Could a Human and a Chimp have a baby?

stereo_steve

My question is.... Could a human and a chimp (or any monkey for that matter) have a baby?


I know very little about biology but i'm curious to know the answer to this. I know enough to know we have have a different number of chromosomes to chimps.

BUT horses and donkeys have offspring and they have a different number.... is it because they are similar in the same way that we our similar to monkeys, DNA 99% the same.

If someone could explain this in a dumbed down manner for all of us with only a small knowledge of biology, I would be very happy!!

Tree

you can mate within your species (or within your genus sometimes)

if you mate w/i your species you will prolly have lovely little reproductive offspring (you and the girlfriend can do this one)

if you mate w/i your genus (the next grouping up along in the kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species) you can have offspring that will not be able to reproduce (you're donkey and horse offspring live in this category, their offspring cant make baby mules)

so you're genus species is Homo sapiens,
the common chimp is Pan troglodytes

sadly you dont have the same genus, not to mind say species, so there you have it, if your girlfriend is an ape, you wont have to worry about havin kids

Guy:Incognito

Guess all your efforts have been for nothing, eh steve?:)

democrates

I saw a picture of a girl doing the rudie thing with a bottle of wine, could end up with planet of the grapes...

John

democrates wrote:

I saw a picture of a girl doing the rudie thing with a bottle of wine, could end up with planet of the grapes...

DrIndy

we're too genetically disimilar for it to work.

There was an attempt to transplant a chimp kidney into a human a few years ago, but that ended in total failure, where the kidney although effective, because of the signalling differences went into full filtration mode where it is capable of producing 120 liters of urine a day at peak capacity and the person unfortunately died of dehydration and shock as a result.

Esel

DrIndy wrote:

we're too genetically disimilar for it to work.

There was an attempt to transplant a chimp kidney into a human a few years ago, but that ended in total failure, where the kidney although effective, because of the signalling differences went into full filtration mode where it is capable of producing 120 liters of urine a day at peak capacity and the person unfortunately died of dehydration and shock as a result.

Plum to prune in 2 hours?

stereo_steve

Very well explained and quite humourous!

Here's another question.... Are there any other animals that can reproduce? Animals that are different yet in the same genus? Maybe crocodiles and aligators etc.

Or are donkeys and horses a rare exception?

GuanYin

DrIndy wrote:

we're too genetically disimilar for it to work.

Actually, that not entirely true.

The biggest problem is the chromosomal differences, which would mean the liklihood of any human-chimp hybrid having severe mental retardation and probably several life threathening congenital defects.

If you believe the rumours, a scientist in China actually managed to fertilise chimp egg with human sperm, but it was killed before it gave birth.

There have been several other rumours and stories of this kind, but nothing has been verified. The only documented work was in the late 1920's early 1930s by a Russan Scientist named Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov. He was never successful and died before his later more advanced experiments could be conducted. The popular anti-communist blurb at the time was that he was trying to create an expendable foot soldier.

The real answer to the question is. Noone knows. There is no evidence to suggest it could not be achieved. In fact, our current understanding of genetics suggests that its quite likely (organ transplants, are very much a different thing). I doubt we'll ever know, seeing as no scientist in his right mind would risk trying these days, would get the funding or would (if they were bothered trying) get the ethics approval.

metrovelvet

democrates - ha ha ha ha ha.:D

Or indeed what about Britney Spears and Keven Federline.

Kernel

DrIndy wrote:

we're too genetically disimilar for it to work.

There was an attempt to transplant a chimp kidney into a human a few years ago, but that ended in total failure, where the kidney although effective, because of the signalling differences went into full filtration mode where it is capable of producing 120 liters of urine a day at peak capacity and the person unfortunately died of dehydration and shock as a result.

Isn't it interesting to note how similar pig organs and skin are to our own, even though we are complely different species? Soon we will be growing organs in agar anyways!

Interesting articles to pass a bored few minutes:

http://www.fatemag.com/2005_04art1.html

http://www.rotten.com/library/cryptozoology/humanzee/ (I wouldn't check out the rest of the site, although you've probably seen it all before doc!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanzee

MaxBax

psi wrote:

The real answer to the question is. No

edited to make sense.

Capt'n Midnight

Kernel wrote:

Isn't it interesting to note how similar pig organs and skin are to our own, even though we are complely different species? Soon we will be growing organs in agar anyways!

I always liked the one about koala fingerprints.