Naked Science Forum
On the Lighter Side => That CAN'T be true! => Topic started by: Titanscape on 03/03/2012 07:59:15
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Imagine if there was a man who was one eighth Gorilla. Like from the film Gorillas in the Mist, if the scientist went those few steps further. Half, then a quarter, then an eighth. What would such a person be like?
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A Knuckle Dragger?
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A Knuckle Dragger?
I can't better that.
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Depends on which bit - we share about 98-99% of our DNA with Gorillas and the other great apes. Of course the devil is in the details and that remaining percentage makes all the difference - we cannot interbred
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There have been no confirmed human/gorilla(or ape) crosses.
There was an attempt to develop a "Humanzee" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanzee#The_Ivanov_experiments) in the late 1920's, but it was unsuccessful using normal egg fertilization and implantation techniques.
Recently, methods have been developed to directly inject a sperm into an ovum which could potentially improve the fertilization.
The apes have 28 chromosomes, humans 26, having had a 2A/2B chromosome fusion. Having different numbers of chromosomes is not an absolute prohibition of crossbreeding. Donkeys and Horses have a different number of chromosomes, and have viable mule offspring, which are then generally sterile. Perhaps the ape chromosomes could be fused before making the cross.
If one could generate 2nd and 3rd generation crosses 1/4-3/4, and 1/8-7/8, then undoubtedly the offspring would start resembling the species with the larger fraction. There is a phenomenon called "crossover", where parts of chromosomes are mixed up, so inheritance is more complicated than counting which chromosomes are human, and which are from apes.
Undoubtedly such a human/ape cross breeding program would be very controversial.
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Humans have 46 chromosomes, and the other greater apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, and urangutans) have 48. The lesser apes (gibbons and siamangs) having varying amounts — the gibbons having 38, 44 or 52, and the siamangs having 50.
To be one-eighth gorilla and seven-eighths human, human-gorilla hybrids would need to be able to reproduce for two generations. For example, horses have 64 chromosomes, donkeys have 62, and mules and hinnies (horse × donkey) have 63. Mules are crosses between mares and jacks; Hinnies are crosses between stallions and jennies. Horse × donkey crosses are mostly infertile, so reproducing for two successive generations would seem very rare indeed.
If horse × donkey crosses can be used as a yardstick for human × gorilla crosses, the features of the offspring could follow according to the species of the specific parents. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinny#Physical_description) suggests that overall body size follows the capacity of the mother's womb. Gorilla babies are born about half the size of human babies (~4 lbs versus ~ 8 lbs), so a female gorilla might bear a smaller offspring than a female human. Other than that, for horse × donkey crosses, Wikipedia says that the head, ears, mane and tail of the cross are more strongly influenced by the sire than by the dam, and that the offspring's gait seems to follow along these line as well. So, just perhaps, if great-grandpa was a gorilla, you'd be more of a knuckle-dragger than if he was a human.
All together, this suggests that a woman × male cross would be larger, more of a knuckle-dragger (longer arms, shorter legs), with more hair, and with more of a gorilla head and ears; and that a man × female cross would be smaller, more bipedal, with less hair, and with more of a human head and ears. All this would get diluted into human stock as it is crossed with humans for two more generations.
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Interesting, I did hear of a half human half Gorilla born in captivity, but which died at birth after a few hours. Back in 1986. So there are no primates with 46 Chromosomes?
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Interesting, I did hear of a half human half Gorilla born in captivity, but which died at birth after a few hours. Back in 1986. So there are no primates with 46 Chromosomes?
Did I get my chromosome numbers off above? [:-\]
Chromosomes 2A/2B in primates were spliced to make a single chromosome 2 in humans.
It is interpreted as a splice, as remnants of telomeres are found in the middle of the chromosomes.
I believe that no other primates have that splice, at least for the half dozen that are most "human-like", so we can assume the splice occurred in an extinct ancestor after the human/ape split.
Assuming a 1st generation human/ape cross could be produced, perhaps a 2nd generation cross could be produced by requiring it to be bred back to a full 100% ape or human, and thus it would get at least one full set of genes.
Here is a schematic of a comparison between Human & Chimp chromosomes & banding patterns.
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Aha, so do some genetic manipulation first. Splice together two pairs of gorilla chromosomes to make a a pair of Chromosome 2's, similar to humans, and then cross the gorilla with a human.