We don’t know about you but when it comes to news stories, this has got to be one of the strangest ones we’ve ever heard. A professor from Harvard is looking for an “adventurous” woman to give birth to a baby Neanderthal. Yep, you read that right.
German magazine Der Spiegel reports that Professor George Church is convinced that he could (with the right woman) actually bring the long-extinct Neanderthal back to life. Now, in case you’re struggling to remember what a Neanderthal looks like, here’s a picture to jog your memory:
What researchers believe Neanderthals looked like
Professor Church from Harvard Medical School is one of the world’s leading geneticists and he has been analysing a Neanderthal bone-sample for te past few years. He is now confident that his analysis is complete enough to actually reconstruct the DNA of a Neanderthal.
While Professor Church is not sure his plan will actually work, he is ready to put his theory into practice. But in order for him to do so, he needs a woman willing to carry a Neanderthal child for nine months.
“Now I need an adventurous female human. It depends on a hell of a lot of things, but I think it can be done,” said Professor Church, speaking to Der Spiegel.
Professor Church wants to create fake Neanderthal DNA and then put it into stem cells. These cells would then be injected into a human embryo. Once injected, the Neanderthal DNA would steer the embryo’s development along Neanderthal lines rather than human lines. The embryo would then be implanted into the womb of the surrogate mother.
So why does Professor Church want to do this? Well he believes that bringing Neanderthals back could have some major benefits for modern man. Professor Church believes that Neanderthals were highly intelligent beings.
“Neanderthals might think differently than we do. They could even be more intelligent than us. When the time comes to deal with an epidemic or getting off the planet, it’s conceivable that their way of thinking could be beneficial,” said Professor Church.
Professor Church is one of the world’s leading geneticists
Now, we should note here that human cloning is actually illegal in many countries, however, as Professor Church would be dealing with a Neanderthal and not a ‘human’ per se, he could escape the existing laws.
It goes without saying that Professor Church’s idea has already caused a lot of debate and many parties have voiced concerns with regards to the ethical and safety issues associated with bringing a Neanderthal back from extinction.
“I don’t think it’s fair to put people… into a circumstance where they are going to be mocked a possibly feared,” said Bernard Rollin, a Bioethicist from Colorado State University.
What do you think?
