Topic: Cloning Neandertals

[Nemesis]

Link to full article

Harvard geneticist George Church recently told Der Spiegel he's close to developing the necessary technology to clone a Neanderthal, at which point all he'd need is an "adventurous human woman" — einen abenteuerlustigen weiblichen Menschen — to act as a surrogate mother.

It's not out of the question at all. As MIT Technology Review's Susan Young points out, scientists cloned an extinct subspecies of ibex in 2009. It died immediately, sure. But they still cloned it.

[knightstorm]

Please no.  This isn't like cloning an animal.  Neanderthals were nearly human.  It wouldn't be right to clone one, and then treat it like a zoo specimen.

[Brush Wolf]

This is an ethical minefield of epic proportions, not a good idea.

[Nemesis]

Link to full article

He blames a mistake in an article he says was written off an interview in the German magazine Der Spiegel, badly misinterpreting what he said — that such a cloning might theoretically be possible someday — and arriving at the conclusion that he was actively looking for a woman to bear a cave baby with DNA scavenged from ancient Neanderthal bones. He suggested poor translation skills may be part of the problem.

“I’m certainly not advocating it,” Church said. “I’m saying, if it is technically possible someday, we need to start talking about it today.”

Church said he was not even involved in the sequencing of Neanderthal DNA — a project that scientists said has helped determined that many modern humans actually carry traces of their distant hominid ancestors.

[knightstorm]

Here's the interview in question
www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/george-church-explains-how-dna-will-be-construction-material-of-the-future-a-877634.html