http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2265402/Adventurous-human-woman-wanted-birth-Neanderthal-man-Harvard-professor.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Some scientist are looking to put something into your oven. For science.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/2013 02:25PM by forbiddencokedrinker.

This is both one of the awesomest and creepiest ideas I've ever heard.

I hope someone does it... but I can't imagine being a woman and choosing to do this.

LOL.
Women have Steve Tyler's babies.

So how effed up could it be to have a Neanderthal offspring.

Steve Tyler is proof that someone already tried this.

I guess it would be okay if you don't mind having a kid that was cloned from a father that looks exactly like a troll doll. Wait til the kid is a teenager and wants to color his hair lime green. All hell will break loose.

I guess he could always get a job with Geico.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/2013 04:26PM by Mia.

LOL, I thought this would be another one of those threads of Joseph Smith and polygamy. "Say, any of you women feeling adventurous?"

Everyone probably saw it was my name, and assumed I was trying to set up a random sexual encounter.

Not that that wouldn't be a bad idea, I just don't know how Susan I/S would feel about that.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/2013 05:40PM by forbiddencokedrinker.

That's totally what I thought it was going to be! And yet, I clicked on it, I guess just out of curiosity.

>"In a scathing reaction, Philippa Taylor of the Christian Medical Fellowship said: ‘It is hard to know where to begin with the ethical and safety concerns."

Yeah. What she said.

Professor Church seems to have had a morality bypass.

I mean, who would be responsible for the child? Professor Church? The mother? The University?

It's definitely a gray area for science.
So if they were cloning an Ancient Chimpanzee to test nature vs nurture from ancient Chimp to modern Chimp, very few people would bat an eye when the Chimp was placed in a zoo.

While Neanderthals only contributed about 1 - 3% of our DNA (0% if you are of African descent), I imagine people will see them as more human than Chimps, despite Chimps being more direct ancestors for us (whereas Neanderthals are more like our distant cousins who occasionally/rarely inbred with us).

It is an interesting quandary.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/2013 06:07PM by justrob.

Um. No. This is almost as bad as bc's infamous sex with Jesus thread.

http://law.onecle.com/massachusetts/111l/8.html

This is already illegal under cloning laws. The law uses the word "Human", which is a broad enough term to include Neanderthals.

Maybe he would surprise us and turn out to be brilliant! Didn't they have a bigger brain cavity?

Bigger brain cavity, but it is thought by many scientist, that they had limited vocal ability, which means they would have had a huge handicap at sharing information between each other.

Those assumptions have grown weaker over the years.

Especially now that they found that Neanderthals interbred with Homo Sapiens, and even discovered that at least in one instance Homo Sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans co-habitated with each other in a single cave.

While we know where the bulges in their brains were, without a living specimen we can't make too many assumptions about where the regions of each section of their brian ended, nor whether or not nurture caused extra wrinkles there (like with the Chimpanzee that was taught to have quite a large vocabulary of spoken words, even though generally Chimps are thought to be incapable of that based on their brains).

...not to say that Neanderthals definitely spoke, but just that we are less sure that they didn't have strong communication.

That's a face only a mother could love!

The idea sounds ridiculous to me. Any number of things could go wrong.

Is it odd that I find the idea kind of intriguing?

P.S. what the hell is wrong with Steven Tyler? I like him.

Nothing is wrong with Steven Tyler. He is a very handsome Neanderthal.

I absolutely hope they find some woman willing to do it... I just can't imagine being that woman. The unknowns are fairly scary (preeclampsia/toxemia happen with fetuses of the same species). I assume they would do a cesarian, to avoid any pelvic girth VS skull girth problems (as Neanderthals actually had bigger brains than us).

It would just mean the volunteer would have to have a larger than usual pelvis.

and that was adventure enough for me.