Chimera

What is a Chimera? Some beast that steals the parts of other animals or something?

I thought a chimera was a mixture of two completely different animals, or an animal and a human, like a hybrid? I'm not much help really. Sorry!

Thanx anyways, xtr3m3paranoia. Now I think I have the idea. But could anybody send some links or something?

For goodness sake!

www.google.com...

www.wikipedia.org...

Cheers.


[edit on 25-2-2007 by d60944]

Its a mythological beast in Greek folklore.

It is a hybrid, once a mythical creature. As the old myth goes, the Chimera was killed by Prince Bellerophon.

Currently the best metal band on earth.

Originally posted by RomanianDacianHun
Its a mythological beast in Greek folklore.

Yes it is a mythological beast, and has some folklore to it. But Chimeras are common in the research field. I used to have some chimera mice in my lab. In short this is how its done, in the mouse embryo we would collect stem cells from one strain and blastocyst cells from another strain mix them all up and throw them in a surrogate mother. Obvious the people that do this aren't trying to create some superpower mouse. It is done to try and knockout or add genes.

British scientists has just applied for a license to create human-animal chimeras.

I don't like the sounds of this.

Link

[edit on 26-2-2007 by testrat]

They don't mean people with the head of a cow, the hooves of a horse and the wings of an eagle.

They mean human beings with certain genes taken from animals that control disease control, which will allow us to become resistant to types of cancer and other life threatening diseases.

The mythical Chimera is typically the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a dragon, and usually with multiple heads, such as the head of each.

However, here's an interesting thing. I checked into this after a CSI episode featured a storyline that may explain why I've had two different official blood types at times....

from Wikipedia:

Tetragametic chimerism is a less common cause of congenital chimerism. It occurs through the fertilization of two ova by two sperm, followed by the fusion of the zygotes and the development of an organism with intermingled cell lines. This happens at a very early stage of development, such as that of the blastocyst. Such an organism is called a tetragametic chimera as it is formed from four gametes — two eggs and two sperm. Put another way, the chimera is formed from the merger of two fraternal twins in a very early (zygote or blastocyst) phase. As such, they can be male, female, or hermaphroditic.

As the organism develops, the resulting chimera can come to possess organs that have different sets of chromosomes. For example, the chimera may have a liver composed of cells with one set of chromosomes and have a kidney composed of cells with a second set of chromosomes. This has occurred in humans, though it is considered 'extremely' rare.

Affected persons are identified by the finding of two populations of red cells or, if the zygotes are of opposite sex, ambiguous genitalia and hermaphroditism alone or in combination; such persons sometimes also have patchy skin, hair, or eye pigmentation (heterochromia). If the blastocysts are of the same sex, it can only be detected through DNA testing, although this is a rare procedure. Thus the phenomenon may be more common than currently believed.

More:

Natural chimeras are almost always not detected unless the offspring has abnormalities such as male/female or hermaphrodite characteristics or skin discoloring. The most noticeable are some male tortoiseshell cats or animals with ambiguous sex organs or behavioural abnormalities such as confused gender behaviour (where female cells made the brain but male cells made the genitals or vice versa). Recent studies of tortoiseshell male cats and unusually coloured tortoiseshell-like cats suggest that natural chimerism is far more common than previously realised and that it frequently goes undetected.

Chimerism can be detected in DNA testing. The Lydia Fairchild case, for example, was brought to court after DNA testing showed that her children could not be hers, since DNA did not match. The charge against her was dismissed when it became clear that Lydia was a chimera, with the matching DNA being found in her cervical tissue. Another case was that of Karen Keegan.[1]

The tetragametic state has important implications for organ or stem-cell transplantation. Chimeras typically have immunologic tolerance to both cell lines. Thus, for a tetragametic human, a wider array of relatives and other persons may be eligible to be organ donors

en.wikipedia.org...(genetics)

I appreciate you guys help. But d60944, don't be such a JERK!!11!!

I looke don both of those sites and I got BULLSHFITZ!!!11!!

...and on Wikipedia, it said ***SORRY, PAGE IS BLOCKED***

So there.


Cheers to you, too. *frowns*

The chimera is a beast of ancient folk lore that was assembled from humans and any number of animals, usually by god or people who studied the dark arts.

See: Full metal alchemist X)

True that in folklore a chimera is made up of a goat, lion, and a dragon but really a chimera can be made up of any number different animals IE liger or griffin