"Adventurous woman" sought to serve as surrogate mother to Neanderthal clone baby

[Sonya610]

There are a lot of people in the Homo sapiens population who don't have the sickle cell mutation and yet are fine JMO.

Yes, most people don't have that mutation because they ancestors didn't in an area where Malaria was the top killer! The people that call those zones their ancient homeland have the mutation up to 40% of the time!

 

[Ausgirl]

As (theoretical) surrogate to little Rutiger, I'd be concerned my immune system might reject him, or vice versa. Would his blood be too different from my own? Would my antibodies have adverse affects on him in utero?

My next biggest worry would be - would he be expected to be a lab rat his entire life? I'd certainly refuse to sign anything waiving all parental rights, which is probably not what some scientists would prefer in a surrogate. Whose child would he be, legally? Who gets to make the decisions regarding his mental, emotional and physical well-being?

Not so worried about him not feeling 'normal' - there's plenty of folks who don't fit the mold out there who have happy lives, and whose lives don't fit the mold of the average 'happy life'. We don't all have to be and do alike to be happy. I think there's many other important factors that contribute to happiness which would adequately offset the issue of his being quite unique.

One challenge would be finding him opportunities to make some real friends, even just a few. I think that would be a real concern.

He'd be loved, well nourished, healthy and educated - which is a whole lot more than millions of Homo sapiens children have. So my theoretical hand is still up for the task (since I'm theoretically 25 again, woohoo). If the paperwork allows.

 

[Sonya610]

As (theoretical) surrogate to little Rutiger, I'd be concerned my immune system might reject him, or vice versa. Would his blood be too different from my own? Would my antibodies have adverse affects on him in utero?

I don't think the blood type matters much in a first time normal healthy pregnancy. Neanderthals were rh negative so naturally they would want an rh- surrogate for the baby (rh- blood is found in populations with higher neanderthal genes and some believe it originated with them).

I believe the blood type often isn't a problem until delivery which is why an rh- mother can often give birth to an rh+ baby ONCE often with no problems, but without drugs to prevent rejection her body will reject any future rh+ embryos.

There is even some controversy about using pigs as surrogates for human offspring, apparently it sounds quite feasible (presumably instead of outsourcing to India which is what many folks do now). It is a pretty astounding article:

http://www.asutriplehelix.org/from_bacon_to_human_babies

 

[csziggy]

The "Out of Africa" theory that says all modern humans evolved in Africa and then spread to other areas is quickly being replaced by the "Regional Continuity Theory".

Ancient human remains that predate the "Out of Africa" modern human migration theory have been discovered in various places as science advances. Modern humans were supposed to have originated only in Africa and then migrated to other parts of the world 60,000 years ago, finding human fossils that date back 100,000 years in other parts of the world call that theory into question. The fact Neanderthals split off from modern humans 400,000 years ago and never evolved in Africa yet had nearly the same characteristics, including tools and jewelry and even boats, raises even more questions:

There is no doubt that different types of humans spread out across the Old World long before 'modern human' groups did. Neanderthals in Europe and Denisovans in Siberia prove that. (New DNA analysis shows ancient humans interbred with Denisovans - http://www.nature.com/news/new-dna-analysis-shows-ancient-humans-interbred-with-denisovans-1.11331) The Ice Ages cut those groups off from other human populations for long periods and may have reduced their ability to cope with new diseases, and possibly new ideas.

So far there have been no fossils found for earlier hominins than homo erectus evolving or spreading outside of Africa. The Australopithecines, though numerous, seem entirely confined to Africa and the consensus is that they are our ancestors (though there are disagreements as to exactly which Australopithecine species is the ancestral one).

The Genographic Project by National Geographic shows that the dominant type of modern human that most living humans inherit their DNA from spread from Africa in a fairly concentrated series of waves after the glaciers retreated. Yes, quite a few do carry a small amount of DNA from the groups that left Africa earlier, but it is a small percentage of our total DNA.

There were likely waves of humans leaving Africa over and over as climate conditions allowed or population and resource pressures demanded. So few human fossils survive that we only have tiny glimpses of our past and glaciers are notorious for removing all the levels that could carry fossils of the right age in the areas where humans might have lived.

Denisovans are represented so far by one pinky finger bone and one tooth, both of which could have belonged to a current era modern human or a Neanderthal. There could be dozens more subgroups of archaic modern humans in the vaults that have not been identified because there are not enough parts that differ from other humans. With the success for identifying Denisovans, many early specimens will probably be tested for DNA.

Human evolution and spread of humans are not 'either/or' propositions. Humans are far too complicated for that!

:seeya:

 

[Elley Mae]

I don't think the blood type matters much in a first time normal healthy pregnancy. Neanderthals were rh negative so naturally they would want an rh- surrogate for the baby (rh- blood is found in populations with higher neanderthal genes and some believe it originated with them).

I believe the blood type often isn't a problem until delivery which is why an rh- mother can often give birth to an rh+ baby ONCE often with no problems, but without drugs to prevent rejection her body will reject any future rh+ embryos.

There is even some controversy about using pigs as surrogates for human offspring, apparently it sounds quite feasible (presumably instead of outsourcing to India which is what many folks do now). It is a pretty astounding article:

http://www.asutriplehelix.org/from_bacon_to_human_babies

I am 0-

http://pregnancy.about.com/od/rhfactor/a/Rh-Factor-in-Pregnancy.htm


And had to do this,

Hemolytic disease can be prevented for many women, if they are not already sensitized. Rh immunoglobulin (RhIg) is a blood product given via injection to help the Rh negative mother by "minimizing her reaction to the Rh positive red cells. Reactions to the medication are generally minor, including soreness at the injection sight and sometimes a slight fever.

I now know why I love rare meat, (love beef tar tare) and can climb trees well.

 

[Nova]

Sheesh you are right. When you aren't being overly PC you say brilliant things.

You, sir, have a sharp mind!

Thank you, Sonya, but you will be disappointed to learn I am not particularly PC for its own sake. I actually believe what probably seems like nonsense to you.

***

BTW, I did not mean to imply that Neanderthal's had no social abilities. Recent discoveries show that Neanderthal's had death rituals and cared for their sick and elderly, so obviously they DID share at least some of the social abilities of their Cro-Magnon cousins.

(I hope I have that right: Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons being contemporaries. I realize the science is changing.)

 

[Nova]

I don't think that would be such a big problem, actually.
No one is born with immunity to modern diseases. It is not really in our genes, apart from the non-specific immunity that is due to the cell membrane properties and inflammatory responses etc. - but a Neanderthal would have all that, I presume. We haven't changed all that much.

Microbes mutate so quickly that it would be impossible for our genes to keep up with the specific immunity to specific modern microbial strains. Luckily our genes have been programmed with the ability of the immune system to learn to defend itself against the microbes it encounters. Therefore, IMO, a member of an ancient species who was born and brought up in modern times and encounters modern microbes would develop resistance to modern diseases, not ancient ones.
If a Neanderthal child would grow up normally with Homo Sapiens humans (as opposed to a sterile lab somewhere) his situation would be different from the Native Americans who encountered previously unknown microbial strains when the Europeans came. During his childhood the Neanderthal child would be exposed to the same microbes Homo Sapiens children are and I think he would develop immunity the same way they do.

With respect and full acknowledgement that I am not an expert, your account does not explain why when Europeans and Native Americans first met, only a few of the former died while 90% of the latter died from epidemics. And those epidemics were not confined to the first generation after contact.

I'm sure what you say is true for rapidly mutating viruses such as the cold and flu, but it appears that we do pass on genetic resistance to other pathogens such as plague and smallpox.

A Neanderthal baby would not have those advantages. Could modern medicine solve the problem with artificial immunization? I don't know.

***

ETA I now see you and Sonja covered this above. Donjeta you wrote, in part:

However, it does not necessarily mean that there is anything lacking in their genes that would prevent them from developing immunity after such encounters. After the initial epidemics you might find that the members of those populations who survived the first attack of the disease have developed immunity much like anybody else.

(Emphasis added.) Yet it is the "initial encounter" we are discussing. I don't think anyone is suggesting that future generations of Neanderthals couldn't acquire resistance to modern diseases, we are only questioning whether they would survive long enough to do so.

 

[Sonya610]

I will try and find a link for this info but I remember reading that cloning has many problems and one of these is the idea that the cloned being's cell "remembers" its age. Once a clone is created, the "biological age" is actually the age at which the cell had already reached.

So maybe that is why Dolly had premature arthritis? The cells reproducing the dna had aged and changed the dna pattern as errors developed in the sequence? Just like the way the eggs of an older female human degrade and as a result the dna may cause a higher rates of downs syndrome and other genetic issues?

Interesting! This is a great thread.

 

[Sonya610]

Thank you, Sonya, but you will be disappointed to learn I am not particularly PC for its own sake. I actually believe what probably seems like nonsense to you.

I prefer the Spartans. The other extreme. Great addition to the guns and dogs kwim?

 

[Donjeta]

With respect and full acknowledgement that I am not an expert, your account does not explain why when Europeans and Native Americans first met, only a few of the former died while 90% of the latter died from epidemics. And those epidemics were not confined to the first generation after contact.

I'm sure what you say is true for rapidly mutating viruses such as the cold and flu, but it appears that we do pass on genetic resistance to other pathogens such as plague and smallpox.

A Neanderthal baby would not have those advantages. Could modern medicine solve the problem with artificial immunization? I don't know.

***

ETA I now see you and Sonja covered this above. Donjeta you wrote, in part:



(Emphasis added.) Yet it is the "initial encounter" we are discussing. I don't think anyone is suggesting that future generations of Neanderthals couldn't acquire resistance to modern diseases, we are only questioning whether they would survive long enough to do so.

I was actually not talking about Neanderthals evolving immunity during thousands of future generations. I was talking about the kind of immunity where their immune cells encounter microbes, learn to recognize pathogens and produce specific antigens to fight against them. This happens in the individual, you don't get this from the previous generations. (Breastfeed babies get some antibodies from the mother's milk but this is temporary and I suppose the Neanderthal baby could get breastmilk too.) I don't see any reason to think that this process would be fundamentally different in Neanderthals since it is present in other vertebrate species whose lines of evolution diverged from humans a lot longer ago.

This happens after the initial encounter in the individual, also for us humans. Everyone of us here on WS has had lots of these initial encounters and lived to tell the tale. So it really does not matter much that flu viruses have evolved and are different now that they were 30 000 years ago because all children have to encounter them for the first time at some point anyway.

If they could clone a flu virus that was present in Neanderthal time but is not here any longer it would be just as new to this Neanderthal baby as it would be to us.

IIRC many researchers believe that the plague epidemics stopped largely because of improved socioeconomic conditions, better nutrition, hygiene and infrastructure, not so much because we evolved immunity. If they don't make the Neanderthal baby live in the caves he would have the benefit of all that too.

 

[ATasteOfHoney]

Larger brains indicate higher intelligence, but only in terms of the species as a whole. The size of an individual's brain may not signify anything. (IIRC, Einstein's brain was average size or slightly smaller.)

In the first chapter of Gerald Diamond's excellent COLLAPSE, he talks about friends in remote parts of New Guinea. (Diamond is a botanist by trade and spent a great deal of time studying tropical plants.) His New Guinea friends would be considered "primitive" by modern standards, yet when Diamond details how much knowledge they have to have to secure healthy food and avoid poisonous plants and dangerous animals, etc., it's clear a surviving tribesman must be at least as smart as your average suburbanite.

Homo sapiens' (us) great advantage seems to lie in our social abilities. Would a Neanderthal clone have the same genetic disposition?

(I certainly agree with the poster above who questions a clone's resistance to modern diseases. Big problem, I expect.)

Einstein's brain did have some unique features ... an oddly thick connective tissue between the right and left brain, and an overdeveloped portion of the brain that is known as the "math" area.
I agree with you about the disposition/social abilities. Perhaps us aggressive Homo Sapiens basically killed Neanderthals to get rid of our competition? We are violent as a whole.

 

[STANDREID]

I don't expect this guy to succeed even if he is serious I but don't have any problem with it. What are they afraid of, that this person won't have a soul? I don't even have a problem with human cloning.

There was a Russian doctor who supposedly tried to crossbreed, through artificial insemination, humans and apes but failed although I believe most scientists think that it could be done. I'm basically libertarian but I would even think that should be illegal unless someone could convince me that positives outweighed negatives which I highly doubt. Somebody will almost certainly do it someday just to prove they can even though it sounds like Nazi Germany. When it happens, I pray that this poor being is loved and well cared for.

 

[wfgodot]

Harvard professor blasts Neanderthal clone baby rumor on Web (bostonherald.com)

---
He blames a mistake in an article he says was written off an interview in the German magazine Der Spiegel, badly misinterpreting what he said — that such a cloning might theoretically be possible someday — and arriving at the conclusion that he was actively looking for a woman to bear a cave baby with DNA scavenged from ancient Neanderthal bones. He suggested poor translation skills may be part of the problem.
---

more at the link

 

[matou]

Harvard professor blasts Neanderthal clone baby rumor on Web (bostonherald.com)

more at the link

Yeah Yeah, that's it! LOL

 

[wfgodot]

Just so difficult to translate back and forth between a pair of Germanic languages. (smh)

 

[Kat]

Harvard professor blasts Neanderthal clone baby rumor on Web (bostonherald.com)

more at the link

I think he's being very diplomatic in saying there were translation issues. If it had been me I'd be all over those reporters like white on rice but then again I'm not a genius haha.

In the article (translated to english) it's clear that the reporter was hammering this issue.

In fact, I think the interview was slack and the reporters came off as a hacks. (they are named as "Interview conducted by Philip Bethge and Johann Grolle" on the website).

They had to opportunity to interview this man:

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Church"]George Church - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

and they decided to pick one phrase and go over it and over it and over it.

Very shoddy reporting. But, they've gotten their PR out of it.

Sorry but shoddy journalism really chafes my arse.

 

[wfgodot]

Church interview with Spiegel, transcript:

http://www.spiegel.de/international...truction-material-of-the-future-a-877634.html

 

[Ausgirl]

.... I feel oddly bereft. :cry:

 

[Nova]

I prefer the Spartans. The other extreme. Great addition to the guns and dogs kwim?

I hope I didn't give you the impression I have anything against dogs.

I don't even mind guns in sparsely populated areas; I do think they become more a liability than an asset as humans crowd ever closer together.

And I'm much more partial to the Athenians, myself, not that they were exactly pacifists. But at least they produced better poets.

 

[Nova]

I don't expect this guy to succeed even if he is serious I but don't have any problem with it. What are they afraid of, that this person won't have a soul? I don't even have a problem with human cloning.

There was a Russian doctor who supposedly tried to crossbreed, through artificial insemination, humans and apes but failed although I believe most scientists think that it could be done. I'm basically libertarian but I would even think that should be illegal unless someone could convince me that positives outweighed negatives which I highly doubt. Somebody will almost certainly do it someday just to prove they can even though it sounds like Nazi Germany. When it happens, I pray that this poor being is loved and well cared for.

I don't see how a human clone (much less a Neanderthal one) could end up as anything but a lab animal. The ethical problems are endless!