animal embryo creation gets the green light in Britain.

The government has overturned its proposed ban on the creation of human-animal embryos and now wants to allow them to be used to develop new treatments for incurable diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's....Scientists would be allowed to grow the embryos in a lab for no more than two weeks, and it would be illegal to implant them in a human.
The story concludes with this misleading statement:

But the new proposal would not allow the creation of "true hybrid" embryos, which would involve fertilising a human egg with animal sperm or vice versa.
Truth is, you can create human-animal hybrids without animal sperm or human eggs (or vice versa). The story itself mentions one of those ways--removing the nucleus of an animal egg and replacing it with a human cell--otherwise known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, or cloning.

Gee, thanks. What a swell story to ponder as I leave for a short vacation.

HT: Drudge

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