WEBVTT - Humanzee: Breaking the Species Barrier 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:05.960 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how stup 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:14.720 works dot com. Hey, wasn't it stuff to blow your mind? 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:17.759 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Seger. Hey Robert, 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:21.599 If I were to ask you how you felt about 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:25.520 ape human hybrids on a scale of one to ten, 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:29.960 one being really uncomfortable and ten being you know, pretty comfortable, 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:33.120 like you'd hang out with them? Where where where did 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:37.640 you fall? Uh? My gut is a three? Three? So yeah, 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:40.440 that that seems I think about on par with most people. 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:45.239 Most people's reaction to the idea of a species, a 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:50.040 new species, I guess being generated from humans and apes 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:54.840 coming together is discussed, right. Yeah, Yeah, that would probably 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:56.600 be like the one in the two on the three. 0:00:56.800 --> 0:00:59.800 I would probably just stand there awkwardly while the hybrids 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:04.160 did their thing and would contemplate a lot of reservations 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:08.800 about how this came to pass? Uh? Who who allowed 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:11.880 this to happen? Who made this happen? And uh? And 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:14.959 how am I supposed to feel about myself as a human, 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:17.200 as a person, How am I supposed to feel about them? 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:20.000 It brings up a lot of questions and and not 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:23.480 just for us. Uh. And this is an old stuff 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:25.520 to blow your mind topic. In fact, there's a there's 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:27.920 an episode from four years ago where you and Julie 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:31.560 tackled the same topic. We're talking about human z s, 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:37.520 which is the possibility of hybridization between chimpanzees and humans. Uh. 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:41.240 It's something that's been studied and experimented on for as 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:43.880 far as we know, at least a hundred years, if 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:47.280 not more longer. Uh. And is you know, I think 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:50.080 it's stuff to blow your mind right, Like it's it's 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:52.800 definitely something that most people didn't expect. I came across 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:55.360 it when we were researching for the X Files. Episodes 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:59.920 about the possibilities of alien human hybrids and human zies 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.240 came up in the research there. So we're revisiting it. Yeah, 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:05.640 and luckily we have we have some better sources at 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:08.120 our disposal this time around, for a you know, a 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:12.280 deeper dive into a one particular case that we're going 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:15.160 to spend a lot of time with here and uh 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:18.120 and yeah, you mentioned the X Files, and I think 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:19.919 that's that's great. We're gonna mention a little bit of 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:22.440 horror fiction, a little bit of a comic book material 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:24.520 here at the top, because it's a it's such a 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:28.359 mind blowing topic. It's a topic that it forces us 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:31.120 to to rethink what we are and what it is 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:32.720 to be human, what it is to be a person. 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:35.120 It certainly worked for a turn to the century sort 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:39.120 of chilling thrillers. Right. Oh yeah, but before we get 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:42.840 into that, let's just remind the audience. So, hey, we 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:45.120 do way more than just the podcast. If you've been 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:47.679 listening to the podcast as many, We've been getting a 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:49.760 lot of nice letters from people who have just started 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:52.240 listening to the show. Uh, we do more than that. 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:56.000 We've got videos. Robert is on How Stuff Works Now 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:58.560 once a week, both of us, right for How Stuff 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:01.760 Works Now at least once we seek Joe is also 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:04.800 on another podcast and show called Forward Thinking. The best 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:06.800 way to find out about all that stuff that we 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:09.920 do writing videos, et cetera, is to visit us at 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:12.919 stuff to Blow your Mind dot com and then follow 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:15.639 us on social media whatever your you know, your social 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:19.320 media of choices, Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, We're on all of them. 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:21.520 Yeah indeed, so, so check us out there if you 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:24.240 haven't already. And hey, if you listen to us on 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:27.240 iTunes or you know, however, you listen to us, uh, 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:29.240 give us a little feedback, bump us up in the 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:35.440 algorithm for your preferred podcast service, and that'll help us out. 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:37.040 It's a great way to support the show. Yeah, I'm 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:39.200 really excited. We're about to hit some new I guess 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:42.560 they call them markets in terms of podcasting, but Google 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:45.720 Play is coming up for us, and um and Spotify 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:48.600 as well. So hey, whatever you listen to out there, 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:51.640 we're on all of them soon. All right. So to 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:54.360 start off, I want to talk with you just a 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:58.920 little bit about an area of fiction that that always 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:02.480 fascinated me, particular because you see, uh, several different individuals 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:05.360 hitting the same topic around the same time in the 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:10.200 same time frame. Um, the earliest being that of that 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:12.960 explored by H. G. Wells in his novel The Island 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:18.880 of Dr Moreau. Yeah. Yeah, mostly known for the movie 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:21.640 adaptations nowadays, although I imagine at the time that it 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:23.400 came out there is a little bit of shock to 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:26.760 the subject matter as well. Oh yeah, and apparently Wells 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:30.120 wrote this, uh in large part as a as a 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:35.080 protest against vivisection, the live dissection of of animals for 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:38.880 research purposes, and um, you know, I think it's definitely 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:42.680 something that's lost in the film generations. But but I 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:46.520 definitely remember watching the old Burt Lancaster version of this 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:51.160 on like on a daytime horror show that was hosted 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:56.120 by alum, what was your name, Grandpa Muster? Okay, yeah, okay, 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:59.520 I hosted by Grandpa on TBS back in the day, 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:01.159 and it was you know, it's kind of grimy and 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:03.720 creepy and Harry and then of course we got that 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:06.720 that wonderful Marlin one. Yeah, I saw that in the 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:10.200 theater in the nineties. Um, it's it's not good, but 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:12.520 it's still I don't know, it has holds a warm 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:14.919 place in my heart. There's some there's some stuff about it. 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:17.880 I like director, but Richard Stanley, I believe, and I 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:20.280 think there's a there's a documentary. I haven't seen it yet, 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:23.280 but there's a documentary about the making of it. But yeah, 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:26.320 for more more than just the fear of vivisection or 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.680 human interspecies crossover, there's a lot of people who stay 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:34.360 away from that movie. Yeah. Yeah, you know what I'm 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:36.560 thinking of two is that even before that, this isn't 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:39.120 necessarily like a crossover. But murders in the room or 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:43.000 post story spoilers for like a two year old story, 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:46.000 but ends up being the murderer, ends up being an 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:48.920 orangutang that you skipped from a zoo or a circus 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:51.800 or something that was nearby and and comes in and 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:55.320 it's a it's a locked door mystery and kills these 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:57.720 people with like a razor blade or something. Yeah, that's 0:05:57.720 --> 0:05:59.680 a that's a great one. Uh, And certainly I think 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:02.200 is a part of this this sort of scene of 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:06.760 weird ape short stories, like because another one that comes 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:09.880 to mind, and this was a bit later, ine, but 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:12.120 you had the Adventure of the Creeping Man by Sir 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:15.080 Arthur Conan Doyle. Yeah, I haven't read that one. Well, 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:17.880 the there's an interesting twist here because it seems like 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:21.479 it's going to be a marauding, murderous ape, but it 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:25.240 turns out that it's um that it's a human who 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:32.080 has been taking um simion derived enhancement products and uh, 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:37.279 you know, and it's actually either biologically or psychologically changing 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:40.440 him into this uh this ape like guy that's a 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:43.960 Dr Jackal mr Hyde kind of scenario. Kind of Yeah, huh. 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:45.919 I wonder if they're going to incorporate this into the 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:49.400 next season of the BBC Sherlock, where Benedict Comberpatch will 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:52.800 be uh dueling with this half apaf man. They should, man, 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:55.920 I'm a big fan of the weirder Conan Doyle stories 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:59.080 like that one and the Devil's Foot, which has a 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:02.560 deadly psychede like poison that drives people mad. Yeah, that 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:05.120 stuff's great. Well, so, okay, you've also told me that 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:08.440 there's a Lovecraft story, and this is outside of my 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:11.080 knowledge of the Lovecraft readings I've done, so so what's 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:14.640 it about. The title of the story is Facts concerning 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:18.840 the Late Arthur German and his Family by BIOHP Lovecraft, 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:23.480 and its pretty early Lovecraft. Yeah, and it's uh, you know, 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:25.960 I definitely wouldn't classified as being one of one of 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:29.360 the great stories, but it's definitely worth exploring if you're 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:33.080 interested in weird ape fiction, and if you're interested in 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:36.600 the whole like racial context of of love Craft and 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:39.480 his racial attitudes, because I can definitely see that kind 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:44.200 of racial anxiety, to put it kindly, in this work. 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:45.960 I'm going to read a quick quote from it. It It 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:50.480 it concerns, uh, you know, Europeans coming back from African expeditions, 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:56.720 having encountered apes. Quote, science, already oppressive with its shocking revelations, 0:07:56.760 --> 0:07:59.920 will perhaps be the ultimate exterminator of our human species. 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:05.240 If separate species we be, for its reserve of unguessed 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:08.800 horrors could never be borne by mortal brains. If loosed 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:12.000 upon the world. If we knew what we are, we 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:14.920 should do as Sir Arthur German did, And Sir Arthur 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:18.400 German soaked himself in oil and set fire to his clothing. 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:22.720 One So, as it turns out, classic Howard Phillips, Yeah, 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:26.000 just you you immolate yourself and that's that's how you 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:29.760 in the story. But basically what happened is this German 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:31.680 character goes out on the more and burns and stuff 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:34.960 after seeing the boxed object which had come back from Africa. 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:38.360 So basically the whole twist here is he finds out 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:41.760 that that his his mother I believe, was a white 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:47.520 apeak and his father was like an explorer or something like, yeah, 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:50.040 who fell in love with the creature, and that he's 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:53.800 the offspring. And yeah, so it's you know, maybe it's 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:56.840 so horrified by his lineage that he commits suicide exactly, 0:08:57.240 --> 0:08:59.680 and you know, it's maybe it's a little Um. It's 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:02.160 as close to the old admit, it's a twist on 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:05.480 the old Lovecraft shadow over in Smith, it's very similar 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.600 kind of ending, except that guy that doesn't kill himself. Yeah. Yeah, 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:10.800 and also similar a little bit too in Smith in 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:15.280 that regard getting into you know, the racial horror, racial anxiety, 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:18.000 and and but it it does tie in nicely into 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:20.840 what we're gonna talk about today, into the real abhorrence, 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:23.360 and into the some of the actual science that was 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:27.120 going on around this period. Yeah. In fact, so I've 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:28.880 talked about this on the show before, but you know, 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:31.000 the Silver Age of comic books, right around the end 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:33.400 of the fifties beginning of the sixties, there was a 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:37.520 fascination with this very topic of these of eight men 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.600 basically uh, and they shut up all over the place 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:43.160 in comics, and some of the big ones are still 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:45.679 around today. I mean the Flash TV show that's airing 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.640 right now just had Guerrilla Grod, which is one of 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:52.400 my favorite characters from all of comics history on it. 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:55.680 He's a super intelligent eight Yeah. So these aren't necessarily 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:58.800 eight human hybrids, but they're they're oh, they're either that 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:01.960 or they're men that been turned into apes or they're 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:04.880 super intelligent apes. So like in the case of Guerrilla Grod, 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:07.439 he comes from a city called Guerrilla City that's hidden 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:09.840 in the wilderness somewhere where there's just all these super 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:12.679 intelligent apes, and they're so smart that they've like built 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:16.000 science that allows them to hide themselves from society. Uh. 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:19.440 Cong Guerrilla is another one which I believe. I don't 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:22.720 know the specific details, but I think Cong Guerrilla is 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:25.600 like a guy who's been cursed or something like that 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:30.719 in the Congo to be a guerrilla. Same with Guerrilla Man. Uh, 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:34.240 almost the exact same origin. There's a there's a villain 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:37.600 called the Ultra Humanite that is like a scientist who's 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:40.640 placed his brain inside a guerrilla's body. I believe it's 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:43.520 like a big white gorilla um and that that will 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:45.960 come into play when we talk later about the Chinese 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:50.599 experiments that we're being done around hybridization. There's Monster and Mala, 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:53.959 and then the one uh that I that I immediately 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:56.080 thought of when we were doing the research for this 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:59.600 was the Red Ghost, which is an old Fantastic four villain, 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:04.480 and he is like a Russian scientist who gets exposed. 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:07.160 I think like cosmic rays or something like that, with 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:10.160 three apes that he has with him. He has a gorilla, 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:13.360 a baboon, and orangutank and they all developed superpowers and 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:16.360 hang out together. And his name, his real name is 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:18.680 Ivan Cragoff. And the guy we're going to talk about 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:21.880 the day, his name is Ivan ivan Off. So I 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:27.320 wonder if, uh, that was the inspiration Ivan Ivanof was 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:29.920 the inspiration for the red Ghost character. It might have been, 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:33.440 you know, I'm also reminded of the hell Boy villain 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:39.000 Herman from The Conqueror Worm, which is my favorite hell 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:41.920 Boy adventure. Well, all right, real quick, before we get 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:44.640 into the crazy science behind this, I'll give you a 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:49.840 little factoid. So it is a known thing within comics 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:52.680 industry that if you put this is back in the day, 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:55.440 if you put the color purple or an or and 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:58.280 an ape on the cover of your comic, it would 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:00.760 sell more copies. And so that was one of the 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:03.560 reasons why there were so many of these characters that 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:06.120 popped up at the time, is that they just they 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:09.199 don't know, you know, somehow the things correlated together to 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:12.880 higher sales. So they were constantly producing more gorilla grods 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:16.240 or cong guerrillas or whatever. So maybe there's somehow those 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:20.319 covers were just cutting in almost subconsciously to this u 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:27.040 to the post Darwinian um existential problem exact Man versus eight, 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:30.199 not not only in physical combat where we're going to lose, 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:33.080 but just in terms of identity. It's like, yeah, it was. 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:35.520 It's like the tabloid cover of its time that immediately 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:37.760 kind of put click something in your head and makes 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:39.480 you go, oh, I'm not quite right with that, but 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:42.200 I need to figure out what what danger it poses 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:44.400 to me. Yeah. Plus, I've also heard that in the 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:48.440 post Darwinian world, the idea of our be steal nature, 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:51.880 instead of being represented in the form of werewolves and um, 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:54.440 you know, another type of beast man like the gorilla 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:59.840 and the ape man, becomes the prime mold that makes 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:03.560 the steel human. Yeah, the fear of regressing back to 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:06.720 your primal nature beyond your rational one. So what better 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:10.559 for Superman. Superman has a valin. I believe his name 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:14.720 is Titano, the super Ape. Is he made of metal? No, 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:17.839 he's just a big ape with superpowers, I think? Or 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:19.480 so well again, by that point, all the names are 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:24.000 being used up. Yeah, exactly something So all right, let's 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:27.880 dive into this. Let's dive into the Darwinism, the the 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:32.559 eugenics behind it, the fear too. There's just a palpable 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:35.280 fear about this, so much so that scientists have actually 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:40.240 filed patents to try to keep this from happening. So 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:42.080 the filing of a of a patent just to make 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:46.400 sure nobody else actually engages in hybridization. Yeah, So in 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:50.600 developmental biologists, Stuart Newman, who at the time was working 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:53.240 at the New York Medical College in Valhalla, which sounds 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:56.000 like a pretty cool place to work, together with a 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:58.480 guy named Jeremy Rifkin, who is the president of the 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:01.640 Foundation of Economic Trends, which is based out of Washington, 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:06.560 d C. They submitted a patent for the chimera of 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:09.320 a human zy. So we'll explain what a chimera is, 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:14.160 shortly made from embryonic cells of humans and chimpanzees. And 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:16.360 the reason why they did this wasn't because they wanted 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:19.200 to create a human zy. It was because they wanted 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:22.240 to secure the patent because they wanted to prevent other 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:26.040 people from ever making a human Z and exploiting it. 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:30.760 In particular, they were worried about corporations, uh, somehow building 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:34.360 these human zies and like using them either for artificial organs, 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:36.520 as we'll talk about later, or or even for like 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:40.480 labor purposes. What happened was the patent was denied in 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:43.560 two thousand four by the Patent and Trademark Office. But 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:47.320 the rejection basically came because the government looked at it 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.040 and they said, well, this includes within its scope a 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:53.960 human being, which we can't legally patent a human being. 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:57.360 So in and of itself, they sort of defined by 0:14:57.480 --> 0:15:01.239 law that trying to patent any kind end of species 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:08.320 creation that it involves human cross breeding is unpatentable. So 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:10.960 we'll see. I mean, if it ever comes to comes 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:15.400 to light that, you know, corporations do start designing human zase, 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:18.880 we'll see how that plays out in courts. But that's 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:22.080 an interesting point. Yeah, yeah, what can you say to 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:25.560 the resulting hybrid, I'm sorry, you're in violation of patent? Yeah, exactly. 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:28.680 And so Newman and uh and Riffkin, you know, they 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.560 basically their whole goal was just to start a debate, 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:34.080 right like, however it played out, I don't think they 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:37.120 particularly cared. They wanted the debate about what it means 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:40.200 to be human, uh, to actually get in there in 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:43.760 the legal you know jargon, especially when it came to 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:47.880 patenting organisms with human genes. And I don't know if 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:50.600 you remember this. It's funny because as we're recording this 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:53.520 last night with Barack Obama's last State of the Union speech, 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:57.960 but in two thousand six, President George W. Bush during 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:01.200 his State of the Union speech called for a ban 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:07.680 on human animal hyber I was I remember watching it, 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:09.440 and I mean this is ten years ago now, and 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:12.120 I remember watching it and thinking where did this come from? 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:13.960 It just it came out of nowhere, and I was like, 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:17.480 why is he worried about werewolves? And now I can 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:19.720 kind of see where the you know where, where the 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:23.080 origin of that came from. Clearly, Uh, the argument got 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:25.720 started by Newman. It's interesting to think of this in 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:31.240 terms of breaking the species barrier, which is a phrase 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:36.040 that I picked up in James Randerson's article in The 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:40.600 Guardian where he's talking about um Richard Dawkins proposing a 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.720 two thousand nine that the successful hybridization between a human 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:46.840 and a champanzee would would be something that would change everything, 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:51.359 a real a real game changer for for human civilization 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:55.440 if that makes sense along Dawkins line of research and 0:16:56.440 --> 0:17:00.040 thought too. Yeah, attack that. So I definitely challenger you 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:02.840 want to keep thinking of this species barrier as we 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:06.280 as we move forward, because in a sense it is 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:09.760 a an artificial barrier, and since it is a but 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:12.800 it's but still a barrier that is carefully maintained, and 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:15.160 it has a lot to do with with not only 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:17.840 the biological reality of of who and what we are, 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:22.760 but also just are our existential understanding of Yeah. Absolutely, uh, 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:25.920 And I think that we're going to keep coming back 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:29.200 to that with these research. The research that we're exploring too, 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:33.919 is that that fear, that uh, confrontation of understanding of 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:38.240 what being human means kept coming back throughout these and 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:40.840 for good reason. Before we get into the like the 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:42.280 meat of it, though, I just wanted to add a 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:44.800 note here because I always have trouble with this and 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:47.560 I wanted to make sure that the audience was with us. 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:51.800 So chimpanzees, which would be you know, how we would 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:56.520 produce a human z They're not monkeys. Monkeys and great 0:17:56.560 --> 0:17:59.720 apes are separate from one another. Right this It feels 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:03.959 like the Carl Pilkington, Uh, like I'm I'm, I'm Gervais 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:07.520 trying to explain to my inner Carl Pilkington. A great 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:11.720 eight is a chimpanzee, a gorilla, and orangutang, a bnobo 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:16.680 and potentially humans, right, And here's the distinction. They don't 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:21.159 have tails. They have larger bodies and bigger brains than monkeys. 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:24.320 They're built for different kinds of locomotion and this includes 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:27.159 walking by pedally on their legs like we do, but 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:30.280 also that swinging from branches that we think of. Right, 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:34.200 So the anatomy of great apes is their shoulder blades 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:36.760 are designed in such a way that allows that monkeys 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:39.320 can't necessarily do all those same things. So that's what 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:41.919 we're talking about here. And the distinction is important because 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:45.960 of you know, the definition of species and how close 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:50.360 we as human beings are too chimpanzees as a speeches 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:53.120 as a species. Yeah, As a regular zoo visitor with 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:55.840 my my son, this comes up a lot as I 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:59.960 hear other parents talk about the monkeys. At the monkey, 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:02.560 look at him, go look at And because that's the 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:06.280 other thing, like the gender of the the creature of 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:09.800 being viewed as always male, and I always want to 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:12.080 point out, do you see an elephant penis, because I 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:14.880 do not see an elephant penis. Yeah. Yeah, but that's 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:17.880 a that's a side tension. So let's do this. Let's 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:20.639 line up what a hybrid is and what a chimera 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:23.399 is so we can kind of define those before we 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:26.720 get into it. This is uh, you know, fertile stuff 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:28.639 to blow your mind ground. We've covered this on multiple 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:31.960 episodes before, but it's always good to have a primer. So, 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:34.960 hybrid animals are created when the genetic material from different 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:38.720 animals joined to form a single embryo. So a mule, 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:41.159 for example, is the offspring of female horse and a 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:44.600 male donkey. Every cell in the body of a mule 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:48.200 contains genetic material from both parents. Yeah, and as we'll 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:52.760 get into later, they're almost always infertile. Yeah, and if not, 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:57.159 other problems present. So chimeras are a little different in 0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:00.800 that they are two different sets of DNA that originate 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:04.720 from the fusion of different zygoats or eggs. Right, So 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:07.200 the first one of these was created actually in nineteen 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:10.840 sixty one. That's uh quite a bit after a lot 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:12.879 of the research that we're gonna be talking about today. 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:17.119 At least the Russian research. Uh, and chimeras aren't always 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:19.439 a fifty fifty blend. The example I gave this in 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:21.520 the X Files episode I'll give it again here is 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:24.560 if you make a chimera of a sheep and a goat, Uh, 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:27.679 it's not gonna be like half sheep half goat, like 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:30.560 right down the middle. It's gonna look like a sheep maybe, 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:34.000 but the hair will feel like a goat, right, Like 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:36.200 it would be a little bit more briskly or chorus 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:38.080 than a sheep would be. Yeah, I mean, I've also 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:40.520 read that you could make an argument that an individual 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:43.520 who has animal tissue in their body, some sort of 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:47.600 a transplant, that they are technically a chimera, but obviously 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:50.960 not in a way that's really all that mythological and 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:53.760 monster right, yeah, well right in the term chimera comes 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:57.439 from the monstrous myth of what is it part dragon, 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:01.200 part lion, part eagle? Is that right? There's a goat 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:04.600 on the tail coat in there too, So it's a 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.119 mix of every everybody knows that monster from their D 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:10.679 and d adventures. Um. The monster frequently seen in the 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:13.919 Monster Manual, but I think rarely rolled out because it's 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:15.840 hard to get excited about something with a goat for 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:17.800 a tail. Yeah, it's just kind of a mishmash of 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:20.720 animals and a little bit of dragon in there. So 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:23.840 what do we mean when we say species too? That's important, right, 0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:27.760 So most of us think, oh, a species is different 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:31.080 kinds of animals, right, that look alike, act alike, and 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:34.240 have babies together that follow the same paths that they do. 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:38.000 But to biologists, there's a difference. They have a phrase 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:42.720 biological species concept and by this they mean two animals 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:46.840 are only the same species if they can interbreed and 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:50.600 produce offspring that are fertile. So that's crucial, especially when 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:54.399 we're using the mule as the benchmark here, and it 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:56.640 leaves out a lot of the plant kingdom and even 0:21:56.680 --> 0:21:58.400 some of the animal kingdom too. As we know from 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:00.600 talking about lots of parasites and things on the show, 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:05.879 there's plenty of beings species that can reproduced a sexually. 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:08.480 It's also worth noting that, as you know, as any 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:12.640 given lineage within the within the animal kingdom makes its 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:17.040