Wanted: Woman To Give Birth To Neanderthal Baby!!

[Hunny]

Wanted: 'Adventurous woman' to give birth to Neanderthal man!

Harvard professor seeks mother for cloned cave baby

Professor George Church of Harvard Medical School believes
he can reconstruct Neanderthal DNA

His ambitious plan requires a human volunteer willing to
allow the DNA to be put into stem cells, then a human embryo

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Neanderthals have been extinct for 33,000 years, but George Church,
a genetics professor at Harvard Medical School, believes he can
bring them back with the help of a surrogate human mother.
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They're usually thought of as a brutish, primitive species. So what woman would want to give birth to a Neanderthal baby? Yet this incredible scenario is the plan of one of the world’s leading geneticists, who is seeking a volunteer to help bring man’s long-extinct close relative back to life. Professor George Church of Harvard Medical School believes he can reconstruct Neanderthal DNA and resurrect the species which became extinct 33,000 years ago. His scheme is reminiscent of Jurassic Park but, while in the film dinosaurs were created in a laboratory, Professor Church’s ambitious plan requires a human volunteer. He said his analysis of Neanderthal genetic code using samples from bones is complete enough to reconstruct their DNA. He said: ‘Now I need an adventurous female human.

‘It depends on a hell of a lot of things, but I think it can be done.’

Professor Church’s plan would begin by artificially creating Neanderthal DNA based on genetic code found in fossil remains. He would put this DNA into stem cells. These would be injected into cells from a human embryo in the early stages of life. It is thought that the stem cells would steer the development of the hybrid embryo on Neanderthal lines, rather than human ones. After growing in the lab for a few days, the ‘neo-Neanderthal’ embryo would be implanted in the womb of a surrogate mother – the volunteer. Professor Church, 58, is a pioneer in synthetic biology who helped initiate the Human Genome Project that mapped our DNA.



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[♫anna♫]

Yikes!! That's a real creepy story! No money could ever make me agree to something like that. Neanderthals were also cannibals as the human bones in their caves prove!

[Big Lin]

Neanderthals have had a bad press; I saw a TV series on them and if you saw one walking down the street today he wouldn't look any different from, say, a Spaniard or Italian.

Most of what paleontologists used to claim to 'know' about the Neanderthals has long been disproved or found to be based on untypical fragments (like a guy suffering from acute arthritis).

Nowadays their reputation among prehistorians stands a whole lot higher.

And cannibalism wasn't something that started with them or that died out with them.

At least they didn't go in for barbarities like the Roman Games as the supposedly more civilised Roman Empire did!

Or the cruelties of the Spanish Inquisition, the Nazis and Communists or many modern dictatorships.

I think if a woman took up this challenge:

a) she'd make a fortune;

b) her baby would be perfectly healthy and look no different from any other Mediterranean-type human (or for that matter a Romani gypsy like me!)

[Deleted]

There is certainly some evidence that Neanderthals were the victim of cannibalism, but a quick search shows that opinion is divided on who the culprits were; this article suggests it was the modern humans who butchered the neanderthals.

www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/may/17/neanderthals-cannibalism-anthropological-sciences-journal

[Big Lin]

Besides which if you read Stan Gooch's series of books on the Neanderthals you realise they actually had a very high civilisation and that the Cro-Magnons were jealous of it.

Though I don't go along with all that Gooch says - particularly some of his more romantic flights of fancy - I'm quite willing to concede that he might be right about Jews, Romanies and Mediterranean people having a higher concentration of Neanderthal DNA than the more Nordic types!

[Big Lin]

Here are Stan Gooch's books on the Neanderthals:

Personality and Evolution (1973)

The Neanderthal Question (1977)

Guardians of the Ancient Wisdom (1979)

Cities of Dreams (1989)

The Neanderthal Legacy (2008)

The paleontologist Myra Shackley also takes a positive view of the Neanderthals and is convinced that full Neanderthals still exist among us.

[Deleted]

Jan 21, 2013 20:28:13 GMT Big Lin said:

Besides which if you read Stan Gooch's series of books on the Neanderthals you realise they actually had a very high civilisation and that the Cro-Magnons were jealous of it.

Though I don't go along with all that Gooch says - particularly some of his more romantic flights of fancy - I'm quite willing to concede that he might be right about Jews, Romanies and Mediterranean people having a higher concentration of Neanderthal DNA than the more Nordic types!

The latest I could find on that suggests this wasn't because humans inbred but because they - at least the non-African races - share a common ancestor:


In short, our Homo sapiens ancestors probably got it on with their Neanderthal cousins, but not to any great degree — and certainly not enough to so strongly affect our genetic makeup.

The story, according to Manica and Eriksson, actually began half a million years ago, during the existence of a common ancestor to the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. Roughly 300,000-350,000 years ago, the species diverged between those who migrated North, ultimately evolving into the Neanderthals, and those who moved south, from whom modern humans emerged. It was not until 60,000-70,000 years ago that we humans began to expand from Africa



Read more: newsfeed.time.com/2012/08/15/study-humans-and-neanderthals-didnt-interbreed-as-much-as-we-fearedhoped/#ixzz2Ie3Mqi8t

[Big Lin]

Jan 21, 2013 20:47:12 GMT @skylark said:

Jan 21, 2013 20:28:13 GMT Big Lin said:

Besides which if you read Stan Gooch's series of books on the Neanderthals you realise they actually had a very high civilisation and that the Cro-Magnons were jealous of it.

Though I don't go along with all that Gooch says - particularly some of his more romantic flights of fancy - I'm quite willing to concede that he might be right about Jews, Romanies and Mediterranean people having a higher concentration of Neanderthal DNA than the more Nordic types!

The latest I could find on that suggests this wasn't because humans inbred but because they - at least the non-African races - share a common ancestor:


In short, our Homo sapiens ancestors probably got it on with their Neanderthal cousins, but not to any great degree — and certainly not enough to so strongly affect our genetic makeup.

The story, according to Manica and Eriksson, actually began half a million years ago, during the existence of a common ancestor to the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. Roughly 300,000-350,000 years ago, the species diverged between those who migrated North, ultimately evolving into the Neanderthals, and those who moved south, from whom modern humans emerged. It was not until 60,000-70,000 years ago that we humans began to expand from Africa



Read more: newsfeed.time.com/2012/08/15/study-humans-and-neanderthals-didnt-interbreed-as-much-as-we-fearedhoped/#ixzz2Ie3Mqi8t

That view - of the non-relationship between humans and Neanderthals in terms of genetic legacy - has become increasingly hard to sustain and is slowly being abandoned by most modern paleontologists.

Just as the 'out of Africa/Lucy' theory is beginning to look as mythical as Adam and Eve!

We as humans have many strains within us and it's far more likely that it's the result of racial mixing than any other explanation.

After all, that's how it happens nowadays!

[Deleted]

That link was recent, Lin, and if you click on it you'll see it came from research by a couple of Cambridge bods.

[Big Lin]

I'm sure it was, Skylark, but so was the TV programme.

I'll go and dig out some other recent links that suggest the opposite - that Neanderthals are fully human and look more or less like me and aren't a bit more scary than I am!

[Big Lin]

Here are some links that suggest that interbreeding between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons, though possibly infrequent, almost certainly DID take place:

www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2011/sep/01/1

www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2011/aug/25/neanderthal-denisovan-genes-human-immunity?intcmp=239

www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/3440/neandertals-and-humans-interbred-geneticists?page=0%2C1

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=human-neanderthal-sex

linearpopulationmodel.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/the-date-of-inbreeding-between.html

[Deleted]

The Cambridge scientists aren't saying that humans didn't interbreed with Neanderthals, merely that most of the genetic similarity may come from a shared ancestor. This seems to tie in with a thread started by Toby suggesting that Africans (who have no DNA specific to Neanderthals) developed separately from humans in the rest of the world.

[Deleted]

omg ! do we have to be pc about Neanderthals now ! LOL

and no I wouldn't want to be pregnant again thanks

[♫anna♫]

I think it would be a cruel thing to bring a Neanderthal child into the world! All these gawking scientists and political correctness slimers will not help this child much in a world where his/her ancestors have been extinct for 100,000 years or so.

[Deleted]

Mar 18, 2013 9:51:52 GMT ♫anna♫ said:

I think it would be a cruel thing to bring a Neanderthal child into the world! All these gawking scientists and political correctness slimers will not help this child much in a world where his/her ancestors have been extinct for 100,000 years or so.

Well in the first place they haven't; humans in Europe have at least 3% Neanderthal genes in them so clearly:

a) neandeerthals were human

b) they're not extinct and could easily mate with humans

[OldHippieDude]

Jan 21, 2013 20:32:01 GMT Big Lin said:

Here are Stan Gooch's books on the Neanderthals:

Personality and Evolution (1973)

The Neanderthal Question (1977)

Guardians of the Ancient Wisdom (1979)

Cities of Dreams (1989)

The Neanderthal Legacy (2008)

The paleontologist Myra Shackley also takes a positive view of the Neanderthals and is convinced that full Neanderthals still exist among us.

Fascinating topic!! I personally believe they never went extinct. Rather, they are now modern humans, resultant of thousands of years of inter-breeding with Cro-Magnons. The living "full Neanderthal" theory is fascinating!

I would like to read the book written in 2008, primarily because knowledge is probably considerably more advanced than it was only a decade or two ago. Think I'll order it tonight from Amazon.

BTW, why does the writer of this article specify a Neanderthal "man?" Couldn't it be a woman, with a 50/50 likelihood, or can they select or manipulate the gender specifics?

Peace,

OHD

[Deleted]

Mar 19, 2013 0:31:52 GMT OldHippieDude said:

Jan 21, 2013 20:32:01 GMT Big Lin said:

Here are Stan Gooch's books on the Neanderthals:

Personality and Evolution (1973)

The Neanderthal Question (1977)

Guardians of the Ancient Wisdom (1979)

Cities of Dreams (1989)

The Neanderthal Legacy (2008)

The paleontologist Myra Shackley also takes a positive view of the Neanderthals and is convinced that full Neanderthals still exist among us.

Fascinating topic!! I personally believe they never went extinct. Rather, they are now modern humans, resultant of thousands of years of inter-breeding with Cro-Magnons. The living "full Neanderthal" theory is fascinating!

I would like to read the book written in 2008, primarily because knowledge is probably considerably more advanced than it was only a decade or two ago. Think I'll order it tonight from Amazon.

BTW, why does the writer of this article specify a Neanderthal "man?" Couldn't it be a woman, with a 50/50 likelihood, or can they select or manipulate the gender specifics?

Peace,

OHD

I suppose because last time I looked only us girls could have babies!

[sadie1263]

Have they tried looking in some of the back water areas of Arkansas or Alabama.........I swear they'll find them.....and they are already breeding.