Sarah A Lacy: Dental Paleoanthropologist
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Pearls before Sus scrofa

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Neandertal surrogacy

1/25/2013

1 Comment

 
PictureNeandertal child reconstruction from the Musee National de Prehistoire in Les Eyzies de Tayac, France
I think I've received at least ten emails about this interview with George Church in Der Spiegel, mostly because I've been joking about this for years: "I'll carry the Neandertal baby!". I can joke about this since I know the capabilities to clone or hybrid a Neandertal are not even close to being possessed nor is there a desire--that I am aware of--in the scientific community to bring Neandertals back. Except maybe to prove a bet.

Church claims he was mistranslated; however, the interview was conducted in English and Church approved the transcript. People are clearly very intrigued by this idea, and I don't know if it is because of some morbid curiosity, genuine disgust, or sincere interest in this being true. I can't imagine this would pass any human research subjects board, though apparently Church has been getting emails from women offering to be a surrogate. Church initially suggested that a female chimp carry the Neandertal baby which is much more outrageous to me. It indicates very little knowledge about paleoanthropology and perhaps someone thinks Neandertals are a missing link between modern humans and chimpanzees?

The original artcle:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/george-church-explains-how-dna-will-be-construction-material-of-the-future-a-877634.html

Der Spiegel's comments about the media frenzy surrounding the first article:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel-responds-to-brouhaha-over-neanderthal-clone-interview-a-879311.html
1 Comment
Isis
7/8/2013 06:29:57 am

Wow, worlds colliding! George Church is a major player in my field (synthetic biology) but he's become a bit of a publicity hound (maybe it helps get grants?). There is a legend that we was so broke at one point that he couldn't afford food so he drank LB media to survive.

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