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Concept
Human–animal hybrid
Summary
A human–animal hybrid and animal–human hybrid is an organism that incorporates elements from both humans and non-human animals. Technically, in a human–animal hybrid, each cell has both human and non-human genetic material. It is in contrast to an individual where some cells are human and some are derived from a different organism, called a human-animal chimera.
Examples of human–animal hybrids mainly include humanized mice that have been genetically modified by xenotransplantation of human genes. Humanized mice are commonly used as small animal models in biological and medical research for human therapeutics.
Human-animal hybrids are the subject of legal, moral, and technological debate in the context of recent advances in genetic engineering.
Human–animal hybrids have existed throughout social cultures for a long time (particularly in terms of mythology), being a part of storytelling across multiple continents, and have also been incorporated into comic books, films, video games, and other related mass media in recent decades.
Defined by the magazine H+ as "genetic alterations that are blendings [sic] of animal and human forms", such hybrids may be referred by other names occasionally such as "para-humans". They may additionally may be called "humanized animals". Technically speaking, they are also related to "cybrids" (cytoplasmic hybrids), with "cybrid" cells featuring foreign human nuclei inside of them being a topic of interest. Possibly, a real-world human-animal hybrid may be an entity formed from either a human egg fertilized by a nonhuman sperm or a nonhuman egg fertilized by a human sperm.
Throughout past human evolution, there has been interbreeding between archaic and modern humans. For example, Neanderthal genes accounts for 1–4% of modern human genomes for people outside Sub-Saharan Africa. However, as archaic humans may not be classified as animals, such interbreeding is generally not classified as human–animal hybridization.
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