WEBVTT - From the Vault: Humanzee 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:08.079 Hey, you welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:10.559 name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And hey, 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:13.280 it's Saturday. Looks like it's time for a vault episode. 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:15.880 Can we crank one out here? Yes, we're going to 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.160 open the vault and let loose the humanzies. Now, this 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:22.000 was an episode you did back with Christian And when 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:24.400 was this? This would have been from January twenty one, 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:28.000 two thousand sixteen, and this was, Uh, this is an 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:31.840 episode that it gets into some very troubling territory. We 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:37.360 start thinking about this, like like breaking the barrier between species. Uh, 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:39.720 it gets a little dark, I have to admit. But 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:42.320 it was a popular episode and it's one that Joe 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:45.880 Rogan himself contact us about and gave us the thumbs 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:48.479 up on okay, which was very cool of it very 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:50.440 cool to Joe to do that. It surely was. If 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:52.640 I remember it was like he like posted about it 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:56.120 on Instagram or something. Well he's at the gym, I think, yeah, 0:00:56.160 --> 0:00:58.360 it's uh, I mean it is. It is a weird episode, 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:00.920 but it's it's the truth in the weirdness that is 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:04.959 the most amazing. Like the actual true story of researchers 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:08.440 looking at this uh this taboo area, this place where 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:12.720 uh species, the human species brushes up against some of 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:16.280 its closest relatives. Crazy. Yeah, all right, well let's get 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:22.600 right into it. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:31.440 from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:33.280 to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:36.520 I'm Christian Seger. Hey, Robert, if I were to ask 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:41.679 you how you felt about eight human hybrids on a 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:45.280 scale of one to ten, one being really uncomfortable and 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:48.080 ten being you know, pretty comfortable, like you'd hang out 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:52.240 with them. Uh where where where did you fall? Uh? 0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:55.400 My gut is a three? Three? So yeah, that that 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:58.520 seems I think about on par with most people. Most 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:03.560 people's reaction to the idea of a species, a new species, 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:08.360 I guess, being generated from humans and apes coming together, 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:11.760 as discussed right, Yeah, yeah, I fear yeah, And that 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:13.359 would probably be like the one in the two on 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:16.240 the three. I would probably just stand there awkwardly while 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:20.480 the hybrids did their thing, and would contemplate a lot 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:25.679 of reservations about how this came to pass, who who 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:29.200 allowed this to happen, who made this happen? And uh, 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:31.960 and how am I supposed to feel about myself as 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:33.639 a human, as a person, How am I supposed to 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:36.520 feel about them? It brings up a lot of questions, 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:40.240 and and not just for us. Uh. And this is 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:42.120 an old stuff to blow your mind topic. In fact, 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:44.679 there's a there's an episode from four years ago where 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:47.600 you and Julie tackled the same topic. We're talking about 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:52.560 human z s, which is the possibility of hybridization between 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:57.160 chimpanzees and humans. Uh. It's something that's been studied and 0:02:57.240 --> 0:02:59.880 experimented on for as far as we know, at least 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:03.880 a hundred years, if not more longer. Uh. And is 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:06.560 you know, I think it's stuff to blow your mind, right, 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:09.440 Like it's it's definitely something that most people didn't expect. 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:11.480 I came across it when we were researching for the 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:16.560 X Files. Episodes about the possibilities of alien human hybrids 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:19.240 and human zies came up in the research there. So 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:22.160 we're revisiting it. Yeah, and luckily we have we have 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:25.000 some better sources at our disposal this time around, for 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:29.320 a you know, a deeper dive into one particular case 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:30.640 that we're going to spend a lot of time with 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:34.680 here and uh, and yeah, you mentioned the X Files, 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:36.960 and I think that's that's great. We're gonna mention a 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:38.520 little bit of horror fiction, a little bit of a 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:41.040 comic book material here at the top, because it's a 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:44.880 it's such a mind blowing topic. It's a topic that 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:48.000 it forces us to to rethink what we are and 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:49.520 what it is to be human, what it is to 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:51.640 be a person. It certainly worked for a turn to 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:55.880 the century sort of chilling thrillers. Right. Oh yeah, but 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:59.840 before we get into that, let's just remind the audience. So, hey, 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:02.400 we do way more than just the podcast. If you've 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:05.040 been listening to the podcast as many, We've been getting 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:06.720 a lot of nice letters from people who have just 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:09.640 started listening to the show. Uh, we do more than that. 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:13.360 We've got videos. Robert is on How Stuff Works Now 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:16.000 once a week, both of us, right for How Stuff 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:19.160 Works Now at least once a week. Joe is also 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:22.200 on another podcast and show called Forward Thinking. The best 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:24.200 way to find out about all that stuff that we 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:27.360 do writing videos, et cetera, is to visit us at 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:30.280 stuff to Blow your mind dot com and then follow 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:33.040 us on social media whatever your you know, your social 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:37.640 media of choices, Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler. We're on all of them, yeah, indeed, so, 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:40.680 so check us out there if you haven't already. And hey, 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:43.200 if you listen to us on iTunes or you know, 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:45.799 however you listen to us, uh, give us a little feedback, 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:51.320 bump us up in the algorithm for your preferred podcast service, 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:53.360 and that'll help us out. It's a great way to 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:55.520 support the show. Yeah, I'm really excited. We're about to 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:58.360 hit some new I guess they call them markets in 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:01.280 terms of podcasting, but Google plays coming up for us 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:05.120 and um and Spotify as well. So hey, whatever you 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:07.440 listen to out there, we're on all of them soon. 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:11.320 All right. So to start off, I want to talk 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:14.360 with you just a little bit about an area of 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:18.680 fiction that that always fascinated me, particularly because you see, uh, 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:21.960 several different individuals hitting the same topic around the same 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:26.080 time in the same time frame. Um, the earliest being 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:29.400 that of that explored by H. G. Wells in his 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:35.359 novel The Island of Dr Moreau. Yeah, yeah, what mostly 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:38.480 known for the movie adaptations nowadays, although I imagine at 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:40.120 the time that it came out there is a little 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:42.640 bit of shock to the subject matter as well. Oh yeah, 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:46.720 and apparently Wells wrote this, uh in large part as 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:51.560 a as a protest against vivisection the live dissection of 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:55.320 of animals for research purposes, and um, you know, I 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:59.200 think that's definitely something that's lost in the film generations. 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:03.559 But I definitely remember watching the old Burt Lancaster version 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:07.200 of this on like on a daytime horror show that 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:11.760 was hosted by alum, what was your name, Grandpa Muster? 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:15.640 Oh okay, yeah, okay, I don't hosted by Grandpa on 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:17.760 tbspect in the day, and it was you know, it's 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:20.120 kind of grimy and creepy and Harry and then of 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:23.440 course we got that that wonderful marlones one. Yeah, I 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:26.680 saw that in the theater in the nineties. Um, it's 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:28.880 it's not good, but it's still I don't know, it 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:31.080 has holds a warm place in my heart. There's some 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:34.760 there's some stuff about it. I like director, but Richard Stanley, 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:36.880 I believe, And I think there's a there's a documentary. 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:38.720 I haven't seen it yet, but there's a documentary about 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:41.880 the making of it. But yeah, for more more than 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:47.160 just the fear of vivisection or human interspecies, crossover. There's 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:51.000 a lot of people who stay away from that movie. Yeah, yeah, 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:53.320 you know. What I'm thinking of two is even before 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:56.000 that this isn't necessarily like a crossover, but murders in 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:59.320 the room or post story spoilers for like a two 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:02.880 year old story, but ends up being the murderer ends 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:05.719 up being an orangutang that the escaped from a zoo 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:08.440 or a circus or something that was nearby and and 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:11.160 comes in and it's a it's a locked door mystery 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:14.920 and kills these people with like a razor blade or something. Yeah, 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:17.120 that's that's a great one. Uh. And certainly I think 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:19.600 is a part of this this sort of scene of 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:24.160 weird ape short stories like because another one that comes 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:27.280 to mind, and this was a bit later, ine, but 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:29.520 you had the Adventure of the Creeping Man by Sir 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:32.480 Arthur Kunnan Doyle. Yeah, I haven't read that one. Well, 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:35.280 the there's an interesting twist here because it seems like 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:38.880 it's going to be a marauding, murderous ape, but it 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:42.640 turns out that it's um that it's a human who 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:49.480 has been taking um simion derived enhancement products, and uh, 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:54.680 you know, and it's actually either biologically or psychologically changing 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:57.800 him into this, uh, this ape like guy that was 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:01.360 a Dr Jackal Mr Hyde kind of scenario. Kind of yeah, huh. 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:03.320 I wonder if they're going to incorporate this into the 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:06.600 next season of the BBC Sherlock, where Benedict cumber Patch 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:10.200 will be uh dueling with this half apalf man. They should, Man, 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:13.360 I'm a big fan of the weirder Conan Doyle stories 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.480 like that one and the Devil's Foot, which has a 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:20.640 deadly psychedelic poison that drives people mad. Yeah, that stuff's great. 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:23.880 So Okay, you've also told me that there's a Lovecraft story, 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:26.960 and this is outside of my knowledge of the Lovecraft 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:30.360 readings I've done, so so what's it about the title 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:33.400 of the story is Facts concerning the Late Arthur German 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:37.719 and his Family by bioh Lovecraft. This and this is 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:40.959 pretty early Lovecraft. Yeah, and it's uh, you know, I 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:43.480 definitely wouldn't classified as being one of one of the 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:47.240 great stories, but it's definitely worth exploring if you're interested 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:50.760 in weird ape fiction and if you're interested in the 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:54.240 whole like racial context of of love Craft and his 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:57.120 racial attitudes, because I can definitely see that kind of 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:01.600 racial anxiety. To put it kind like uh, in this work, 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:04.520 I'm going to read quick quote from it. It concerns, uh, 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:11.559 you know, Europeans coming back from African expeditions, having encountered apes. Quote. Science, 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:14.960 already oppressive with its shocking revelations, will perhaps be the 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:20.080 ultimate exterminator of our human species. If separate species we be, 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:24.400 for its reserve of unguessed horrors could never be borne 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:27.760 by mortal brains. If loosed upon the world. If we 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:30.640 knew what we are, we should do as Sir Arthur 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:33.960 German did, And Sir Arthur Germans soaked himself in oil 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:37.440 and set fire to his clothing. One So, as it 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:42.520 turns out, classic Howard Phillips, just you you immolate yourself 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:45.839 and that's tell you in the story. But basically what 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:48.280 happened is this German character goes out on the more 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:51.160 and burns him stuff after seeing the boxed object which 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:54.160 had come back from Africa. So basically the whole twist 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:58.080 here is he finds out that that his his mother 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:03.080 I believe, was a white ape okay, and his father 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:05.320 was like an explorer or something like, yeah, who fell 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:08.160 in love with the creature and that he's the offspring. 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:11.240 And yeah, so it's you know, maybe it's a he's 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:14.240 so horrified by his lineage that he commits suicide exactly, 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:16.880 and you know it's maybe that's a little um, it's 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:20.000 a twist, I admit, it's a twist on the old 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:23.440 Lovecraft shadow over in Smith. It's very similar kind of ending, 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:26.080 except that guy that doesn't kill himself. Yeah. Yeah, and 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:28.360 also similar a little bit too in Smith in that 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:32.520 regard getting into you know, the racial horror, racial anxiety, 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:35.400 and and but it it does tie in nicely into 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:38.280 what we're going to talk about today, into the real abhorrence, 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:40.760 and into the some of the actual science that was 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:44.520 going on around this period. Yeah. In fact, so I've 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:46.280 talked about this on the show before, but you know, 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:48.360 the Silver Age of comic books, right around the end 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:50.800 of the fifties beginning of the sixties, there was a 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:54.920 fascination with this very topic of these of ape men 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:58.000 basically uh, and they shut up all over the place 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:00.560 in comics, and some of the big ones are still 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.079 around today. I mean, the Flash TV show that's airing 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:06.040 right now just had Guerrilla Grod, which is one of 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:09.800 my favorite characters. From all of comics history on it. 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:13.080 He's a super intelligent ag. Yeah, so these aren't necessarily 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:16.200 ape human hybrids, but they're they're Oh they're either that 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:18.520 or they are men that have been turned into apes, 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:21.120 or they're super intelligent apes. So like in the case 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:24.040 of Guerrilla Grod, he comes from a city called Guerrilla 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:26.720 City that's hidden in the wilderness somewhere where there's just 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:28.840 all these super intelligent apes and they're so smart that 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:31.760 they've like built science that allows them to hide themselves 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:35.720 from society. Uh. Cong Guerrilla is another one which I 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:39.400 believe I don't know the specific details, but I think 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:42.200 Cong Guerrilla is like a guy who's been cursed or 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:45.560 something like that in the Congo to be a gorilla. 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:49.960 Same with Guerrilla Man. Uh, almost the exact same origin. 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:53.400 There's a there's a villain called the ultra Humanite that 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:56.640 is like a scientist who's placed his brain inside a 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:59.480 guerrilla's body. I believe it's like a big white gorilla 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:01.920 um and that that'll come into play when we talk 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:06.200 later about the Chinese experiments that we're being done around hybridization. 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:09.560 There's Monster and Mala and then the one uh that 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:12.600 I that I immediately thought of when we were doing 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:15.280 the research for this was the Red Ghost, which is 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:19.000 an old Fantastic Four villain, and he's like a Russian 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:23.480 scientist who gets exposed I think like cosmic rays or 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:26.839 something like that, with three apes that he has with him. 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:29.400 He has a guerrilla a baboon and orangutank and they 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.960 all developed superpowers and hang out together. And his name, 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:35.400 his real name is Ivan Kragoff. And the guy we're 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:38.400 going to talk about today, his name is Ivan Ivanof. 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:42.880 And so I wonder if, uh, that was the inspiration 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:46.560 Ivan Ivanof was the inspiration for the Red Ghost character. 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:49.160 It might have been. You know, I'm also reminded of 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:54.760 the hell Boy villain Herman from The Conqueror Worm, which 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:58.680 is my favorite hell Boy adventure. Well, all right, real quick, 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:01.760 before we get into the crazy science behind this, I'll 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:05.120 give you a little factoid. So it is a known 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:09.480 thing within comics industry that if you put this is 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:11.360 back in the day, if you put the color purple 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:14.800 or an or and an ape on the cover of 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:17.600 your comic, it would sell more copies. And so that 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:19.760 was one of the reasons why there were so many 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:22.640 of these characters that popped up at the time, is 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:24.880 that they just they don't know, you know, somehow the 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:28.360 things correlated together to higher sales, so they were constantly 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:31.760 producing more gorilla grods or cong guerrillas or whatever. So 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:35.560 maybe there's somehow those covers were just cutting in almost 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:42.760 subconsciously to this to the post Darwinian um existential problem 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:46.559 exact Man versus eight, not not only in physical combat 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:49.280 where we're going to lose, but just in terms of identity. 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:51.640 It's like, yeah, it was. It's like the tabloid cover 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:54.440 of its time that immediately kind of put click something 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:55.959 in your head and make sure you go, oh, I'm 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:57.680 not quite right with that, but I need to figure 0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:00.440 out what what danger it poses to me? Yeah, Polus. 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:04.199 I've also heard that in the post Darwinian world, the 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:07.000 idea of our b steel nature, instead of being represented 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:09.800 in the form of werewolves and um, you know, another 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:13.000 type of beast man like the gorilla and the apeman, 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:18.920 becomes the prime mold. That makes sense, the steel human. Yeah. 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:22.360 The fear of regressing back to your primal nature beyond 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:26.160 your rational one. Yeah, so what better for Superman. Superman 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:29.560 has a villain I believe his name is Titano the 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:32.560 super ape? Is he made of metal? No, he's just 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:35.480 a big ape with superpowers, I think, or so well, 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:37.080 I get by that point all the names are being 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:41.440 used up. Yeah, exactly, something fancy. So all right, let's 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:45.280 dive into this. Let's dive into the Darwinism, the the 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:49.960 eugenics behind it, the fear too. There's just a palpable 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:52.720 fear about this, so much so that scientists have actually 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:57.640 filed patents to try to keep this from happening. So 0:14:57.680 --> 0:14:59.480 the filing of a of a patent just to make 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:03.400 sure nobody d else actually engages in hybridization. Yeah, So 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:07.760 in developmental biologists, Stewart Newman, who at the time was 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:10.360 working at the New York Medical College in Valhalla, which 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:13.320 sounds like a pretty cool place to work, together with 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:15.760 a guy named Jeremy Rifkin, who is the president of 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:19.080 the Foundation of Economic Trends, which is based out of Washington, 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:23.920 d C. They submitted a patent for the chimera of 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:26.720 a human zy So we'll explain what a chimera is, 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:31.560 shortly made from embryonic cells of humans and chimpanzees. And 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:33.760 the reason why they did this wasn't because they wanted 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:36.600 to create a human zy. It was because they wanted 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:39.640 to secure the patent, because they wanted to prevent other 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:43.440 people from ever making a human z and exploiting it. 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:48.160 In particular, they were worried about corporations, uh somehow building 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:51.760 these human zies and like using them either for artificial organs, 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:53.920 as we'll talk about later, or or even for like 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:57.880 labor purposes. What happened was the patent was denied in 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:01.000 two thousand four by the Patent and Trademark Office. But 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:04.720 the rejection basically came because the government looked at it 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:07.440 and they said, well, this includes within its scope a 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:11.400 human being, which we can't legally patent a human being. 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:14.800 So in and of itself, they sort of defined by 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:19.200 law that trying to patent any kind of species creation 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:26.240 that it involves human cross breeding is unpatentable. So we'll see, 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:28.920 I mean, if it ever comes to comes to light that, 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:33.560 you know, corporations do start designing human zase, we'll see 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:38.240 how that plays out in courts. But that's an interesting point. Yeah, 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:40.880 what can you say to the resulting hybrid, I'm sorry, 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:43.920 you're in violation of patent? Yeah, exactly, And so Newman 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:47.160 and Uh, and Riffkin. You know, they basically their whole 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:50.160 goal was just to start a debate, right Like, however 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:52.760 it played out, I don't think they particularly cared. They 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:55.240 wanted the debate about what it means to be human 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:59.800 to actually get in there in the legal you know jargon, 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:04.520 especially when it came to patenting organisms with human genes. 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:06.399 And I don't know if you remember this. It's funny 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:09.480 because as we're recording this last night was Barack Obama's 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:12.639 last State of the Union speech, but in two thousand six, 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:16.560 President George W. Bush during his State of the Union 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:21.760 speech called for a ban on human animal hyper Remember 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:25.720 I was I remember watching it, and I mean this 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:27.680 is ten years ago now, and I remember watching it 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:29.919 and thinking where did this come from? It just it 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:31.879 came out of nowhere, and I was like, why is 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:35.120 he worried about werewolves? Uh? And now I can kind 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:37.560 of see where the you know, where where the origin 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:40.879 of that came from. Clearly, Uh, the argument got started 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:43.480 by Newman. It's interesting to think of this in terms 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:48.840 of breaking the species barrier, which is a phrase that 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:53.920 I picked up in James Randerson's article in the Guardian 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:58.200 where he's talking about um Richard Dawkins proposing a two 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:01.120 thousand nine at the successful high orginization between a human 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:04.240 and a Champanzee would would be something that would change everything, 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:08.800 A real, a real game changer for for human civilization. 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:12.840 Is that makes sense along Dawkins line of research and 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:16.960 thought too, Yeah, he would attack that. So I definitely 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:20.160 challenge everyone to keep thinking of this species barrier as 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:23.480 we as we move forward, because in a sense it 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:26.639 is a an artificial barrier, and since it is a 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:29.000 but it's but it's still a barrier that is is 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:31.879 carefully maintained and it has a lot to do with 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:34.720 with not only the biological reality of of who and 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:38.240 what we are, but also just our our existential understanding 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:42.399 of Yeah. Absolutely uh, And I think that we're going 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:45.040 to keep coming back to that with these research. The 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:49.239 research that we're exploring too, is that that fear, that uh, 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:54.200 confrontation of understanding of what being human means kept coming 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:57.640 back throughout these and for good reason. Before we get 0:18:57.640 --> 0:18:59.040 into the like the meat of it, though, I just 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:00.960 wanted to add a note here because I always have 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:03.359 trouble with this and I wanted to make sure that 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:08.160 the audience was with us. So chimpanzees, which would be 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:11.720 you know, how we would produce a human z they're 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:15.520 not monkeys. Monkeys and great apes are separate from one another, 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:18.920 right this It feels like the old Carl Pilkington. Uh, 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:22.479 like I'm I'm I'm Gervais trying to explain to my 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:27.400 inner Carl Pilkington. A great ape is a chimpanzee, a gorilla, 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:33.639 and orangutanga binobo and potentially humans, right, And here's the distinction. 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:37.040 They don't have tails. They have larger bodies and bigger 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:40.800 brains than monkeys. They're built for different kinds of locomotion 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:43.720 and this includes walking by pedally on their legs like 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:46.840 we do, but also that swinging from branches that we 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:50.439 think of, right, So the anatomy of great apes is 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:52.720 their shoulder blades are designed in such a way that 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:56.119 allows that monkeys can't necessarily do all those same things. 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:58.160 So that's what we're talking about here. And the distinction 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:02.440 is important because of you of the definition of species 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:07.080 and how close we as human beings are two chimpanzees 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:09.800 as speeches as a species. Yeah, as a regular zoo 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:12.919 visitor with my my son, this comes up a lot 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:16.880 as I hear other parents talk about the monkeys. Look 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:19.359 at the monkeys, look at him, go look at and 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:22.639 because that's the other thing, like, the gender of the 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:27.000 creature of being viewed is always male. And I always 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:29.040 want to point out, do you see an elephant penis? 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:31.800 Because I do not see an elephant penis? Yeah. Yeah, 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:41.560 but that's a that's a side tansion. So let's do this. 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:44.040 Let's line up what a hybrid is and what a 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:47.280 chimera is so we can kind of define those before 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:50.240 we get into it. This is uh, you know, fertile 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:52.199 stuff to blow your mind ground. We've covered this on 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:55.960 multiple episodes before, but it's always good to have a primer. So, 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:58.960 hybrid animals are created when the genetic material from different 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:03.320 animals joined form a single embryo. So a mule, for example, 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:05.960 was the offspring of female horse and a male donkey. 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:09.480 Every cell in the body of a mule contains genetic 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:13.000 material from both parents. Yeah, and as we'll get into later, 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:17.120 they're almost always infertile. Yeah, and you have not other 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:21.400 problems present. So chimeras are a little different in that 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:25.040 they are two different sets of DNA that originate from 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:28.919 the fusion of different zygoats or eggs. Right, So the 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:32.000 first one of these was created actually in nineteen sixty one. 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:35.000 That's uh quite a bit after a lot of the 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:37.480 research that we're gonna be talking about today, at least 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:41.480 the Russian research. Uh, and chimeras aren't always a fifty 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:43.639 fifty blend. The example I gave this in the X 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:45.760 Files episode I'll give it again here is if you 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:48.560 make a chimera of a sheep and a goat, Uh, 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:51.560 it's not going to be like half sheep half goat, 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:53.679 like right down the middle. It's gonna look like a 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:57.920 sheep maybe, but the hair will feel like a goat, right, 0:21:57.960 --> 0:21:59.560 Like it would be a little bit more briskly or 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:01.639 core us than a sheep would be. Yeah, I mean, 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:03.640 I've also read that you could make an argument that 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:07.159 an individual who has animal tissue in their body, some 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:10.639 sort of a transplant, that they are technically a chimera, 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:13.480 but obviously not in a way that's really all that 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:16.879 mythological and monster right yeah, well, right, in the term 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:20.040