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

  • #61
DNA links early human to present peoples

http://www.breitbart.com/system/wire/upiUPI-20130122-174101-2300

"This individual lived during an important evolutionary transition when early modern humans, who shared certain features with earlier forms such as Neanderthals, were replacing Neanderthals and Denisovans, who later became extinct," researcher Svante Paabo said.
 
  • #62
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.

This is a fascinating thread! Such a pool of articulate and brilliant minds on Websleuths. Blood typing is an interesting study of its own. One book I read documented the history of various blood types and why those with the oldest type, O, are more susceptible to disease and that each variation of blood type resists different types of diseases.

I have done no research on Neanderthal biology, but I see that someone mentioned they are rh-. Do they fall into the same A, B, and O categories as modern humans?

Also, it is worth noting that rh is only one of many blood factors, most of which are of no concern, but occasionally do crop up and cause problems incompatibility-wise during pregnancy. It is not a given that a first pregnancy would be immune to such problems. Contamination may be most likely to happen during a mother's pregnancy, but it is possible for contamination to happen in other ways during a lifetime. Consider the possibility of a blood transfusion, which typically does not match for every version of blood factor or the necessary blood bank would be large!

Another not-so-rare complication is A-B-O incompatibility, which usually presents at birth but can cause problems prenatally.

Interesting thought experiment, but I hope for so many reasons this never is on the horizon in reality!
 
  • #63
  • #64
I LOVE this thread - incredible comments, and people discussing ideas and not posters...even in such a highly charged arena as cloning.

YAYAYAYAY.

This thread needs some careful reading and some more research before I can even begin to comment intelligently on the topics being discussed. But man, what a great thread.

Best-
Herding Cats
 
  • #65
Study suggests Neanderthals died out earlier

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-02-04-15-02-21

If true, the study, casts doubt on the idea that modern humans and Neanderthals co-existed - and possibly even interbred - for millennia, because humans aren't believed to have settled in the region until 42,000 years ago.

Thanks for the article!

Have to wonder though - if this true, what about that 'Neanderthal DNA' found in modern humans?

There shall, no doubt, be a furore.
 
  • #66
I hope this whole article and the premise behind it is a joke. Is it?

It would have to be a Caesarian birth, no question. And I'd still so do it.

The thing I'd imagine would be difficult about surrogacy is blood type and possible autoimmune reactions.

I don't care about any moral high grounds here, every pharmacy in the world is stacked to the top shelf with untold animal suffering and death, it's not great (it's awful, really) but that's the price of medical research as things stand.

So - what to name him (or her!)?

I'm sorry, but the fact that children suffer under various, different circumstances does not justify creating a human child as a science experiment, who will not have a family or anyone who will really, truly be connected and love the child and who will be gawked at for life and isolated from everyone around him or her by the fact of his or her difference. That's evil.

When we become a society that embraces and celebrates evil for the sake of personal recognition or power or mere curiosity, our society is doomed.

I am very curious about our anthropological and biological past. Extremely. But not to the degree that my sense of ethics will be tossed out the window.

My God, can we say shades of Mengele?

And for those who still aren't convinced, why don't you see how the Dionne Quints did or better yet, poor Genie who is the subject of the book Genie, A Scientific Tragedy. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcIyXQ20Z1o"]Genie Wiley - Secrets of the Wild Child - YouTube[/ame]

I;m sad to see that there are people in this day and age who advocate creating children for science experiments, just to satisfy intellectual curiosity. Just because we have the power to do something doesn't mean we should.
 
  • #67
Wow. Genie. I read the original Richard Rymer New Yorker article ('A Silent Childhood') about the case (it's not available online without a subscription unfortunately). One of the most affecting things I've ever read.
 
  • #68
gitana1, if you actually -read- my posts, perhaps you might find less grounds for a kneejerk judgement of me being "evil".

I'll save you the trouble and recap:

I'm of a scientific mind, and thus I do advocate experiments that help reveal mysteries regarding human evolution and history.

But I'm also a mother, and any child I bore would receive my full devotion as a mother. If this was not acceptable, I would not participate.

Hope that helps.
 
  • #69
And for those who still aren't convinced, why don't you see how the Dionne Quints did or better yet, poor Genie who is the subject of the book Genie, A Scientific Tragedy. Genie Wiley - Secrets of the Wild Child - YouTube

I;m sad to see that there are people in this day and age who advocate creating children for science experiments, just to satisfy intellectual curiosity. Just because we have the power to do something doesn't mean we should.

Snipped by me.


Genie wasn't born for scientific experiment... She was a horribly abused child that was chained to a toilet for 13 years.

The scientific community tried to teach her linguistic skills and try to help her have a normal life. There was no abuse from the scientists, until they lost funding they tried to give her the most comfortable life she could live.
 
  • #70
gitana1, if you actually -read- my posts, perhaps you might find less grounds for a kneejerk judgement of me being "evil".

I'll save you the trouble and recap:

I'm of a scientific mind, and thus I do advocate experiments that help reveal mysteries regarding human evolution and history.

But I'm also a mother, and any child I bore would receive my full devotion as a mother. If this was not acceptable, I would not participate.

Hope that helps.

That's not what you stated in your post. You stated that kids are abused every day, so essentially, who cares if a kid was bred for science.

Also, I never said you were evil. I said the act would be evil. And it would be.

Snipped by me.


Genie wasn't born for scientific experiment... She was a horribly abused child that was chained to a toilet for 13 years.

The scientific community tried to teach her linguistic skills and try to help her have a normal life. There was no abuse from the scientists, until they lost funding they tried to give her the most comfortable life she could live.

No, Genie was not born for a scientific experiment but if you think those scientists did not abuse her and instead tried to give her a comfortable life either before or after they lost funding, you are sorely mistaken.

I urge you to read Genie: A Scientific Tragedy. Yes, Genie was abused. But it wasn't just by her parents.

After the hospital, Genie was initially placed with a calm and loving foster mother who lived on the beach and just loved Genie, stroked her, kissed her, let her learn at her pace, introduced her slowly to different experiences, etc. Genie was incredibly happy there and developed quickly.

But the scientists disliked the foster mom who was protective and didn't want Genie poked and prodded and used for experiments. So, they sought to use the government to wrest her from her loving and quiet foster home. She was placed in the home of two researchers. She was terrified of dogs. They had a large one, but no matter. She was forced to work endlessly in a lab, day after day, as they drilled her on new words and concepts.

I have watched video of this. Genie was not treated in a loving manner and her exhaustion or anxieties were ignored. Genie regressed emotionally. She became unable to progress past a certain level linguistically. Then, immediately when the money dried up, Genie was placed back with her mother in the very home that had been her prison.

Genie, when she was initially rescued from her home, was a bright-eyed, sensitive-faced, attractive, inquisitive and gentle child full of love and curiosity and even intelligence.

Genie now resides in a foster home not far from where I live and when visited by the author, she gazed at him with "cow-like incomprehension". She was muted, depressed, had none of the language she once knew and was horribly overweight with an ugly haircut like people used to have in institutions in the 40's and 50's.

This is what scientific ambition did for Genie. This is what lack of love did to her, both before and after her rescue. Had she been left alone she may have recovered much more than she did at the hands of the researchers. She was starting to when they yanked her from a place of healing and gentle learning, to a lab.
 
  • #71
I don't equate a life made possible by science to be a horrible event; this is after all a subspecies created by God or nature depending on your view. That is not the same thing as an abusive lab animal sort of thing which would be illegal already because this would be a human being. If Neanderthals were still alive today, I bet we would call them a race rather than a subspecies.

The first births made possible by artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization were children who were the result of a scientific experiment.
 
  • #72
I don't equate a life made possible by science to be a horrible event; this is after all a subspecies created by God or nature depending on your view. That is not the same thing as an abusive lab animal sort of thing which would be illegal already because this would be a human being. If Neanderthals were still alive today, I bet we would call them a race rather than a subspecies.

The first births made possible by artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization were children who were the result of a scientific experiment.

Come on. Children born via artificial insemination, etc., are not the same as this one would be. One child exists as a result of scientific study with love and a desire for fámily as the motivator. The other would be born for the purpose of scientific study, with curiosity being the motivator.

Huge difference and you know it.
 
  • #73
This hypothetical child would be loved by those who raised her/him the same as any other child. It would not be raised in a laboratory and would be free to live a life like any other human being. I'm fairly sure this person would be loved by mankind as well and would thus probably turn out to be quite well off financially. Like I said, I don't expect this to happen any time soon.
 
  • #74
Things like this are the reason I fear for for the state of our world that we are leaving to our children.

IMO cloning is WRONG!

Human, dog, cat, snake, dinosaur, Neanderthal... Just plain wrong.

JMO
 
  • #75
NOW do you believe us? Two men experience the agony of labour for TV show... but give up after just two hours (lucky they don't have to do it for real!)

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/a...just-hours-lucky-dont-real.html#ixzz2INp60WUt
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I've given birth to three children and there is NO WAY I would do this!

jmo

ETA - In response to Nova above.

Wussies! :tsktsk:

http://www.businessweek.com/article...nd-synthetic-biology-is-closer-than-you-think
November 01, 2012

He's got a new book out, I might check it out just to see what he has to say when I have time to read for pleasure again.

This article reads slightly different:

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

English version of actual interview. Definitely a thought experiment. He's a hoot and I am going to get that book for sure!

Off topic but this quote caught my eye and I'm intrigued:

Harumph! From the Bloomberg article;

...Bringing back species from the dead or modifying species will take a bit more work. “You basically have to design a dinosaur from an ostrich because of limitations with old DNA,” he says....

:snooty: Obviously this guy is a kook. Ostrich DNA my :butthead:

:snooty: Any so called "credible scientist" knows that emu DNA is far superior to ostrich DNA.

I reiterate Harumph! :snooty:

Thanks for all the info about Nethanderthal people, I did not know that we were not direct descendants from then, that is insane!!! I read the entire wiki page on them. I will have to try to find a documentary when I have some spare time.

However I disagree about this "species", not sure what to call them, being more elite than today's humans. There is usually a reason that a group of a species dies out. Evolution favors species that are more equipped for survival. Survival of the fittest as they say. They may not have been intelligent enough to fight back, immune system may not have been equipped to handle certain diseases, diseases may have ran in their genes. Scientist do not believe they were just breed out since just a small percentage have Neanderthal genes. I still stand by thinking it is cruel bringing a Neanderthal baby into this world. It's genes would not have the immunity to the diseases of today. Most children do not do well in the spot light - just look at child movie stars so I disagree with the post above that all the attention would be fine. I think it's cruel on multiple levels. Would they bring back dinosaurs or other species that have been extinct? What's the difference with a Neanderthal? Are you going to allow him or her to have children? Then there will be a different gene pool then we ever would have had on this earth. How could you possibly deny another human being that right regardless of different genes. The consequences of this one clone are far reaching.

BBM

Think about the first test tube baby. Everyone thought they'd suffer a similar fate, but I don't even know who it is. I could probably find out with the internet, but who really cares.

The last Ice Age could therefore have wiped Neanderthals out.

Still, others believe Neanderthals were simply absorbed into the modern human populations due to the two groups mating.
http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/neanderthals-died-out-humans-120329.htm

Julien Riel-Salvatore of the University of Colorado Denver worked on another recent Neanderthal study. He shared that "sequencing of ancient Neanderthal DNA indicates that Neanderthal genes make up from 1 to 4 percent of the genome of modern populations -- especially those of European descent. While they disappeared as a distinctive form of humanity, they live on in our genes."

BBM

So they died out because they weren't smart enough to go south for the winter? :waitasec:

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 🤬🤬🤬🤬 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 🤬🤬🤬🤬 Sapiens children are and I think he would develop immunity the same way they do.

IIRC, a baby shares blood with it's mother. So I'd think her immune system would be significantly transferred.

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.

I remember hearing that too somewhere.

Year Zero by Jeff Long also includes a Neanderthal child, one of several clones.

This book does not center on the child. An Ugly Little Boy does revolve around the the captured Neanderthal child. How does one capture a Neanderthal child??? Read Asimov and find out!

Laughing

BBM

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Just sayin'.

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.

BBM

I prefer the Emuians.

I LOVE this thread - incredible comments, and people discussing ideas and not posters...even in such a highly charged arena as cloning.

YAYAYAYAY.

This thread needs some careful reading and some more research before I can even begin to comment intelligently on the topics being discussed. But man, what a great thread.

Best-
Herding Cats

BBM

And what makes you think you've been able to do that in the past?

:couch:

:truce:
 
  • #76
IIRC, a baby shares blood with it's mother. So I'd think her immune system would be significantly transferred.

snipped by me

The mothers IgG antibodies can cross the placenta to the baby and stays in the baby's blood stream for only 3-6 months after birth. So it would only have the mother's immune system's protection for 3-6 months after birth. Then it's all on it's own. Breastfeeding can help some but with immunity but again that's a limited period of time and still not as strong as IgG.
 
  • #77
IIRC, a baby shares blood with it's mother. So I'd think her immune system would be significantly transferred.



No, the blood streams of the baby and the mother are separate. Some substances can cross the placenta but I wouldn't call that sharing blood.

If the baby is breastfed it gets some immunity from the mother via breast milk but that is temporary and doesn't stick.
 
  • #78
I really need to find a good documentary to watch about Neanderthals! Never realized the complexity to early humans. Just thought we were all descendants of early humans, not that certain sections died out, etc.
 
  • #79
  • #80
aeris, if it ever happens, I'd be happy to bring little Rutiger over for a playdate!
 

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