Harvard Professor Seeks 'Adventurous' Human Woman To Birth A Neanderthal Baby

Tuesday, January 22, 2013 - 13:04 in Biology & Nature

Neanderthal At Zagros Paleolithic Museum, Kermanshah Wikimedia CommonsTake some Neanderthal DNA, mix in some stem cells, add it to a womb--bam, baby Neanderthal. Maybe Neanderthals just get a bad rap. One well-credentialed Harvard scientist, at least, thinks they're more intelligent than they're portrayed, and he's willing test that theory out. He just needs an "adventurous" woman on board as a surrogate for a modern-day Neanderthal. George Church of Harvard Medical School is a geneticist noted for his work on the Human Genome Project. If Neanderthals were re-introduced to the planet, he says, their way of thinking could be beneficial to Neanderthals and Homo sapiens alike. His plan to create a baby Neanderthal--"neo-Neanderthal," if you will--goes like this. 1) Make artificial Neanderthal DNA from bone samples. 2) Introduce that DNA into stem cells. 3) Put those stem cells into a human embryo, and the DNA will steer it toward becoming...

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