Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: syhprum on 21/09/2018 10:27:08
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It is reported that some humans have 3% Neanderthal DNA could a Neanderthal like human be produced by selective breeding?
there are of course practical and ethical problems, human breeding is difficult to control the only successful case seems to have been the controlled breeding of black American slaves to produce strong but docile males but left on its own human breeding soon unravels.
The German attempt to produce "true Arian types" by offering strong incentives had limited success but was terminated by Germanys defeat in WWII.
I am not of course suggesting we should do this it is only a thought experiment
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Could we bring back Neanderthals? Yes, if you have a vote for any elected office in the USA.
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It should be possible in theory, sequenceable Neanderthal DNA exists in teeth as well as in live humans. AFAIK it's far beyond the current state of the art to manufacture genetic sequences as long as that and successfully insert them into a human egg, implant and grow to term.
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Currently there is some mechanism that prevents human cloning as easily as making copies of sheep.
However if that were solved, and we made a complete Neanderthal DNA set and popped it into a modern female's ovum, it should cause fertilization. However, the resulting blastocyst would have more of the modern woman's genes and mitochondria so the end result -- a Neanderthal baby -- would be more of a cross-breed than a pure-bred cave man.
Similar problem with implanting Mammoth DNA into a modern elephant and hoping for a woolly ice-age creature to appear. Plus, how would the modern mother's DNA and womb be compatible with the ancient DNA? There is a project underway in Siberia called Pleistocene Park if I remember correctly, where the owner of the enterprise is trying to recreate extinct animals and hopefully make a lot of money selling tickets to tourists.
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What I had in mind was a low technology approach of selecting more Neanderthal like off springs such as was done with a fair amount of success in the thirties to produce cattle similar to ancient breeds.
The problem with this approach is the long period between generations in humans.
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What I had in mind was a low technology approach of selecting more Neanderthal like off springs such as was done with a fair amount of success in the thirties to produce cattle similar to ancient breeds.
The problem with this approach is the long period between generations in humans.
The following links might be of interest of you https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-extinction
and on the Quagga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quagga_Project
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I approve the idea of bringing back Neanderthals. After all, no other species is more endangered than Neanderthals.