January 2, 2025 • 64 mins
From ancient stories of shapeshifters to works of fiction like "The Island of Dr. Moreau", humanity has always been fascinating with the line between people and non-human animals -- but modern technology may finally allow us to create real-life chimeras. In fact, it already has. The only question here is how far scientists have actually gone in this regard (and whether that's something they don't want us to know).
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back, fellow conspiracy realist. We returned to you once
again with a classic episode as we wild through the holidays.
Remember the Island of Doctor Moreau. Do you guys ever
read that or did you see the awesome adaptation with
With My Man?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Awesome awful depending on where you stand.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Awesome in the sense of awesome in the old sense
of the word, just extraordinary and somehow inspiring of all.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
There is a documentary about that film, the production, how
it completely went off the rails and they fired the
original director, and how he just kind of lurked around
like sort of peeking in.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Like an escaped monster on the island.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
And apparently Marlon Brando just decided to paint himself white
with lars onscreen ice bucket and wear the ice bucket
on his head and have the little fellow on his
shoulder whispering to him. And he was getting all his
lines fed to him through an earpiece anyway, which.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Was not Uncommon's amazing.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
What is that?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, but it is about the idea of human animal hybrids, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
And when we were recording this in twenty nineteen, there
were already some very i would say ethically challenging but
medically fascinating innovations in the world of chimeras and human
animal hybrids. Right, you can have pig grown organs that
are replacing human organs for people in need. This episode
(01:27):
is about how modern technology may finally allow us to
create real life chimeras, but the problem is due to
humanity's troubling track record with human experimentation and secrecy. We
don't really know how far it's gone, and we don't
know how far we look. What we can tell you spoiler,
(01:49):
is that embryos have been created with the understanding that
at a certain time they're going to eradicate those embryos.
To just get past the question of what happens in
a real life Doctor Moreau situation.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
I just want to be a cat boy.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Guys, I want to be like a catboy, but a
large cat. I've always you know, like be cool to
be partially tiger.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, like I mean you know this is not to
be confused with the furry phenomenon.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
No, yeah, we're not talking about jiffing necessarily.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Well, this one just goes out to a certain sandwich
that we know. But I just want to be a Johnny.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
There we go if I'm partially Tiger, I still want
to keep my regular penis. That's just a medical fact
about cats, you guys, fair enough.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
That's throw all the tape.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt
Noel will not be joining us today. Buddy is here
in spirit.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
They call me Ben and your joint as always with
our super producer Paul, Mission control decon. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. Before we do our
usual check in, we have a special announcement. Happy birthday, Mike.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yeah, mister Mike Wolfe.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
We're belated. I believe your birthday was Tuesday.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Is yesterday, Uh huh yeah, but hey, Mike is twenty
four today. Everybody, it's pretty awesome, Kelly says, Hi, and
uh hey, let's get on with the show. But happy
birthday Mike.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
And nice cooler. Good to be back, man, long time.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yeah, I know, it's been an entire week and some
since I've seen you, especially since we've been in the
studio together, and you know, I cherished these times likewise,
and we're coming to the end of the big birthday
month here at how Stuff Works Slash. iHeart podcast Network
where so many of us were born around this time,
And just as a check in, just want to let
(04:06):
you know that I got to karaoke for the first
time in a long time. Yeah, because it was Annie's birthday,
and I did this thing that I thought you would
have been proud of, but since you were away on
an adventure, you didn't get to witness it. I attempted
to do Hip to B Square, you know, by Huey
Lewis in the News, and then there's an instrumental section
(04:26):
that occurs in that song, and I had prepared essentially
it's not fully a monologue, but the dialogue from one
of the characters in American Psycho where he's discussing Huey
Lewis in the News, and I was going to perform
it during the instrumental section.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Oh cool.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Now, let me just also say this because Mission Control
was there too, and Mission Control was rocking out to
some Britney spears to some classic new metal, all kinds
of really great songs. Everybody was feeling it is a
packed room. M hmm. And I got up to start
doing mine, and it felt like not a single person
(05:04):
in the room even knew what the song was, or
at least didn't care. So I turn around at one
point just to be like, all right, guys, we do it.
Does anybody understand what this song is or where it
comes from? Crickets? So it's real embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Now you're talking about, I believe the moment in the
film adaptation of American Psycho where Christian Bale's character begins
at an increasingly manic clip. Yeah, sort of describing his
criticism of Huey Lewis in the news.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Well, and also about how they've evolved, about how this album,
in particular with this song on it, it's showing this
consummate professionalism and all of these things, and about critiques
of the song itself and the meaning behind it.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
And this is as he's amping himself up to commit
a murderess. Correct. Yes, I think that's brilliant. I'm well done.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Thanks man, thought you would have liked it. It's okay,
but I hey, you weren't there because you were on
an adventure and also late. Happy anniversary to you, my friend.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
No thank you, thank you very much, Matt. And likewise,
because you and Annie and Noel and our own casey Pegram,
Tyler and Tyler Klang and more, we're missing someone. Chandler
is like almost in the club Chandler's debate. Yeah, but
(06:30):
we do have quite a few August birthdays. Circumstances found me.
You know, I hate to miss any recording of this show,
but circumstances found me in Japan, a place where that
Mission Control is very familiar with. So what do you
think about meandering intros? Sorry about that, let us know
you can read just directly. We are one eight three.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Three std WYTK leave us a message, tell us about
specifically that intro and ask us about Ben's crow story
when he was in a different place. Oh wow, because
hopefully he'll tell that one too. It's a great story.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
That's very kind, Matt. Yeah, I'm coming in hot. My
body doesn't know what time it is. I have a
vague awareness that it is probably a Monday here.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Yeah, your body is just a cage, my friend, for
the words you're about to say, that's true.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Kimara's right, not not camaros kimaras c h I M
E r A. This this is an interesting, fascinating, and
as we will learn today, disturbing concept. Really the best
way to approach this is to ask ourselves, what's the
(07:42):
line between humans and other animals? Right? Because technically, if
we cast, if we put all the metaphysical stuff and
the spirituality and the religious stuff aside, biologically speaking, human
beings are defined as animals, So what makes us different?
For a long long time we thought humans have sults,
(08:07):
and that's still what people will say. But again that's
more of a spiritual religious reasoning.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Not really provable yet.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Not really provable yet true. When we looked at something
more secular, for centuries and centuries, we said, while the
big difference between humans and all other animals would be intelligence.
The problem is even now, our species has a real
difficult time defining intelligence. And the more we examine this
(08:39):
line between humans and other animals, the more we see
that this line fuzzes. Right. The demarcation is not as
stark as we would wish.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Oh yeah, because there are plenty of non human animals
that display all sorts of intelligence. Crows, Yeah, absolutely, crow
cetaceans to be some of the most prominent ones.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Elephants.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Elephants, what are octopus in cephalopods?
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Cephalopods yeaheah.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
All kinds of different animals show some form of at
least and an awareness beyond what we would usually contribute
to an animal.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Right, right sapiens sentience wisdom. For years, you remember this matter.
For years, various organizations around the world have said, you
know what, some of these animals, the ones we just named,
are in fact so intelligent that they meet the legal
threshold of personhood, meaning that their cognitive abilities are high
(09:38):
enough that they should be guaranteed some of the same
rights that we our species in theory gives to every
other human being. And today's episode approaches that that same
weird border. What is the line between human and animal?
Speaker 3 (09:56):
And what happens when those lines even get even further blurred?
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Mm hmm, And where does it take us? Here are
the facts. You've probably heard the word kamara before. The
definition of kimara is pretty cool in folklore. It's a
very strange flex in mythology, specifically Greek mythology. The kimara
is this fire breathing monster. It's female, and it's this
(10:22):
strange anatomical mixtape. It's mostly a lion, right at least
in the front. It is a goat in the middle,
and it has a goat head coming out of the
back to the mid spine, and then it's a dragon
in the rear.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Yeah yeah, right, I know. Most of my camera is
from Magic the Gathering, huh. I mean as well as
Greek mythology. MTG has some pretty great ones.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
And they have some divergent takes, right.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Oh yeah, definitely. I mean if you take the Spellheart camera,
that was a big one for me back in the day.
I'm just kidding. We're not going to talk about this.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
I want to hear what please.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
There are a lot of them, at least the card
art and the way they're described in the flavor text
is very similar to the traditional Greek mythology versions.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
So like three or more usually distinct animals melded into
a single creature.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Sometimes it gets down into you know, two fully separate heads.
Sometimes it's just one head with a body that's a
little different, but it's always a melding of creatures.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Right right, And interestingly enough, in Greek mythology, the Chimera
is the child of Typhon and Echidna, and it is
also a sibling of other multi headed creatures such as Cerebus,
the three headed canine that guards the underworld, and the hydra.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Oh yeah, that's I didn't realize that. It makes it.
It doesn't make perfect sense, but it makes better sense
to have that be the mythological order of what is it, child, monsters,
baby birth, the monster birth. For those to actually have.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
This and this, it's strange because again we see the
intersection between folklore, mythology and modern facts. You know, a
lot of our nomenclature and terminology comes from these ancient stories,
and that's why the word chimera still exist here in
these our modern days. We have a scientific definition of chimera.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Oh yeah, So if you look to science, it's gonna
say a chimera is a single organism, one distinct thing
that's composed of two or more distinct different populations. And
this is important of cells that originated from different zygotes
involved in sexual reproduction. So this is this is highly
important for today's episode, two very specific sets of cells
(12:52):
from from two different zygotes.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Right, yeah, this is huge. This is crucial. So far
from the lion goat dragon street hit of ancient mythology,
actual chimeras are more subtle, at least the ones that
you may have met sometime in your life. Not only
(13:19):
have you may have met them, but you may have
never noticed anything different about them. Chimera can occur naturally
in humans. So let's say that you or your loved
one are carrying a child, and there are two kids
in the womb fetuses right, not quite you know, kids,
(13:41):
but fetuses that will become human beings. And one of
the fetuses dies or is absorbed by its twin, leaving
the surviving fetus with two distinct sets of cells. Wo. So,
like identical twins, maybe doesn't matter as much, But fraternal
twins this does matter. Genetically, they are different.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
And it's hard to really comprehend what that means unless
you apply it to a story or an example exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
So, usually not only would you not know the person
you met is a kamara, they probably don't know either,
And typically people find out about this by accident. In
two thousand and two, I was a woman named Karen Keegan.
Karen Keegan needed a kidney transplant, and so she underwent
genetic testing to see whether one of her family members
(14:34):
could be a potential donor. This is clear standard operating procedure.
You check with the family first, right in this situation,
they did conduct the test, and what they found they
found something that completely caught them off guard, something they
were not looking for.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Yeah, sometimes you'll hear no, you're not the father, but
you know what you never here.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
No you are not the mother. See, the genetic testing
that Karen and her family underwent indicated that technically speaking,
she could not be the mother of her children that
she birthed, that she birthed, yes, her biological children. This
threw everyone for a loop. It was like the end
(15:22):
of usual suspects. What's going on here? The doctors eventually
learned that Karen, in fact was a human chimera. This
is just one example, and they probably would never have
caught this unless that kidney transplant need came up. Bone
marrow transplants can also create chimera. Bone marrow transplants, by
(15:47):
the way, really interesting. There are a couple of unidentified
people who were more or less cured of HIV by
bone marrow transplants. In this case, you don't need to
have something freakish happen. Bone marrow contains the cells that
later develop into red blood cells, the old stem cells,
(16:07):
the old stem cells, the old stem cell. So what
happens when someone has a bone marrow transplant is that
their own bone marrow is destroyed somehow and it's replaced
with marrow from this donor, and this marrow, this stranger's
marrow creates these new blood cells. They continually are created.
(16:30):
And that means that if you receive a successful bone
marrow transplant, for the rest of your natural life, you
will carry genetically distinct cells within your body that reproduce.
You will become a chimera.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Wow, I've never thought of it that way. I didn't,
I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
I haven't thought about it that way because I guess
you and I have been fortunate enough in our lives
to not have to delve into own marrow transplant.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
True, so, very true, very true. We've been very fortunate.
But you know, when you're thinking about in this way,
it's in that particular example, it's a very good thing.
Like being a chimera is great. You've got the blood
of someone else's essentially in your body because they helped
you survive or they have to helped you continue on. Right, Yeah,
(17:21):
a camera in this way, in a scientific way, just
isn't scary at least, it's not nearly as creepy as
the Greek mythology monsters that existed because of this word
or this word was used to describe.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Yeah, it's much, it's it's much. It's a much more inspirational.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yes, really it really is.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Look at us humans, go medicine, go science. They Yeah,
these chimera don't seem you're as frightening. You wouldn't notice it.
And here's another thing. While we're talking about pregnancy for
a time, there's a study from I want to say,
twenty fifteen ors so that indicates women during pregnancy may
(18:05):
function as kamara for a limited amount of time.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Because the fetus is creating, it's it's developing its own
cells and blood and everything is being shared in that
one symbiotic system. Oh wow, but oh you know what
that makes do? That makes total sense? Uh, My wife
and I had had all these discussions. She was learning
a lot during our pregnancy, but how the hormones in
(18:33):
her body as well as having this you know, this
being existing inside of her that she's sharing fluids with
with all these stem cells and young blood and all
this her. She was so ridiculously healthy during her pregnancy,
so much more so than before or after. Not to
say she's unhealthy, it's just there was like it was
(18:54):
like she was had superpowers or something.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
It's kind of evolutions. Get out of j free pass,
you know. Yeah, we've we've seen we've seen different indicators
of that. Wow, we could do it an entire series
of episodes on the stuff that we as a species
don't yet fully understand about pregnancy. Oh yeah, but what
(19:18):
if the idea of being a camara? What if cameraicism
doesn't stop their cameraicism is a word that I just
made up.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
I accept it, thank you.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
What if breakthroughs in medical technology can enable us to
create real life creatures closer and closer and closer to
the monsters described in Greek mythology. What if we could
create a melding of various animals or even some sort
(19:50):
of human animal hybrid. Could this be possible and if so,
what would we do? We'll explore this after a word
from our sponsors. Here's where it gets crazy. The answer
(20:11):
to the first part of the question is emphatically. Yes.
Not only can we as a species do this, we
are already doing this. This is already happening. Pandora's jar
is twisted open and there is no twisting it back.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Oh yeah, we're heading towards the land of the centaurs. Everybody.
Just if we take it back to mythology, yeah, yeah,
because I mean, really think about it. Humans in our storytelling,
in our legends, we've been pretty obsessed with humans and
animals becoming one thing. If you think about think about werewolves,
think about the skin Walker's like the version of skin Walker,
(20:51):
though it's a little different thing.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Or Selki oh yeah, you know. Or Mermaids Mermaids perfect
where Jaguar. There's so many stories of people, through one
means or another. Weirdly enough, it wasn't evil for a
long time. It just became evil later, but through one
means or another, people acquiring the attributes of different animals,
(21:19):
if not the ability to completely become those animals.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Yeah, for either advantageous means or perhaps because they were
cursed in some.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Way, right, some sort of divine interventions. Usually how it starts.
This obsession carried on for thousands and thousands of years.
In fact, and an earlier episode, I don't know how
long ago now, Matt, you and I explored the strange
true story of the so called human z Do you
(21:51):
remember that, I do.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Was this a Soviet experiment back in the day, Yes,
but it was. I can't remember if we decided it
was proven or not. I know for sure that there
were a ton of rumors. I think the big question
back in the day was was this propaganda of some
sort from either side? But there appeared, at least on
(22:13):
the surface, to be experiments in the Soviet Union to
create a human chimpanzee hybrid.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was Iliya Ivanovich Ivanov in the
nineteen twenties. The idea was that one could combine the intelligence,
or at least the potential for intelligence, of the human
being with the physical prowess of a primate. And they said, well,
(22:41):
out of all the great apes, the chimp is the
closest that we can find to the human. So let's
get them together. Play some R and B, you know, lights,
some candles, put on some shot. A see what happens.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
No no, no.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
No, no, no. Solely because A was not around in
the nineteen twenty.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Oh, Shade was the only part of that.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Okay, all right, yeah, they they just didn't have the
music right and you got it.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
I have the least a huge role put on that
New Swift album. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
So, so, as far as we know, officially, these experiments
during this time did not reach success. There was not
a viable offspring, and there will be. You know, there
are other reports of there was the one ape that
had lost some of its hair and its head that
(23:33):
exhibited human characteristics according to its observers m. But none
of those, none of none of those experiments, none of
those creatures so far as we know, created a viable
A viable example. Oh that's right. It was a chimp
called Oliver. A chimpanzee, Oliver Bells, Yeah, brought to brought
(23:57):
to the US who people said he had a human
like appearance, ability to walk upright, and would rather hang
out with humans versus chimps. But genetic testing confirmed you
was a chimpanzee. And look, chimpanzees are incredibly intelligent, Yeah,
very very smart. Don't mess with them, don't try it
out smart them, don't definitely don't piss them off. In
(24:22):
Oliver's case, this chimpanzee was probably just very highly acclimated
to humans right had been raised with them, and this,
you know, this is its own unethical, sad thing. But
long story short, unless there is a huge secret in
terms of Soviet hybridization experiments, we as a species haven't
(24:47):
seen a successful version of this. However, that doesn't mean
we stopped trying. You see, as it turns out, fellow
conspiracy realists across the planet have not only continued these experiments,
they have made striking, breath taking forays into this world
(25:09):
of human animal hybridization. We found several strange and again
we cannot emphasize this enough. Real genuine, actual examples of
chimera being created today.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Oh yeah, So let's just jump through some of these.
The first one, it's an attempt to make an increasingly
intelligent ape or monkey in this case of some sort.
So there are some researchers in both China and the
United States that have attempted to create a version of
a monkey that also carries a human gene, and this
(25:44):
particular gene plays a role in the development of the brain.
And if there's a study, as according to study that
was published in Beijing's National Science review. This all occurred
when researchers from the Kunming Institute of Zoology this is
a Chinese academy of sciences, and they were working along
with the University of North Carolina and some other institutions.
(26:06):
They reported that there were eleven transgenic this is what
they're called transgenic reesis monkeys that were created through the
studies here. And that's pretty that's pretty intense that we
were already creating something like this before working on this episode. Personally,
I had no idea that there was already some kind
(26:28):
of chimeric testing done to create an intelligent animal.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
That had been allowed to survive, yees to be born,
because a lot of the experimentation that we have read
about or we have encountered occurs at the embryo stage,
embriotic stage.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
And it's mostly to see if it would be possible
to then take that, you know, creature to term, Like
if we were going to we could, this would be
a viable specimen, right right.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
But then for insert ethical conscers iteration A through Z here,
we are going to terminate the growth of this this
bundle of cells and do it before you know, before
organ's form and like a brainstem and a nervous system
forms and so on. And that's the attempt to circumvent
the ethical quandaries that might occur if it's allowed to
(27:19):
reach a later stage of development. Yes, specifically, what they
did with these eleven Recis monkeys is they they gave
them human copies of a gene called mcph one. Mcph one,
as you said, Matt plays it plays a big role
(27:40):
in brain development. Two startling things happened here. According to
this study, this small change, this little bit of extra
cognitive gas, did make a discernible difference. The monkeys that
carried the human copy of this gene exhibited better short
term memory. They also had faster reaction time and when
(28:00):
compared with a control group of wild Recis monkeys who
had not had their skullhoods tampered with.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Right, wow, Well it's interesting to if you delve deep
into the research and all the documentation and that kind
of thing, it makes you wonder how much just keeping
them as not wild Recis monkeys, if that had any effect.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
That's a great point. Yeah, is at the Oliver effect. Right,
we'll just call it that. Here's the startling thing. Though
you said there were eleven monkeys right, Yes, who had
this gene transferred to them? These eleven monkeys were not
created all in one go. Eight of these monkeys were
(28:42):
first generation, the other three were second generation. Whoa, meaning
that this trait transferred. Yeah, which of course is how
genes are supposed to work.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
But still knowing that that's even possible. You really have
to do is create one came era and then you
could have you could have endless offspring, depending on which
species are using and how long. All you need is
time and a mate.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
You are entering another dimension. Yeah. So there you have it,
real life super monkeys with some strong air quotes around there.
But the story doesn't stop there. We had this in
our notes as Piggy people question mark. Yeah, I know
that a lot of us listening today are huge fans
(29:36):
of Animal Farm, right in the work of George Orwell,
and there is a incredibly bleak, incredibly well written part
of that book where the animals. That's well, quick spoiler
Animal Farm. If you are not familiar with the plot
and you don't want it spoiled for you, and you've
been waiting for a chance to read it or watch
(29:57):
one of the mini adaptations, please can consider this your
spoiler warning three to one spoilers. All right, so an
animal farm, the human owners of the farm or the
human authority figures of the farm are are kicked out
of power, right, and the animals in the farm attempt
(30:19):
to create a utopian society wherein individuals contribute according to
their ability and are supported according to their need. Right. Yeah,
sounds great on paper. Anyway, it turns out that the
pigs on the farm supplant the former role of the humans,
and they are real pills. They're bad, and they betray
(30:45):
all their ideals.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Well, and as it turns out, genetically, it's an interesting
story too, because humans and pigs are close enough on
that mammalian scale where you know, the the what is
the term pig yes to describe a human in certain
ways when consumed, when consumed. Yeah, we really aren't that different.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
No, no, no, And pigs themselves, outside of orwell, are
quite intelligent. There's this very bleak moving segment of animal farm.
I'm sure a lot of us already know what I'm
going to say, where the surviving animals on the farm
are looking from the humans to the pigs and back
and forth, and they cannot tell the difference so this
(31:31):
is a comment of course, orwell means it to be
a comment on the cycles of supplanting and replacing power structures.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
And you know how the dangers of gaining power really.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Yeah, and it's also to what you say, man, it's
a very interesting comment on the biological similarities. So some
people maybe not inspired by, orwell maybe very much inspired
by orwell.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
They probably read it. Almost certainly they read it.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
In school, almost certainly they had to. They decided to
see whether it was possible to leverage the biological similarities
between the pig and the human to create chimera for
a very specific purpose. Based on multiple interviews, the MIT
(32:24):
Technology Review estimated that in twenty fifteen there were about
twenty pregnancies of pig human or sheep human chimera. And again,
they're not These aren't being born out right. As far
as we know, we know that these come with a
very specific goal attached to them. A chimera of pig
(32:47):
and human, a poresine human camera or the same product
with cheap and humans are attractive because pigs and sheep
both have organs that are about the right size for
a human ballpark, right size for transplantation into a human being.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
And if you can get the human cells in there
to grow a human liver in particular inside one of
these creatures, then well, there you go. You've got an
organ factory, my friend.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
You do you do not a perfect organ factory for
number of reasons. Yeah, but this is again just the beginning.
Immediate questions, right, skirt, immediate questions. Why have we not
seen grown up hybrids yet? Well, first, the ratio of
human to animal cells and this sort of creature is very,
(33:37):
very low. We're not at the point of poresine people yet,
we're not reaching peak pig people, peak pig people. There
we go. We are instead seeing things that would look
exactly like a pig or a monkey or a sheep,
(33:57):
but they're internal re show is what changes. So there's
a and.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
It's really just a few genes.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
It's just a fu greven alters, just a tweak, just
the tweak. Matt and I are both like holding our
pointer fingers and our thumbs mere centimeters from each other
and then just sort of twisting in the air just
a little the genetic screw drivity. Yeah, there we go.
What could go wrong? Seconds? As I think you said earlier, Matt,
(34:28):
In most cases, these hybrids have never been allowed to
develop for more than a few weeks. They've been terminated
before actual organs, nervous systems, and so on have been
given the chance to form. So one expert put it thusly.
They said, you know, we're essentially just creating groups of
(34:49):
cells to see whether they can work together, coexist, and
then we're ending them before anything gets into that murky
ethical quagmire.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
Yeah, it's not. It's only in approaching the dark gray area.
If you know, you only get them a couple like
a week or.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Two further, I say, further into the darkness. You may
have had your ears pricked up a bit when you
heard the concept of organ production. What are we talking about?
We'll tell you after a word from our sponsor, and.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
We're back in. One of the big things we're gonna
be really postulating or having thought experiments about a little
later in the show, just to give you a heads up,
is why do these things? Why continue down these pathways?
And as before the ad break we talked about the
organs are important. Human organs are important. There are not
(35:52):
enough human organs to be transplanted for the needs of
the humans on the Earth. Right now, and if we
can make more, let's do it. Let's find a way.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
I'm sorry, man, I was just I'm smirking like that
because halfway through I got this this very vivid image
of church organs, and some would say they're not enough
church organs.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Well, absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
But to be clear, you're taught you're making an incredibly,
incredibly important point about things like hearts, lungs, livers, kidneys, eyes.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
There are people all over this planet right now that
need a transplant, that cannot get one, or they're on
a list, and they have to just wait and hopefully
they will live long enough to see that. You know,
organ transplantation is a miracle of sorts of modern science,
and I don't think we can downplay that, just like
we spoke about with the bone marrow transplants that I
(36:47):
who imagine that that could happen a couple hundred years ago,
There's no way. But now we are at a place
where we can do that. We just need the organs.
So let's jump to two nineteen July. In particular, according
to two places that we looked at, both the academic
journal Nature as well as the Ontario Canada paper National Post, apparently.
(37:12):
In July this year, a professor working with the Institute
of Medical Science with the University of Tokyo and the
Department of Genetics at Stanford University. This professor received approval
to begin inserting quote human stem cells into rodents in
an attempt to grow a human pancreas in the animal.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Finally, okay, great.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
We're moving forward to do this. Right though, it is
not as easy both in practice to make it happen,
and it's also not as easy to get approval for
something like this.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Right. However, there is precedent because earlier experiments have shown
the ability to grow to grow rat mouse came era. Yes,
so we know that, and those some of those have
been allowed to live.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Yeah, exactly. So you may think, Okay, well, why is
this news. It's July twenty nineteen. This stuff's already been happening.
We've probably you may have seen something in one of
these magazines like Scientific, American Popular Science, or exactly where
where over the past ten years or so, these things
have been discussed. Well, here's where we get into all
(38:23):
this stuff. Because approval for this experiment. It's headed by
a man named Hirometsu Nakauchi. Approval for the experiment came
from a group of scientists who were working directly with
the Japanese government. Okay, and in years past, the Japanese
government had limited the quote creation and experimentation of animal
(38:44):
embryos imbued with human cells to be only fourteen days,
So they're only allowed to live for fourteen days before
I guess you have to terminate them. Now, in March
of this year, the Japanese government announced that that fourteen
day window for testing is actually going to get expanded,
(39:04):
and they're going to allow for within certain approved studies
for human animal hybrids to be permitted to be brought
to full term. Now here's where it gets exciting for science,
I guess, right, Because if you can create a hybrid
human rat being that can grow a full pancreas, then
(39:26):
that's great, right, that's amazing. But you would have to
go to full term and then live and continue to
live for that pancreas to develop big enough or long
enough or large enough to be usable. But that's actually
not the endgame of the study. This is just a
first step.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Toward what.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
Well, first it's going to be mice. He's and we're
talking about rats. He got approved to do rats, right, right,
that are quite a bit larger than rats, especially laboratory mice.
So so he's starting with mice just to make sure
that it'll work. Then his group is moving on to rats,
and then eventually they're moving on up to pigs. And
(40:09):
pigs is kind of the endgame for this experiment, because
that is how they're going to be able to successfully
grow you know, a pancreas or whatever other organ at
the correct size.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Right, Okay, yeah, this makes sense because previously they've been
able to grow the pancreas for a mouse inside of
a rat, and they used islet cells to cure diabetes
and mice. This then becomes a series of steps, right,
they're progressively building up and hopefully learning mistakes, making errors
(40:44):
at the less damaging stages of the process.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Right, yeah, exactly. But eventually the man pig is what
they're going for. Pig person, the big person. I'm sorry,
I'm sorry, sorry, gosh.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Oh, I don't know. Man pig has a ring to it.
Surely that's is that a superhero yet? No?
Speaker 3 (41:04):
You just throw a bear in there and then you've
really got something.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
That's what I'm thinking. Of that's what I'm thinking of
man bear pig from South South Park.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
Yes, I'm so surreal man pig.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
Ah, Sorry, I get all these weird images of like,
what's the difference between man pig and a pig?
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Man?
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Is it? Like man bat and batman? Is one of
them a very wealthy dude in a strange costume and
the other one.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
Was just yelling to kill me girl?
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Men?
Speaker 3 (41:36):
God? Yeah, I feel highly insensitive to a lot of
this stuff. I apologize to you, Ben, apologized to everyone,
especially you. Paul.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
Uh. Yeah. I think Paul back in twenty seventeen said
he would never forgive us, and I think he's holding
to that. Paul, Are you holding to.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
That, never forgive, always forget?
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Yeah, he nodded solemnly. We're still in the dog of
that guy, still in the big man, big dog house.
This is getting complicated, But the science here is important
because one of the huge factors holding this sort of
experimentation back is not a matter of technical expertise, nor
(42:18):
is it a matter of possessing the correct technology. Instead,
it is a matter of ethics exactly.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
And one of the biggest issues here is, let's say
you're manipulating the genes in eventually a pig within this
study we've been referencing, sure, or a sheep or whatever. Yeah, yeah,
but in another animal, and you're generally manipulating genes that
are going to allow to create organs that are human, right,
(42:47):
how do you prevent it from affecting the genes that
are gonna affect brain development or intelligence? Because these animals,
whether you want to believe it or like it or not,
they are experiments. They are subjects of an experiment, and
they will be terminated most likely at some point. Even
(43:07):
if even if it's completely successful and they do grow
a pancreous, that animal will be terminated most likely in
order to get that pancreas right exactly. And if it's intelligent,
if it can understand what's occurring because it's been imbued
with human genes that have allowed for different brain growth,
(43:28):
that's where that's where things get really just complicated.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Right, father, What is my purpose? Yeah? Why? Why you
big child? Your my replacement liver? Because I'll be damned
if I stop drinking.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
Well, yeah, then you get into the ethical issues of
does this creature deserve rights of some sort or are
we dealing with human experimentation. That point, how what percentage
of human experimentation is occurring.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
Right now, right, right, right? Whereas the tipping point genetically
does it need to be defined? Is an animal still
for legal purposes an animal not deserving of rights if
it is only forty eight percent human? Right, And then
it hits fifty one, and it's like, oh, now you
can vote for your conscience. Yeah, I mean this is
(44:22):
clearly that's a made up experiment there, but it is
intensely problematic and it does lead into stuff they don't
want you to know. They being private institutions funding this research,
they being state actors that are playing fast and loose
with international conventions on how to conduct experiments. Right. There's
(44:47):
a very interesting point that you raised off airmat that
we should explore before we continue here, and that is,
let's say these things do happen, more creatures drawn into
these experiments, what will they be used for? First? Obviously organs?
Speaker 3 (45:08):
Right, Oh, yeah, that's what we keep talking about. It's
just it's the thing we've been attempting to do as
humans for quite a while now.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
Yeah, it's a huge business that is on both sides
of the law. Imagine how many people if we want
to assume the utopian vision of the future, if we
want to be super optimistic about this, just imagine how
many millions of people could have their lives saved if
(45:39):
medical researchers are able to grow bespoke or custom replacement organs.
Why would you languish for years on a recipient waiting
list when a creature with the perfect liver for you
could be grown and mature and then harvested and have
that liver transplant within a matter of months.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
It seems pretty compelling, but you you get into the
questions that arise when you're talking about cloning, right.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
Right, because technically speaking, in theory, it is possible for
you and for Paul and I and all of us
listening to have a clone of ourselves grown. Right, Do
some do some sort very doctor Frankenstein asks stuff to
prevent a brain from forming or coming into the equation
(46:35):
and then just have your spare seto organs? Right? YEA
expensive to maintain, but at what price? At what price immortality?
Speaker 3 (46:45):
You know? Yeah? And what you know? Does that clone
deserve any kind of rights?
Speaker 1 (46:51):
So the aim here would ultimately be the ability to
grow replacement organs for almost every single original organ in
a human body, minus, of course one would assume the brain. Maybe,
I don't, you know, I don't know. I was thinking
about this too, like if if it were possible, or
(47:13):
if it would ever be possible for certain parts of
the brain to be replaced, which gets us into that
ship of thesis, experiment and problem very quickly. I mean,
you know, obviously, and our pal Damian Williams love this. Obviously,
we're already reaching a point where we have to redefine
(47:35):
what is considered consciousness in general. But I wondered when
we were looking at this math, I wondered if there
would ever be someone who just to be edgy, you know,
fifty years in the future or something, says, my body's fine,
but I want a brain transplant. Just grow a new
(47:56):
brain and put it in this thing, and then, you know,
just make sure that's me. That's insane. I don't think
it would. I don't. I don't see it working unless
we had some way to sounds insane, just to see it,
unless we had some way to replicate the synaptic actions
(48:17):
in the neurochemical processes that function as the fingerprint of consciousness.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
If I mean, if that is truly what then.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Yes, yes, yes, you're right, you're absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (48:31):
But I do think at some point we'll be able
to have some kind of technology that maps a brain
so fully at such a such a minute level that
we can at least print physically what what that thing
looks like. But whether or not it contains memories and
experience and knowledge I will find out.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Yeah, that's that's one thing that's fascinating, right because now
we we at the top of the show said we
would bracket the conversation about the soul, but it inevitably
creeps in, doesn't it, Because now we're saying that if
consciousness or if sentience for each individual is something more
than what can be mapped in that one specific organ
(49:16):
in the human body, then just futzing around with that
one organ it's it's a lot like yeah, I mean,
you're just fixing part of the system. It's it's kind
of like saying, Okay, let's say let's say the brain
is just hardware, right, hardware that processes electricity like a computer,
(49:39):
and so you can you can take apart the hardware.
You can replace the motherboard or the graphics process or something.
But if you don't have anything to plug it in too.
That change does not matter. It is nil. The difference
is nil. The problem is moot.
Speaker 3 (49:57):
So maybe you got to get no less in there, man.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
Right, Yeah, I know us sure, Perhaps that is perhaps
that is something approaching, you know, the seed of God,
or you know the electricity that comes when you plug
it into an outlet or the matrix or the matrix
or the matrix. Yes, maybe that is what volume four
is about, right.
Speaker 3 (50:19):
That's what it is, matrix, Volume four, the hard intelligence problem.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
Perhaps perhaps for perhaps there's there's another experiment too. While
we're talking about the brain. This is another use, a
possible use for hybrids. There are many, many experiments, especially
experiments evolving cognition, that we cannot legally and officially conduct
(50:50):
because we would have to be humans experimenting on other humans.
So Alzheimer's research, right, is a huge field, and there's
a lot of potential for improvement. And Alzheimer's is, as
anyone can attest, a debilitating, tragic condition. When we make
(51:11):
models of the decay involved in Alzheimer's we could potentially
make much more robust, much more helpful models if we
used the brains of human monkey hybrids.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
Ah, but we would have to allow them to decay
so many times, Yeah, with so many you know, subjects
to get that robust model, that's what you mean?
Speaker 1 (51:39):
Right? We could create other brain disease models where it's
possible to allow a condition to progress beyond what would
be ethical or legal to do with a full human being.
And even there isn't that sticky? Isn't that already? Doesn't
that already make you feel kind of gross? The fact
that we had to say full human? Yeah, because what
(52:01):
everything we have learned about our species throughout the span
of recorded history, everything we have learned indicates that we're
really starting to screw up when we start referring to
any part of a population as full human versus something else,
you know what I mean. So maybe we as a
species simply don't have the philosophical or ethical chops to
(52:25):
address this, and that goes to our concerns, right. James McDonald,
writing for Jstore Daily, phrases this in a succinct fashion.
He says, in many ways, the ethical concerns are thornier
than the technical aspects. Direct transfer of tissue between animals
and humans raises concerns about animal diseases crossing over to
(52:47):
humans potentially threatening a large population.
Speaker 3 (52:50):
Okay, I can see that.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
I can see that absolutely. Another concern, he says, is
that animals developing with human cells might somehow develop human
physical or mental characteristics. The idea of, say, a pig
with a human mind being used as an organ donor
is horrifying.
Speaker 3 (53:08):
Agreed.
Speaker 1 (53:09):
Agreed. Luckily, so far as we know this, human mind
development probably would not happen by accident. Emphasis on probably,
which bothers me. I don't know about you, but most certainly. Yeah.
But McDonald says, even if human tissue somehow migrated to
an animal's developing brain, it would still probably develop his
animal brain tissue. But is probably enough.
Speaker 3 (53:32):
Yeah, No, I know.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
You don't think so. But your kidneys are fine.
Speaker 3 (53:39):
I know exactly. I don't. I don't have a pressing. Well,
that's not true.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
I have.
Speaker 3 (53:44):
There are members in my family that right now need
a heart I have.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
I have.
Speaker 3 (53:50):
I'm thinking of a person in particular that needs a
heart transplant or his you know, his life will be
cut short almost certainly so having this. If we had
access to this, I would have to I would have
to advocate for it.
Speaker 1 (54:06):
It's sort of like at various times in the course
of stem cell research, politicians who are very much against
it for usually for reelection or election purposes, for anything. Yeah,
they pulled one to eighty when they realized they could
help a loved one.
Speaker 3 (54:25):
Well, yeah, or just they have that one degree of
separation with somebody who it is fully impacting. Right, We've
seen that over and over and over again with any issue.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
Absolutely, And so now we end in media arrests. We
end in the middle of the story, and we have
to ask ourselves and ask you as well, what next. Again,
here is the situation as it stands. Barring some global catastrophe,
experimentation in this field will continue because the possible potential
(54:59):
benefit are just too impressive. They're too too much of
a beneficial paradigm shift.
Speaker 3 (55:08):
And you know, we haven't even gotten into some of
the other really out there ideas about what this could
be or mean.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
Barely touched it. Super soldiers possibly.
Speaker 3 (55:17):
Yeah, super soldiers or superspies, because imagine if you could
have a cat human hybrid that looks just like a cat,
but has the intelligence of a human and can communicate
in some way and it's just spying on you know
whatever housing. Maybe it's in your house. Do you know
what I mean? I mean, think about that.
Speaker 1 (55:35):
I don't I have cats. I don't trust them, nor
anybody as everybody who has a cat as a companion,
don't trust them.
Speaker 3 (55:43):
I love them, just don't trust them.
Speaker 1 (55:45):
I think that's the most prejudiced thing I've ever said,
at a one hundred percent stand behind it. I love
the animals that live with me, I do not trust them.
That's what dogs are for.
Speaker 3 (55:55):
They're already too smart. I mean, if we're if we're
gonna make a hybrid, it's that's dangerous.
Speaker 1 (56:00):
You know, didn't we talk about how US intelligence agencies
tried to make cyber cats before. Yeah, and then also
cats domesticated themselves, right, and they you know, you ever
look at a pug and you think, dang, that could
have been a wolf. Cats did not undergo that same
sort of eugenic practice.
Speaker 3 (56:22):
They just showed up like y'all have food, Give me
more of that food.
Speaker 1 (56:28):
Yeah, they said they'd solved the rat problem, and they
kind of did in a lot of cases. But then
they didn't leave. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (56:34):
They solved the hard rat problem.
Speaker 1 (56:35):
They solved the hard rat problem. But speaking of solving
hard problems. We're faced with a geopolitical dilimmau here too,
because countries and institutions that enforce ethical conventions in this
regard may end up falling behind. We're already seeing this
sort of splintering of experimental heft and and location of
(57:02):
the pioneering research because these experiments are happening, you know,
the more extreme ones are happening in countries where it's
a little easier to bend certain regulations.
Speaker 3 (57:14):
Well, what we're talking about Japan, and you know that
one in particular, You're not necessarily it doesn't strike me
as a country that would bend these rules too much, unless,
of course you go back to World War two and
Unit seven thirty one and some of that kind of experimentation.
But it's such a different.
Speaker 1 (57:31):
Yeah, you're absolutely right, Matt I was. I was specifically
thinking of China, but already the different scientific communities of
the country of China, places based there are raising hell
with objections to what they see as lacks ethical regulations
and so on. There have been a number of notable
(57:53):
experiments in the past years that have pushed the envelope
there to various extreme degrees. The thing that we'll run
into here is that private entities that are state sponsored
can make enormous progress on this. And it becomes scary
(58:13):
when we realize that right now there's very strong potential
for this, but there's not provable precedent yet. As soon
as provable precedent exists something that can be reproduced with
let's say, gosh, even a seventy eighty percent chance of success,
(58:38):
then people and institutions will rethink whatever existing ethical considerations
they have, because then it becomes a question of what
do you place what is higher on your list of
important things, your moral code or your ability to live
(59:00):
to see tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (59:02):
Ability to live to see tomorrow, as well as creating
a viable business plan.
Speaker 1 (59:07):
True, oh my gosh, even worse. Yes, So what we'll
see is going to be going to be darkly fascinating.
There will either be a sea change in the way
we approach ethical concerns of the past or why. Possibly
(59:28):
there will be very well funded secret programs. I don't
know how long they would be able to remain secret.
Speaker 3 (59:35):
Well, I mean, we've already kind of covered this before,
especially when we were talking with Josh Clark about his
show The End of the World. The experimentation that's going
on in small labs that are just you know, you
pay for the time, nobody asks any questions you do
your experimentation that's occurring across the world, especially in the
United States. True, if you have an outfit that is
(59:57):
working on something and you're being successful at it and
nobody is checking or approving your experiments.
Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
Especially in this environment where certain things are certain things
like genes or the technology applying genes is allowed to
be patented, that comes troublingly close to a private entergy
being able to own, for lack of a better word,
(01:00:29):
and entire form of life. Yeah, so imagine, you know,
imagine it's not just pig people or mandig. It's Comcasts.
Pig people, pig people powered by Comcast.
Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
And they represent X number of viewers every week, the subscribers.
Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
You know, I just picked Comcasts because they have a
monopoly in certain parts of the US. I don't think
they're in the chimera game yet.
Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
Dude, gosh, I just had a really dark vision of
web bots, you know, and all that kind of thing.
But in this case, it's some company that has patented
a certain human type or a hute diversion of a
human where they just mass produce them in, put them
in housing somewhere, and then attach them to the television
(01:01:19):
so they can have a certain number of viewers for
every episode of whatever thing it is. Yeah, wow, that
would not make any sense.
Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
But do their rights count? I don't know. Well, let
us know what you think. So along and short of
it is that something like this is inevitable because again,
the potential benefits are just too good for anyone to
really walk away. But will this end up being a
dystopian nightmare? Will this end up being the utopian answer
(01:01:50):
to so many problems today? Where's the answer, as it
so often is, somewhere disappointingly in between those two goalposts.
Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
Where it ends up being a great opportunity for anyone
with a lot of money to get a great organ,
but for everybody else.
Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
Or even worse, look at the way medicine works in
many countries, especially in the US. Now, imagine that you
are able to buy let's say, of a replacement kidney
or something that you need to live, but because it
is privatized, you are required to you know, you're essentially
(01:02:27):
renting or making you have an organ mortgage that's gonna
happen organ mortgages. I know, and it sounds like if
you didn't speak English. Organ mortgage sounds like a pretty
cool phrase.
Speaker 3 (01:02:40):
It really does. But in the end, it just means
a lot of money coming out of your paycheck every month.
Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
And then what happens if you can't pay the.
Speaker 3 (01:02:47):
Bank buys your organ, right or it just gets your organ.
Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
And then do they decide how you how you concentrate
your labor to pay them back? Tricky, tricky, tricky stuff.
And that's our classic episode for this evening. We can't
wait to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
Let us know what you think you can reach.
Speaker 2 (01:03:08):
You to the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we exist on
Facebook X and YouTube on Instagram and TikTok or Conspiracy
Stuff Show.
Speaker 3 (01:03:15):
If you want to call us dial one eight three
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give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if
we can use your name and message on the air.
If you got more to say than can fit in
that voicemail, why not instead send us a good old
fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
We are the entities that read every single piece of correspondence.
We receive, be aware yet not afraid. Sometimes the void
writes back conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (01:04:03):
Stuff they Don't want you to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome back, fellow conspiracy realist. We returned to you once
again with a classic episode as we wild through the holidays.
Remember the Island of Doctor Moreau. Do you guys ever
read that or did you see the awesome adaptation with
With My Man?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Awesome awful depending on where you stand.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Awesome in the sense of awesome in the old sense
of the word, just extraordinary and somehow inspiring of all.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
There is a documentary about that film, the production, how
it completely went off the rails and they fired the
original director, and how he just kind of lurked around
like sort of peeking in.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Like an escaped monster on the island.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
And apparently Marlon Brando just decided to paint himself white
with lars onscreen ice bucket and wear the ice bucket
on his head and have the little fellow on his
shoulder whispering to him. And he was getting all his
lines fed to him through an earpiece anyway, which.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Was not Uncommon's amazing.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
What is that?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, but it is about the idea of human animal hybrids, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
And when we were recording this in twenty nineteen, there
were already some very i would say ethically challenging but
medically fascinating innovations in the world of chimeras and human
animal hybrids. Right, you can have pig grown organs that
are replacing human organs for people in need. This episode
(01:27):
is about how modern technology may finally allow us to
create real life chimeras, but the problem is due to
humanity's troubling track record with human experimentation and secrecy. We
don't really know how far it's gone, and we don't
know how far we look. What we can tell you spoiler,
(01:49):
is that embryos have been created with the understanding that
at a certain time they're going to eradicate those embryos.
To just get past the question of what happens in
a real life Doctor Moreau situation.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
I just want to be a cat boy.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Guys, I want to be like a catboy, but a
large cat. I've always you know, like be cool to
be partially tiger.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, like I mean you know this is not to
be confused with the furry phenomenon.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
No, yeah, we're not talking about jiffing necessarily.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Well, this one just goes out to a certain sandwich
that we know. But I just want to be a Johnny.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
There we go if I'm partially Tiger, I still want
to keep my regular penis. That's just a medical fact
about cats, you guys, fair enough.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
That's throw all the tape.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt
Noel will not be joining us today. Buddy is here
in spirit.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
They call me Ben and your joint as always with
our super producer Paul, Mission control decon. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. Before we do our
usual check in, we have a special announcement. Happy birthday, Mike.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yeah, mister Mike Wolfe.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
We're belated. I believe your birthday was Tuesday.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Is yesterday, Uh huh yeah, but hey, Mike is twenty
four today. Everybody, it's pretty awesome, Kelly says, Hi, and
uh hey, let's get on with the show. But happy
birthday Mike.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
And nice cooler. Good to be back, man, long time.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yeah, I know, it's been an entire week and some
since I've seen you, especially since we've been in the
studio together, and you know, I cherished these times likewise,
and we're coming to the end of the big birthday
month here at how Stuff Works Slash. iHeart podcast Network
where so many of us were born around this time,
And just as a check in, just want to let
(04:06):
you know that I got to karaoke for the first
time in a long time. Yeah, because it was Annie's birthday,
and I did this thing that I thought you would
have been proud of, but since you were away on
an adventure, you didn't get to witness it. I attempted
to do Hip to B Square, you know, by Huey
Lewis in the News, and then there's an instrumental section
(04:26):
that occurs in that song, and I had prepared essentially
it's not fully a monologue, but the dialogue from one
of the characters in American Psycho where he's discussing Huey
Lewis in the News, and I was going to perform
it during the instrumental section.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Oh cool.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Now, let me just also say this because Mission Control
was there too, and Mission Control was rocking out to
some Britney spears to some classic new metal, all kinds
of really great songs. Everybody was feeling it is a
packed room. M hmm. And I got up to start
doing mine, and it felt like not a single person
(05:04):
in the room even knew what the song was, or
at least didn't care. So I turn around at one
point just to be like, all right, guys, we do it.
Does anybody understand what this song is or where it
comes from? Crickets? So it's real embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Now you're talking about, I believe the moment in the
film adaptation of American Psycho where Christian Bale's character begins
at an increasingly manic clip. Yeah, sort of describing his
criticism of Huey Lewis in the news.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Well, and also about how they've evolved, about how this album,
in particular with this song on it, it's showing this
consummate professionalism and all of these things, and about critiques
of the song itself and the meaning behind it.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
And this is as he's amping himself up to commit
a murderess. Correct. Yes, I think that's brilliant. I'm well done.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Thanks man, thought you would have liked it. It's okay,
but I hey, you weren't there because you were on
an adventure and also late. Happy anniversary to you, my friend.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
No thank you, thank you very much, Matt. And likewise,
because you and Annie and Noel and our own casey Pegram,
Tyler and Tyler Klang and more, we're missing someone. Chandler
is like almost in the club Chandler's debate. Yeah, but
(06:30):
we do have quite a few August birthdays. Circumstances found me.
You know, I hate to miss any recording of this show,
but circumstances found me in Japan, a place where that
Mission Control is very familiar with. So what do you
think about meandering intros? Sorry about that, let us know
you can read just directly. We are one eight three.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Three std WYTK leave us a message, tell us about
specifically that intro and ask us about Ben's crow story
when he was in a different place. Oh wow, because
hopefully he'll tell that one too. It's a great story.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
That's very kind, Matt. Yeah, I'm coming in hot. My
body doesn't know what time it is. I have a
vague awareness that it is probably a Monday here.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Yeah, your body is just a cage, my friend, for
the words you're about to say, that's true.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Kimara's right, not not camaros kimaras c h I M
E r A. This this is an interesting, fascinating, and
as we will learn today, disturbing concept. Really the best
way to approach this is to ask ourselves, what's the
(07:42):
line between humans and other animals? Right? Because technically, if
we cast, if we put all the metaphysical stuff and
the spirituality and the religious stuff aside, biologically speaking, human
beings are defined as animals, So what makes us different?
For a long long time we thought humans have sults,
(08:07):
and that's still what people will say. But again that's
more of a spiritual religious reasoning.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Not really provable yet.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Not really provable yet true. When we looked at something
more secular, for centuries and centuries, we said, while the
big difference between humans and all other animals would be intelligence.
The problem is even now, our species has a real
difficult time defining intelligence. And the more we examine this
(08:39):
line between humans and other animals, the more we see
that this line fuzzes. Right. The demarcation is not as
stark as we would wish.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Oh yeah, because there are plenty of non human animals
that display all sorts of intelligence. Crows, Yeah, absolutely, crow
cetaceans to be some of the most prominent ones.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Elephants.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Elephants, what are octopus in cephalopods?
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Cephalopods yeaheah.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
All kinds of different animals show some form of at
least and an awareness beyond what we would usually contribute
to an animal.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Right, right sapiens sentience wisdom. For years, you remember this matter.
For years, various organizations around the world have said, you
know what, some of these animals, the ones we just named,
are in fact so intelligent that they meet the legal
threshold of personhood, meaning that their cognitive abilities are high
(09:38):
enough that they should be guaranteed some of the same
rights that we our species in theory gives to every
other human being. And today's episode approaches that that same
weird border. What is the line between human and animal?
Speaker 3 (09:56):
And what happens when those lines even get even further blurred?
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Mm hmm, And where does it take us? Here are
the facts. You've probably heard the word kamara before. The
definition of kimara is pretty cool in folklore. It's a
very strange flex in mythology, specifically Greek mythology. The kimara
is this fire breathing monster. It's female, and it's this
(10:22):
strange anatomical mixtape. It's mostly a lion, right at least
in the front. It is a goat in the middle,
and it has a goat head coming out of the
back to the mid spine, and then it's a dragon
in the rear.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Yeah yeah, right, I know. Most of my camera is
from Magic the Gathering, huh. I mean as well as
Greek mythology. MTG has some pretty great ones.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
And they have some divergent takes, right.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Oh yeah, definitely. I mean if you take the Spellheart camera,
that was a big one for me back in the day.
I'm just kidding. We're not going to talk about this.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
I want to hear what please.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
There are a lot of them, at least the card
art and the way they're described in the flavor text
is very similar to the traditional Greek mythology versions.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
So like three or more usually distinct animals melded into
a single creature.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Sometimes it gets down into you know, two fully separate heads.
Sometimes it's just one head with a body that's a
little different, but it's always a melding of creatures.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Right right, And interestingly enough, in Greek mythology, the Chimera
is the child of Typhon and Echidna, and it is
also a sibling of other multi headed creatures such as Cerebus,
the three headed canine that guards the underworld, and the hydra.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Oh yeah, that's I didn't realize that. It makes it.
It doesn't make perfect sense, but it makes better sense
to have that be the mythological order of what is it, child, monsters,
baby birth, the monster birth. For those to actually have.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
This and this, it's strange because again we see the
intersection between folklore, mythology and modern facts. You know, a
lot of our nomenclature and terminology comes from these ancient stories,
and that's why the word chimera still exist here in
these our modern days. We have a scientific definition of chimera.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Oh yeah, So if you look to science, it's gonna
say a chimera is a single organism, one distinct thing
that's composed of two or more distinct different populations. And
this is important of cells that originated from different zygotes
involved in sexual reproduction. So this is this is highly
important for today's episode, two very specific sets of cells
(12:52):
from from two different zygotes.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Right, yeah, this is huge. This is crucial. So far
from the lion goat dragon street hit of ancient mythology,
actual chimeras are more subtle, at least the ones that
you may have met sometime in your life. Not only
(13:19):
have you may have met them, but you may have
never noticed anything different about them. Chimera can occur naturally
in humans. So let's say that you or your loved
one are carrying a child, and there are two kids
in the womb fetuses right, not quite you know, kids,
(13:41):
but fetuses that will become human beings. And one of
the fetuses dies or is absorbed by its twin, leaving
the surviving fetus with two distinct sets of cells. Wo. So,
like identical twins, maybe doesn't matter as much, But fraternal
twins this does matter. Genetically, they are different.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
And it's hard to really comprehend what that means unless
you apply it to a story or an example exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
So, usually not only would you not know the person
you met is a kamara, they probably don't know either,
And typically people find out about this by accident. In
two thousand and two, I was a woman named Karen Keegan.
Karen Keegan needed a kidney transplant, and so she underwent
genetic testing to see whether one of her family members
(14:34):
could be a potential donor. This is clear standard operating procedure.
You check with the family first, right in this situation,
they did conduct the test, and what they found they
found something that completely caught them off guard, something they
were not looking for.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Yeah, sometimes you'll hear no, you're not the father, but
you know what you never here.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
No you are not the mother. See, the genetic testing
that Karen and her family underwent indicated that technically speaking,
she could not be the mother of her children that
she birthed, that she birthed, yes, her biological children. This
threw everyone for a loop. It was like the end
(15:22):
of usual suspects. What's going on here? The doctors eventually
learned that Karen, in fact was a human chimera. This
is just one example, and they probably would never have
caught this unless that kidney transplant need came up. Bone
marrow transplants can also create chimera. Bone marrow transplants, by
(15:47):
the way, really interesting. There are a couple of unidentified
people who were more or less cured of HIV by
bone marrow transplants. In this case, you don't need to
have something freakish happen. Bone marrow contains the cells that
later develop into red blood cells, the old stem cells,
(16:07):
the old stem cells, the old stem cell. So what
happens when someone has a bone marrow transplant is that
their own bone marrow is destroyed somehow and it's replaced
with marrow from this donor, and this marrow, this stranger's
marrow creates these new blood cells. They continually are created.
(16:30):
And that means that if you receive a successful bone
marrow transplant, for the rest of your natural life, you
will carry genetically distinct cells within your body that reproduce.
You will become a chimera.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Wow, I've never thought of it that way. I didn't,
I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
I haven't thought about it that way because I guess
you and I have been fortunate enough in our lives
to not have to delve into own marrow transplant.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
True, so, very true, very true. We've been very fortunate.
But you know, when you're thinking about in this way,
it's in that particular example, it's a very good thing.
Like being a chimera is great. You've got the blood
of someone else's essentially in your body because they helped
you survive or they have to helped you continue on. Right, Yeah,
(17:21):
a camera in this way, in a scientific way, just
isn't scary at least, it's not nearly as creepy as
the Greek mythology monsters that existed because of this word
or this word was used to describe.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Yeah, it's much, it's it's much. It's a much more inspirational.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yes, really it really is.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Look at us humans, go medicine, go science. They Yeah,
these chimera don't seem you're as frightening. You wouldn't notice it.
And here's another thing. While we're talking about pregnancy for
a time, there's a study from I want to say,
twenty fifteen ors so that indicates women during pregnancy may
(18:05):
function as kamara for a limited amount of time.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Because the fetus is creating, it's it's developing its own
cells and blood and everything is being shared in that
one symbiotic system. Oh wow, but oh you know what
that makes do? That makes total sense? Uh, My wife
and I had had all these discussions. She was learning
a lot during our pregnancy, but how the hormones in
(18:33):
her body as well as having this you know, this
being existing inside of her that she's sharing fluids with
with all these stem cells and young blood and all
this her. She was so ridiculously healthy during her pregnancy,
so much more so than before or after. Not to
say she's unhealthy, it's just there was like it was
(18:54):
like she was had superpowers or something.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
It's kind of evolutions. Get out of j free pass,
you know. Yeah, we've we've seen we've seen different indicators
of that. Wow, we could do it an entire series
of episodes on the stuff that we as a species
don't yet fully understand about pregnancy. Oh yeah, but what
(19:18):
if the idea of being a camara? What if cameraicism
doesn't stop their cameraicism is a word that I just
made up.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
I accept it, thank you.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
What if breakthroughs in medical technology can enable us to
create real life creatures closer and closer and closer to
the monsters described in Greek mythology. What if we could
create a melding of various animals or even some sort
(19:50):
of human animal hybrid. Could this be possible and if so,
what would we do? We'll explore this after a word
from our sponsors. Here's where it gets crazy. The answer
(20:11):
to the first part of the question is emphatically. Yes.
Not only can we as a species do this, we
are already doing this. This is already happening. Pandora's jar
is twisted open and there is no twisting it back.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Oh yeah, we're heading towards the land of the centaurs. Everybody.
Just if we take it back to mythology, yeah, yeah,
because I mean, really think about it. Humans in our storytelling,
in our legends, we've been pretty obsessed with humans and
animals becoming one thing. If you think about think about werewolves,
think about the skin Walker's like the version of skin Walker,
(20:51):
though it's a little different thing.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Or Selki oh yeah, you know. Or Mermaids Mermaids perfect
where Jaguar. There's so many stories of people, through one
means or another. Weirdly enough, it wasn't evil for a
long time. It just became evil later, but through one
means or another, people acquiring the attributes of different animals,
(21:19):
if not the ability to completely become those animals.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Yeah, for either advantageous means or perhaps because they were
cursed in some.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Way, right, some sort of divine interventions. Usually how it starts.
This obsession carried on for thousands and thousands of years.
In fact, and an earlier episode, I don't know how
long ago now, Matt, you and I explored the strange
true story of the so called human z Do you
(21:51):
remember that, I do.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Was this a Soviet experiment back in the day, Yes,
but it was. I can't remember if we decided it
was proven or not. I know for sure that there
were a ton of rumors. I think the big question
back in the day was was this propaganda of some
sort from either side? But there appeared, at least on
(22:13):
the surface, to be experiments in the Soviet Union to
create a human chimpanzee hybrid.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was Iliya Ivanovich Ivanov in the
nineteen twenties. The idea was that one could combine the intelligence,
or at least the potential for intelligence, of the human
being with the physical prowess of a primate. And they said, well,
(22:41):
out of all the great apes, the chimp is the
closest that we can find to the human. So let's
get them together. Play some R and B, you know, lights,
some candles, put on some shot. A see what happens.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
No no, no.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
No, no, no. Solely because A was not around in
the nineteen twenty.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Oh, Shade was the only part of that.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Okay, all right, yeah, they they just didn't have the
music right and you got it.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
I have the least a huge role put on that
New Swift album. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
So, so, as far as we know, officially, these experiments
during this time did not reach success. There was not
a viable offspring, and there will be. You know, there
are other reports of there was the one ape that
had lost some of its hair and its head that
(23:33):
exhibited human characteristics according to its observers m. But none
of those, none of none of those experiments, none of
those creatures so far as we know, created a viable
A viable example. Oh that's right. It was a chimp
called Oliver. A chimpanzee, Oliver Bells, Yeah, brought to brought
(23:57):
to the US who people said he had a human
like appearance, ability to walk upright, and would rather hang
out with humans versus chimps. But genetic testing confirmed you
was a chimpanzee. And look, chimpanzees are incredibly intelligent, Yeah,
very very smart. Don't mess with them, don't try it
out smart them, don't definitely don't piss them off. In
(24:22):
Oliver's case, this chimpanzee was probably just very highly acclimated
to humans right had been raised with them, and this,
you know, this is its own unethical, sad thing. But
long story short, unless there is a huge secret in
terms of Soviet hybridization experiments, we as a species haven't
(24:47):
seen a successful version of this. However, that doesn't mean
we stopped trying. You see, as it turns out, fellow
conspiracy realists across the planet have not only continued these experiments,
they have made striking, breath taking forays into this world
(25:09):
of human animal hybridization. We found several strange and again
we cannot emphasize this enough. Real genuine, actual examples of
chimera being created today.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Oh yeah, So let's just jump through some of these.
The first one, it's an attempt to make an increasingly
intelligent ape or monkey in this case of some sort.
So there are some researchers in both China and the
United States that have attempted to create a version of
a monkey that also carries a human gene, and this
(25:44):
particular gene plays a role in the development of the brain.
And if there's a study, as according to study that
was published in Beijing's National Science review. This all occurred
when researchers from the Kunming Institute of Zoology this is
a Chinese academy of sciences, and they were working along
with the University of North Carolina and some other institutions.
(26:06):
They reported that there were eleven transgenic this is what
they're called transgenic reesis monkeys that were created through the
studies here. And that's pretty that's pretty intense that we
were already creating something like this before working on this episode. Personally,
I had no idea that there was already some kind
(26:28):
of chimeric testing done to create an intelligent animal.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
That had been allowed to survive, yees to be born,
because a lot of the experimentation that we have read
about or we have encountered occurs at the embryo stage,
embriotic stage.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
And it's mostly to see if it would be possible
to then take that, you know, creature to term, Like
if we were going to we could, this would be
a viable specimen, right right.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
But then for insert ethical conscers iteration A through Z here,
we are going to terminate the growth of this this
bundle of cells and do it before you know, before
organ's form and like a brainstem and a nervous system
forms and so on. And that's the attempt to circumvent
the ethical quandaries that might occur if it's allowed to
(27:19):
reach a later stage of development. Yes, specifically, what they
did with these eleven Recis monkeys is they they gave
them human copies of a gene called mcph one. Mcph one,
as you said, Matt plays it plays a big role
(27:40):
in brain development. Two startling things happened here. According to
this study, this small change, this little bit of extra
cognitive gas, did make a discernible difference. The monkeys that
carried the human copy of this gene exhibited better short
term memory. They also had faster reaction time and when
(28:00):
compared with a control group of wild Recis monkeys who
had not had their skullhoods tampered with.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Right, wow, Well it's interesting to if you delve deep
into the research and all the documentation and that kind
of thing, it makes you wonder how much just keeping
them as not wild Recis monkeys, if that had any effect.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
That's a great point. Yeah, is at the Oliver effect. Right,
we'll just call it that. Here's the startling thing. Though
you said there were eleven monkeys right, Yes, who had
this gene transferred to them? These eleven monkeys were not
created all in one go. Eight of these monkeys were
(28:42):
first generation, the other three were second generation. Whoa, meaning
that this trait transferred. Yeah, which of course is how
genes are supposed to work.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
But still knowing that that's even possible. You really have
to do is create one came era and then you
could have you could have endless offspring, depending on which
species are using and how long. All you need is
time and a mate.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
You are entering another dimension. Yeah. So there you have it,
real life super monkeys with some strong air quotes around there.
But the story doesn't stop there. We had this in
our notes as Piggy people question mark. Yeah, I know
that a lot of us listening today are huge fans
(29:36):
of Animal Farm, right in the work of George Orwell,
and there is a incredibly bleak, incredibly well written part
of that book where the animals. That's well, quick spoiler
Animal Farm. If you are not familiar with the plot
and you don't want it spoiled for you, and you've
been waiting for a chance to read it or watch
(29:57):
one of the mini adaptations, please can consider this your
spoiler warning three to one spoilers. All right, so an
animal farm, the human owners of the farm or the
human authority figures of the farm are are kicked out
of power, right, and the animals in the farm attempt
(30:19):
to create a utopian society wherein individuals contribute according to
their ability and are supported according to their need. Right. Yeah,
sounds great on paper. Anyway, it turns out that the
pigs on the farm supplant the former role of the humans,
and they are real pills. They're bad, and they betray
(30:45):
all their ideals.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Well, and as it turns out, genetically, it's an interesting
story too, because humans and pigs are close enough on
that mammalian scale where you know, the the what is
the term pig yes to describe a human in certain
ways when consumed, when consumed. Yeah, we really aren't that different.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
No, no, no, And pigs themselves, outside of orwell, are
quite intelligent. There's this very bleak moving segment of animal farm.
I'm sure a lot of us already know what I'm
going to say, where the surviving animals on the farm
are looking from the humans to the pigs and back
and forth, and they cannot tell the difference so this
(31:31):
is a comment of course, orwell means it to be
a comment on the cycles of supplanting and replacing power structures.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
And you know how the dangers of gaining power really.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Yeah, and it's also to what you say, man, it's
a very interesting comment on the biological similarities. So some
people maybe not inspired by, orwell maybe very much inspired
by orwell.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
They probably read it. Almost certainly they read it.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
In school, almost certainly they had to. They decided to
see whether it was possible to leverage the biological similarities
between the pig and the human to create chimera for
a very specific purpose. Based on multiple interviews, the MIT
(32:24):
Technology Review estimated that in twenty fifteen there were about
twenty pregnancies of pig human or sheep human chimera. And again,
they're not These aren't being born out right. As far
as we know, we know that these come with a
very specific goal attached to them. A chimera of pig
(32:47):
and human, a poresine human camera or the same product
with cheap and humans are attractive because pigs and sheep
both have organs that are about the right size for
a human ballpark, right size for transplantation into a human being.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
And if you can get the human cells in there
to grow a human liver in particular inside one of
these creatures, then well, there you go. You've got an
organ factory, my friend.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
You do you do not a perfect organ factory for
number of reasons. Yeah, but this is again just the beginning.
Immediate questions, right, skirt, immediate questions. Why have we not
seen grown up hybrids yet? Well, first, the ratio of
human to animal cells and this sort of creature is very,
(33:37):
very low. We're not at the point of poresine people yet,
we're not reaching peak pig people, peak pig people. There
we go. We are instead seeing things that would look
exactly like a pig or a monkey or a sheep,
(33:57):
but they're internal re show is what changes. So there's
a and.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
It's really just a few genes.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
It's just a fu greven alters, just a tweak, just
the tweak. Matt and I are both like holding our
pointer fingers and our thumbs mere centimeters from each other
and then just sort of twisting in the air just
a little the genetic screw drivity. Yeah, there we go.
What could go wrong? Seconds? As I think you said earlier, Matt,
(34:28):
In most cases, these hybrids have never been allowed to
develop for more than a few weeks. They've been terminated
before actual organs, nervous systems, and so on have been
given the chance to form. So one expert put it thusly.
They said, you know, we're essentially just creating groups of
(34:49):
cells to see whether they can work together, coexist, and
then we're ending them before anything gets into that murky
ethical quagmire.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
Yeah, it's not. It's only in approaching the dark gray area.
If you know, you only get them a couple like
a week or.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Two further, I say, further into the darkness. You may
have had your ears pricked up a bit when you
heard the concept of organ production. What are we talking about?
We'll tell you after a word from our sponsor, and.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
We're back in. One of the big things we're gonna
be really postulating or having thought experiments about a little
later in the show, just to give you a heads up,
is why do these things? Why continue down these pathways?
And as before the ad break we talked about the
organs are important. Human organs are important. There are not
(35:52):
enough human organs to be transplanted for the needs of
the humans on the Earth. Right now, and if we
can make more, let's do it. Let's find a way.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
I'm sorry, man, I was just I'm smirking like that
because halfway through I got this this very vivid image
of church organs, and some would say they're not enough
church organs.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Well, absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
But to be clear, you're taught you're making an incredibly,
incredibly important point about things like hearts, lungs, livers, kidneys, eyes.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
There are people all over this planet right now that
need a transplant, that cannot get one, or they're on
a list, and they have to just wait and hopefully
they will live long enough to see that. You know,
organ transplantation is a miracle of sorts of modern science,
and I don't think we can downplay that, just like
we spoke about with the bone marrow transplants that I
(36:47):
who imagine that that could happen a couple hundred years ago,
There's no way. But now we are at a place
where we can do that. We just need the organs.
So let's jump to two nineteen July. In particular, according
to two places that we looked at, both the academic
journal Nature as well as the Ontario Canada paper National Post, apparently.
(37:12):
In July this year, a professor working with the Institute
of Medical Science with the University of Tokyo and the
Department of Genetics at Stanford University. This professor received approval
to begin inserting quote human stem cells into rodents in
an attempt to grow a human pancreas in the animal.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Finally, okay, great.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
We're moving forward to do this. Right though, it is
not as easy both in practice to make it happen,
and it's also not as easy to get approval for
something like this.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Right. However, there is precedent because earlier experiments have shown
the ability to grow to grow rat mouse came era. Yes,
so we know that, and those some of those have
been allowed to live.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Yeah, exactly. So you may think, Okay, well, why is
this news. It's July twenty nineteen. This stuff's already been happening.
We've probably you may have seen something in one of
these magazines like Scientific, American Popular Science, or exactly where
where over the past ten years or so, these things
have been discussed. Well, here's where we get into all
(38:23):
this stuff. Because approval for this experiment. It's headed by
a man named Hirometsu Nakauchi. Approval for the experiment came
from a group of scientists who were working directly with
the Japanese government. Okay, and in years past, the Japanese
government had limited the quote creation and experimentation of animal
(38:44):
embryos imbued with human cells to be only fourteen days,
So they're only allowed to live for fourteen days before
I guess you have to terminate them. Now, in March
of this year, the Japanese government announced that that fourteen
day window for testing is actually going to get expanded,
(39:04):
and they're going to allow for within certain approved studies
for human animal hybrids to be permitted to be brought
to full term. Now here's where it gets exciting for science,
I guess, right, Because if you can create a hybrid
human rat being that can grow a full pancreas, then
(39:26):
that's great, right, that's amazing. But you would have to
go to full term and then live and continue to
live for that pancreas to develop big enough or long
enough or large enough to be usable. But that's actually
not the endgame of the study. This is just a
first step.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Toward what.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
Well, first it's going to be mice. He's and we're
talking about rats. He got approved to do rats, right, right,
that are quite a bit larger than rats, especially laboratory mice.
So so he's starting with mice just to make sure
that it'll work. Then his group is moving on to rats,
and then eventually they're moving on up to pigs. And
(40:09):
pigs is kind of the endgame for this experiment, because
that is how they're going to be able to successfully
grow you know, a pancreas or whatever other organ at
the correct size.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Right, Okay, yeah, this makes sense because previously they've been
able to grow the pancreas for a mouse inside of
a rat, and they used islet cells to cure diabetes
and mice. This then becomes a series of steps, right,
they're progressively building up and hopefully learning mistakes, making errors
(40:44):
at the less damaging stages of the process.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Right, yeah, exactly. But eventually the man pig is what
they're going for. Pig person, the big person. I'm sorry,
I'm sorry, sorry, gosh.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Oh, I don't know. Man pig has a ring to it.
Surely that's is that a superhero yet? No?
Speaker 3 (41:04):
You just throw a bear in there and then you've
really got something.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
That's what I'm thinking. Of that's what I'm thinking of
man bear pig from South South Park.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
Yes, I'm so surreal man pig.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
Ah, Sorry, I get all these weird images of like,
what's the difference between man pig and a pig?
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Man?
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Is it? Like man bat and batman? Is one of
them a very wealthy dude in a strange costume and
the other one.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
Was just yelling to kill me girl?
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Men?
Speaker 3 (41:36):
God? Yeah, I feel highly insensitive to a lot of
this stuff. I apologize to you, Ben, apologized to everyone,
especially you. Paul.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
Uh. Yeah. I think Paul back in twenty seventeen said
he would never forgive us, and I think he's holding
to that. Paul, Are you holding to.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
That, never forgive, always forget?
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Yeah, he nodded solemnly. We're still in the dog of
that guy, still in the big man, big dog house.
This is getting complicated, But the science here is important
because one of the huge factors holding this sort of
experimentation back is not a matter of technical expertise, nor
(42:18):
is it a matter of possessing the correct technology. Instead,
it is a matter of ethics exactly.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
And one of the biggest issues here is, let's say
you're manipulating the genes in eventually a pig within this
study we've been referencing, sure, or a sheep or whatever. Yeah, yeah,
but in another animal, and you're generally manipulating genes that
are going to allow to create organs that are human, right,
(42:47):
how do you prevent it from affecting the genes that
are gonna affect brain development or intelligence? Because these animals,
whether you want to believe it or like it or not,
they are experiments. They are subjects of an experiment, and
they will be terminated most likely at some point. Even
(43:07):
if even if it's completely successful and they do grow
a pancreous, that animal will be terminated most likely in
order to get that pancreas right exactly. And if it's intelligent,
if it can understand what's occurring because it's been imbued
with human genes that have allowed for different brain growth,
(43:28):
that's where that's where things get really just complicated.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Right, father, What is my purpose? Yeah? Why? Why you
big child? Your my replacement liver? Because I'll be damned
if I stop drinking.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
Well, yeah, then you get into the ethical issues of
does this creature deserve rights of some sort or are
we dealing with human experimentation. That point, how what percentage
of human experimentation is occurring.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
Right now, right, right, right? Whereas the tipping point genetically
does it need to be defined? Is an animal still
for legal purposes an animal not deserving of rights if
it is only forty eight percent human? Right, And then
it hits fifty one, and it's like, oh, now you
can vote for your conscience. Yeah, I mean this is
(44:22):
clearly that's a made up experiment there, but it is
intensely problematic and it does lead into stuff they don't
want you to know. They being private institutions funding this research,
they being state actors that are playing fast and loose
with international conventions on how to conduct experiments. Right. There's
(44:47):
a very interesting point that you raised off airmat that
we should explore before we continue here, and that is,
let's say these things do happen, more creatures drawn into
these experiments, what will they be used for? First? Obviously organs?
Speaker 3 (45:08):
Right, Oh, yeah, that's what we keep talking about. It's
just it's the thing we've been attempting to do as
humans for quite a while now.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
Yeah, it's a huge business that is on both sides
of the law. Imagine how many people if we want
to assume the utopian vision of the future, if we
want to be super optimistic about this, just imagine how
many millions of people could have their lives saved if
(45:39):
medical researchers are able to grow bespoke or custom replacement organs.
Why would you languish for years on a recipient waiting
list when a creature with the perfect liver for you
could be grown and mature and then harvested and have
that liver transplant within a matter of months.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
It seems pretty compelling, but you you get into the
questions that arise when you're talking about cloning, right.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
Right, because technically speaking, in theory, it is possible for
you and for Paul and I and all of us
listening to have a clone of ourselves grown. Right, Do
some do some sort very doctor Frankenstein asks stuff to
prevent a brain from forming or coming into the equation
(46:35):
and then just have your spare seto organs? Right? YEA
expensive to maintain, but at what price? At what price immortality?
Speaker 3 (46:45):
You know? Yeah? And what you know? Does that clone
deserve any kind of rights?
Speaker 1 (46:51):
So the aim here would ultimately be the ability to
grow replacement organs for almost every single original organ in
a human body, minus, of course one would assume the brain. Maybe,
I don't, you know, I don't know. I was thinking
about this too, like if if it were possible, or
(47:13):
if it would ever be possible for certain parts of
the brain to be replaced, which gets us into that
ship of thesis, experiment and problem very quickly. I mean,
you know, obviously, and our pal Damian Williams love this. Obviously,
we're already reaching a point where we have to redefine
(47:35):
what is considered consciousness in general. But I wondered when
we were looking at this math, I wondered if there
would ever be someone who just to be edgy, you know,
fifty years in the future or something, says, my body's fine,
but I want a brain transplant. Just grow a new
(47:56):
brain and put it in this thing, and then, you know,
just make sure that's me. That's insane. I don't think
it would. I don't. I don't see it working unless
we had some way to sounds insane, just to see it,
unless we had some way to replicate the synaptic actions
(48:17):
in the neurochemical processes that function as the fingerprint of consciousness.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
If I mean, if that is truly what then.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Yes, yes, yes, you're right, you're absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (48:31):
But I do think at some point we'll be able
to have some kind of technology that maps a brain
so fully at such a such a minute level that
we can at least print physically what what that thing
looks like. But whether or not it contains memories and
experience and knowledge I will find out.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Yeah, that's that's one thing that's fascinating, right because now
we we at the top of the show said we
would bracket the conversation about the soul, but it inevitably
creeps in, doesn't it, Because now we're saying that if
consciousness or if sentience for each individual is something more
than what can be mapped in that one specific organ
(49:16):
in the human body, then just futzing around with that
one organ it's it's a lot like yeah, I mean,
you're just fixing part of the system. It's it's kind
of like saying, Okay, let's say let's say the brain
is just hardware, right, hardware that processes electricity like a computer,
(49:39):
and so you can you can take apart the hardware.
You can replace the motherboard or the graphics process or something.
But if you don't have anything to plug it in too.
That change does not matter. It is nil. The difference
is nil. The problem is moot.
Speaker 3 (49:57):
So maybe you got to get no less in there, man.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
Right, Yeah, I know us sure, Perhaps that is perhaps
that is something approaching, you know, the seed of God,
or you know the electricity that comes when you plug
it into an outlet or the matrix or the matrix
or the matrix. Yes, maybe that is what volume four
is about, right.
Speaker 3 (50:19):
That's what it is, matrix, Volume four, the hard intelligence problem.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
Perhaps perhaps for perhaps there's there's another experiment too. While
we're talking about the brain. This is another use, a
possible use for hybrids. There are many, many experiments, especially
experiments evolving cognition, that we cannot legally and officially conduct
(50:50):
because we would have to be humans experimenting on other humans.
So Alzheimer's research, right, is a huge field, and there's
a lot of potential for improvement. And Alzheimer's is, as
anyone can attest, a debilitating, tragic condition. When we make
(51:11):
models of the decay involved in Alzheimer's we could potentially
make much more robust, much more helpful models if we
used the brains of human monkey hybrids.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
Ah, but we would have to allow them to decay
so many times, Yeah, with so many you know, subjects
to get that robust model, that's what you mean?
Speaker 1 (51:39):
Right? We could create other brain disease models where it's
possible to allow a condition to progress beyond what would
be ethical or legal to do with a full human being.
And even there isn't that sticky? Isn't that already? Doesn't
that already make you feel kind of gross? The fact
that we had to say full human? Yeah, because what
(52:01):
everything we have learned about our species throughout the span
of recorded history, everything we have learned indicates that we're
really starting to screw up when we start referring to
any part of a population as full human versus something else,
you know what I mean. So maybe we as a
species simply don't have the philosophical or ethical chops to
(52:25):
address this, and that goes to our concerns, right. James McDonald,
writing for Jstore Daily, phrases this in a succinct fashion.
He says, in many ways, the ethical concerns are thornier
than the technical aspects. Direct transfer of tissue between animals
and humans raises concerns about animal diseases crossing over to
(52:47):
humans potentially threatening a large population.
Speaker 3 (52:50):
Okay, I can see that.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
I can see that absolutely. Another concern, he says, is
that animals developing with human cells might somehow develop human
physical or mental characteristics. The idea of, say, a pig
with a human mind being used as an organ donor
is horrifying.
Speaker 3 (53:08):
Agreed.
Speaker 1 (53:09):
Agreed. Luckily, so far as we know this, human mind
development probably would not happen by accident. Emphasis on probably,
which bothers me. I don't know about you, but most certainly. Yeah.
But McDonald says, even if human tissue somehow migrated to
an animal's developing brain, it would still probably develop his
animal brain tissue. But is probably enough.
Speaker 3 (53:32):
Yeah, No, I know.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
You don't think so. But your kidneys are fine.
Speaker 3 (53:39):
I know exactly. I don't. I don't have a pressing. Well,
that's not true.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
I have.
Speaker 3 (53:44):
There are members in my family that right now need
a heart I have.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
I have.
Speaker 3 (53:50):
I'm thinking of a person in particular that needs a
heart transplant or his you know, his life will be
cut short almost certainly so having this. If we had
access to this, I would have to I would have
to advocate for it.
Speaker 1 (54:06):
It's sort of like at various times in the course
of stem cell research, politicians who are very much against
it for usually for reelection or election purposes, for anything. Yeah,
they pulled one to eighty when they realized they could
help a loved one.
Speaker 3 (54:25):
Well, yeah, or just they have that one degree of
separation with somebody who it is fully impacting. Right, We've
seen that over and over and over again with any issue.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
Absolutely, And so now we end in media arrests. We
end in the middle of the story, and we have
to ask ourselves and ask you as well, what next. Again,
here is the situation as it stands. Barring some global catastrophe,
experimentation in this field will continue because the possible potential
(54:59):
benefit are just too impressive. They're too too much of
a beneficial paradigm shift.
Speaker 3 (55:08):
And you know, we haven't even gotten into some of
the other really out there ideas about what this could
be or mean.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
Barely touched it. Super soldiers possibly.
Speaker 3 (55:17):
Yeah, super soldiers or superspies, because imagine if you could
have a cat human hybrid that looks just like a cat,
but has the intelligence of a human and can communicate
in some way and it's just spying on you know
whatever housing. Maybe it's in your house. Do you know
what I mean? I mean, think about that.
Speaker 1 (55:35):
I don't I have cats. I don't trust them, nor
anybody as everybody who has a cat as a companion,
don't trust them.
Speaker 3 (55:43):
I love them, just don't trust them.
Speaker 1 (55:45):
I think that's the most prejudiced thing I've ever said,
at a one hundred percent stand behind it. I love
the animals that live with me, I do not trust them.
That's what dogs are for.
Speaker 3 (55:55):
They're already too smart. I mean, if we're if we're
gonna make a hybrid, it's that's dangerous.
Speaker 1 (56:00):
You know, didn't we talk about how US intelligence agencies
tried to make cyber cats before. Yeah, and then also
cats domesticated themselves, right, and they you know, you ever
look at a pug and you think, dang, that could
have been a wolf. Cats did not undergo that same
sort of eugenic practice.
Speaker 3 (56:22):
They just showed up like y'all have food, Give me
more of that food.
Speaker 1 (56:28):
Yeah, they said they'd solved the rat problem, and they
kind of did in a lot of cases. But then
they didn't leave. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (56:34):
They solved the hard rat problem.
Speaker 1 (56:35):
They solved the hard rat problem. But speaking of solving
hard problems. We're faced with a geopolitical dilimmau here too,
because countries and institutions that enforce ethical conventions in this
regard may end up falling behind. We're already seeing this
sort of splintering of experimental heft and and location of
(57:02):
the pioneering research because these experiments are happening, you know,
the more extreme ones are happening in countries where it's
a little easier to bend certain regulations.
Speaker 3 (57:14):
Well, what we're talking about Japan, and you know that
one in particular, You're not necessarily it doesn't strike me
as a country that would bend these rules too much, unless,
of course you go back to World War two and
Unit seven thirty one and some of that kind of experimentation.
But it's such a different.
Speaker 1 (57:31):
Yeah, you're absolutely right, Matt I was. I was specifically
thinking of China, but already the different scientific communities of
the country of China, places based there are raising hell
with objections to what they see as lacks ethical regulations
and so on. There have been a number of notable
(57:53):
experiments in the past years that have pushed the envelope
there to various extreme degrees. The thing that we'll run
into here is that private entities that are state sponsored
can make enormous progress on this. And it becomes scary
(58:13):
when we realize that right now there's very strong potential
for this, but there's not provable precedent yet. As soon
as provable precedent exists something that can be reproduced with
let's say, gosh, even a seventy eighty percent chance of success,
(58:38):
then people and institutions will rethink whatever existing ethical considerations
they have, because then it becomes a question of what
do you place what is higher on your list of
important things, your moral code or your ability to live
(59:00):
to see tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (59:02):
Ability to live to see tomorrow, as well as creating
a viable business plan.
Speaker 1 (59:07):
True, oh my gosh, even worse. Yes, So what we'll
see is going to be going to be darkly fascinating.
There will either be a sea change in the way
we approach ethical concerns of the past or why. Possibly
(59:28):
there will be very well funded secret programs. I don't
know how long they would be able to remain secret.
Speaker 3 (59:35):
Well, I mean, we've already kind of covered this before,
especially when we were talking with Josh Clark about his
show The End of the World. The experimentation that's going
on in small labs that are just you know, you
pay for the time, nobody asks any questions you do
your experimentation that's occurring across the world, especially in the
United States. True, if you have an outfit that is
(59:57):
working on something and you're being successful at it and
nobody is checking or approving your experiments.
Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
Especially in this environment where certain things are certain things
like genes or the technology applying genes is allowed to
be patented, that comes troublingly close to a private entergy
being able to own, for lack of a better word,
(01:00:29):
and entire form of life. Yeah, so imagine, you know,
imagine it's not just pig people or mandig. It's Comcasts.
Pig people, pig people powered by Comcast.
Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
And they represent X number of viewers every week, the subscribers.
Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
You know, I just picked Comcasts because they have a
monopoly in certain parts of the US. I don't think
they're in the chimera game yet.
Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
Dude, gosh, I just had a really dark vision of
web bots, you know, and all that kind of thing.
But in this case, it's some company that has patented
a certain human type or a hute diversion of a
human where they just mass produce them in, put them
in housing somewhere, and then attach them to the television
(01:01:19):
so they can have a certain number of viewers for
every episode of whatever thing it is. Yeah, wow, that
would not make any sense.
Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
But do their rights count? I don't know. Well, let
us know what you think. So along and short of
it is that something like this is inevitable because again,
the potential benefits are just too good for anyone to
really walk away. But will this end up being a
dystopian nightmare? Will this end up being the utopian answer
(01:01:50):
to so many problems today? Where's the answer, as it
so often is, somewhere disappointingly in between those two goalposts.
Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
Where it ends up being a great opportunity for anyone
with a lot of money to get a great organ,
but for everybody else.
Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
Or even worse, look at the way medicine works in
many countries, especially in the US. Now, imagine that you
are able to buy let's say, of a replacement kidney
or something that you need to live, but because it
is privatized, you are required to you know, you're essentially
(01:02:27):
renting or making you have an organ mortgage that's gonna
happen organ mortgages. I know, and it sounds like if
you didn't speak English. Organ mortgage sounds like a pretty
cool phrase.
Speaker 3 (01:02:40):
It really does. But in the end, it just means
a lot of money coming out of your paycheck every month.
Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
And then what happens if you can't pay the.
Speaker 3 (01:02:47):
Bank buys your organ, right or it just gets your organ.
Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
And then do they decide how you how you concentrate
your labor to pay them back? Tricky, tricky, tricky stuff.
And that's our classic episode for this evening. We can't
wait to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
Let us know what you think you can reach.
Speaker 2 (01:03:08):
You to the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we exist on
Facebook X and YouTube on Instagram and TikTok or Conspiracy
Stuff Show.
Speaker 3 (01:03:15):
If you want to call us dial one eight three
three std WYTK. That's our voicemail system. You've got three minutes,
give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if
we can use your name and message on the air.
If you got more to say than can fit in
that voicemail, why not instead send us a good old
fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
We are the entities that read every single piece of correspondence.
We receive, be aware yet not afraid. Sometimes the void
writes back conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (01:04:03):
Stuff they Don't want you to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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