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posted by martyb on Thursday April 11 2019, @06:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the typing-out-that-encyclopedia-just-got-quicker dept.

As described in a report in Bejing's National Science Review journal, and covered by China Daily and MIT Technology Review, scientists have created five transgenic monkeys with extra copies of a human gene believed to play a role in human's intelligence.

“This was the first attempt to understand the evolution of human cognition using a transgenic monkey model,” says Bing Su, the geneticist at the Kunming Institute of Zoology who led the effort.

The modified rhesus macaque monkey's brains took longer to develop (similar to human children's brains) and they also score higher on memory tests although MRIs indicate their brains did not increase in size.

According to geneticist Su:

the small number of animals was a limitation. He says he has a solution, though. He is making more of the monkeys and is also testing new brain evolution genes. One that he has his eye on is SRGAP2C, a DNA variant that arose about two million years ago, just when Australopithecus was ceding the African savannah to early humans. That gene has been dubbed the “humanity switch” and the “missing genetic link” for its likely role in the emergence of human intelligence.

There are ethical and slippery slope issues to consider and the paper was apparently not able to find a publisher in the west.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @07:11PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @07:11PM (#828190)

    Fortunately the Chinese have a long way to go before they can build monkeys that can match human intelligence.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Thursday April 11 2019, @07:20PM (2 children)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday April 11 2019, @07:20PM (#828195) Journal

    Not for all values of $HUMAN, my friend.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @11:37PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @11:37PM (#828377)

      Not for all values of $HUMAN, my friend.

      Score: 5, Informative? I don't get it.

      • (Score: 3, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Friday April 12 2019, @10:07AM

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday April 12 2019, @10:07AM (#828538) Journal

        Indeed, Q.E.D.: AC ∈ {$HUMAN ∩ $MONKEY}

        :-)

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday April 12 2019, @01:32AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 12 2019, @01:32AM (#828418) Journal

    They've done it centuries ago [wikipedia.org].

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford