I must have missed this one, but this is what the the online magazine Britian's Daily Mail ran recently:
- “Wanted: ‘Adventurous Neanderthal man — Harvard professor seeks mother for cloned cave baby
Geneticist George Church the Harvard scientist in the middle of this mess says that the story was completely untrue! Church said that the real story centers around an article he was interviewed for in the German magazine Der Spiegel in which he said that:
- such a cloning might theoretically be possible someday
Whoever wrote the article for Britain's Daily Mail mis-translated the article and came to the conclusion that Church was actively looking for a woman to host a child from the DNA scrapings of Neanderthal bones.
Church goes on to say that he wasn't even involved in the gene sequencing! In fact, he goes on to say, his line of research is in how to use DNA to improve health, produce synthetic fuels, and other products, not cloning ancient humans!
2 comments:
Wow. Nothing like good journalism is there.
In truth, I wouldn't mind seeing this happen. But then, I'm one of those few that are 100% for cloning.
And it would be very interesting to see, but then it wouldn't be a true neanderthal anyway.
Without a Neanderthal to teach it the ways of it's people, it would learn more from us, and be smarter than they were.
Also, with our cloning methods now, I don't see how it could be done without modern DNA screwing the pooch to put it mildly.
I think we will one day accomplish it, and properly, but it still wouldn't be a true neanderthal. But I still say, go for it.
I am not scared nor do I harbor a secret hatred for the science, but to be honest I can not really see a reason for this to take place. Not so much the "park" mentality, but just to see if we can? Animals, plants and maybe body parts, but really, why do a complete human and bring the kind of controversy this would bring.I guess I am too chicken...
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