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Re: hybridization experiments
JOHN LANGDON (LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU)
Wed, 14 Dec 1994 12:02:11 -0500
In message writes:
> For a work in progress, I would be interested in knowing of any documented
> attempts to crossbreed two species of great apes or other higher primates.
> Also, I would be very interested in anecdotes, rumors, apocrypha etc
> concerning attempts to interbreed humans and great apes. Thanks, James
> Shreeve
I have an odd item in my files that I have never seen any follow-up to. Thus it
has been in a file labelled "Pseudoanthropology." Perhaps it may be of interest.
>From the Indianapolis Star (standard newspaper) of May 14, 1987, front page?:
[headline] "Geneticists Close to Producing Apeman; Chimp Embryo has been
Fertilized with Human Sperm
"Rome (Chicago Tribune) Q The image of a mad scientist concocting an apeman in
his laboratory is no longer a science finction fable but a 1987 possibility."
I would dismiss this as more worthy of the National Inquirer except that the
source is very real: Brunetto Chiarelli, with additional comments by Nobel
laureate Rita Levi Moltalcini.
"The professor [Chiarelli] said the experiments were kept secret. He did not
know the name of the laboratories but thought that in the United States and
other countries the cross-breeding of a female chimpanzee, fertilized with human
male sperm, had resulted in the formation of an anthropoid embryo." There is
even more fantastic speculation about the use of such hybrids as slaves or
reservoirs for transplant organs.
Can anyone provide more information on this? Should I refile it? (Not yet.)
JOHN H. LANGDON email LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU
DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY FAX (317) 788-3569
UNIVERSITY OF INDIANAPOLIS PHONE (317) 788-3447
INDIANAPOLIS, IN 46227
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