Scientists may now be able to clone a Neanderthal

Dog-- said:
Humans interbreed all the time, just as dogs do.. Difference species of human (White, Black, ect..) breed, and different dogs breed.
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hrrrm. humans with different skin tones are hardly a different species..
 
But different facial features are, like flat noses, or squinty eyes.
 
Ah, now I've got it, Some dogs are different species, but have the same fur (just as humans with skin), but the look of the thing determines it's species..

For Example, a Jack Russel Terrier could be black, but you could have a black lab... but the size, and muzzle length and things like that set them aprt as different species... there that's what I meant..
 
Human species are different based on the enviroment that they lived in, mostly anyways. People in hotter enviroments with more sun exposureare probably going to naturally have darker skin pigments... like in africa or whatever... and people more up north with less sun exposure and cooler temperatures lighter skinned.

I could be wrong though, but that's what I think.
 
No.

You're getting breeds and subspecies confused with species.

Species= any creature that can reproduce with a like member of its species and produce offspring that can do the same thing.

Skin tones and dog breeds are not seperate species at all, just the same species with different characteristics.

All dogs are the same species, and so are humans.

The only thing that seperates one species from another is reproduction. All humans can reproduce naturally with each other and create another human that can also reproduce, and thus they are all the same species. All dogs can reproduce with one another and create a successful offspring and thus they are the same species.

The reason humans and neanderthals are not the same species is because their offspring would be infertile. This is similar to a donkey and a horse producing a mule, but the mule cannot reproduce with other mules, so it is not a species at all, but a hybrid.

EDIT: unless the human/dog/neanderthal is born with a genetic mutation preventing it from reproducing with anything, then it is technically the same species but a mutant. If two humans had babies that could not reproduce with other humans, but could reproduce with each other, then these babies would be considered a new species.
 
I didn't mean species in the quite literal different sense.

Sorry. I didn't know what other term to use. I was using the word species to describe the obvious differences and groups of people.
 
Raziaar said:
I didn't mean species in the quite literal different sense.

Sorry. I didn't know what other term to use. I was using the word species to describe the obvious differences and groups of people.
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Ethnicity is the difference
 
Yeah. And we evolved that way.

Though I imigine it was a quick evolution... since the body naturally becomes darker with sun exposure. I'm not sure if it changes your DNA slightly when you tan your skin cells and have the pigments darken... but I imigine if it did, it'd pass it along rather quickly over several hundred generations.
 
That reminds me of a question I had, If you worked out a ton and then had a kid, and then stopped and got fat and had a kid a few years later, would the first kid have a greater chance of being muscly, and the second a greater chance of being fat?
 
no. Only genetic traits are inheritable. Unless you're genetically predisposed to be fat or muscly, your child will have no greater chance of being either no matter what you do.
 
It's not very easy to clone a human fetus, even thought there's plenty of 'material' available, so the chances are extremely slim that they'll be able to do it. And it sounds ethically so questionable that I doubt they'll ever be allowed to even try...
 
Don't do it, science. Neanderthals are pretentious a-holes.

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Ahahahaha... yeah, those commercials are so stupid.
 
I say don't do it. I mean, if i was dead for thousands of years and then got suddenly reborn i'd hate it and be scared to hell. I mean, he'll be the only one of his kind living on earth. Sure he may not mind being alive and may like this age, we could teach him things and learn about our past. But i say let them RIP.
 
I have taken a few anthropology courses and from what I understand homo sapians and neanderthals would be able to breed AND produce fertile off-spring. Brain wise they are likely to be more or less the same when it comes to intellect, speech wise they were probably just as capable as we are. The main differences are in the physical body (neanderthals are significantly stronger, faster, and tougher than we are) and the way they think and problem solved.

One of the big differences would arise out of the way we evolved differently. Modern humans came out of a nomadic lifestyle that involved lots of travelling, neanderthals came out of a very stationary lifestyle where they likely wouldn't move more than 20 to 30km in their lifetimes, many think that was the reason they died off and couldn't develop better technologies. They didn't like to travel which meant they were limited in their hunting areas and in the technology they could aquire from other groups of humans like we were doing.

Personally I would love to have a neanderthal body with a homo sapian brain and face.
 
I dont get what the problem is. Wouldnt it be just like a regular child when its born? If it is raised the same as a modern child, he would fit right in. Sure there will be some minor physical differences, but we have that with normal babies created the so called "natural" way.

All this would be is a new way of reproduction (with some slight differences).
 
The Mullinator said:
I have taken a few anthropology courses and from what I understand homo sapians and neanderthals would be able to breed AND produce fertile off-spring. Brain wise they are likely to be more or less the same when it comes to intellect, speech wise they were probably just as capable as we are. The main differences are in the physical body (neanderthals are significantly stronger, faster, and tougher than we are) and the way they think and problem solved.

One of the big differences would arise out of the way we evolved differently. Modern humans came out of a nomadic lifestyle that involved lots of travelling, neanderthals came out of a very stationary lifestyle where they likely wouldn't move more than 20 to 30km in their lifetimes, many think that was the reason they died off and couldn't develop better technologies. They didn't like to travel which meant they were limited in their hunting areas and in the technology they could aquire from other groups of humans like we were doing.

Personally I would love to have a neanderthal body with a homo sapian brain and face.
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ah, so I've gotten my facts wrong.

Neanderthals had alot going for them, but humanity pretty much ruined them. Like you said, they weren't quite as nomadic as humans, (in fact, humans have alot of physical charachteristics like a huge proliferation of sweat glands and really nice balance which make us ideally suited for long journeys). Humans also had better shelters, were more willing to domesticate animals and had a better use of language.

Technically neanderthals were smarter than us by a tiny bit, and likely had a greater capacity to understand things like body language, but the shape of their mouths and tounges prevented them from speaking very well. When humans met up with neanderthals (if such a case existed) they probably thought them to be just a different tribe of people with a strange language and odd facial features.
 
i have to agree with Qonfused on this, cloning gives me a bad feeling
 
Eh i say go for it. What's the worst that could happen?
"Oh no, an angsty teenager with a heavy brow ridge! Oh NO!"

The net result is that we learn a whole bunch about how we evolved, we bring a sample of a long dead species back, and then we move on with our lives. Personally i'd like to see some friggin dinosaurs, but a neanderthal would be fine for now. But seriously, I want some T-rexes and shit.
 
It won't be a true neanderthal because there isn't a female neanderthal to impregnate. Instead, they'll have to use a close relative, which would end buy being some type of elephant, which would mean it would become a hybrid.
 
Core407 said:
It won't be a true neanderthal because there isn't a female neanderthal to impregnate. Instead, they'll have to use a close relative, which would end buy being some type of elephant, which would mean it would become a hybrid.
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It would be true Neanderthal in all but its mitochondrial dna. Its nuclear dna would be Neanderthal.
 
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