Did Grandma oink: are humans a pig-ape hybrid?

[spingears]

@Fear Itself

Well, that explains my corkscrew penis.

This put you and slick willy in the same class. That is allegedly his unique identifying feature.

[Ludovic]

Grandma Oink would be a good band name.

[Ale]

Men are pig; I hear that all the time…

@istara

The fact that pig-flesh tastes very similar to human flesh.

AFAIK that´s a result of similar diets, that is humans and pigs stuff their snouts with anything that gets on their way; OK, we´re both omnivores. You´re what you eat and all that.

[Gorsnak]

@KP

It should also be noted that among the first human cell fusion lines (going back to at least 1971) were human-hamster fusions, sometimes called “humsters” . Why hamsters? Because they have the same number of chromosomes as humans. These were crude fusions, grown only as cell cultures, but many were quite long-lived (some were effectively ‘immortal’ by cell biology definitions) and were legitimately half-human, half-hamster on the cellular level, as opposed to a mosaic, where each individual cell would essentially be all-human or all-hamster.

Compatibility is weak evidence of evolutionary heritage.

Ah, but hamsters are a lot like guinea pigs! So there we are, right back at pigs again.

[Smeghead]

The reason people have been kicking around the idea of pig organs for human transplants has nothing to do with compatibility at a molecular or evolutionary level. It’s simply because (A) pigs are cheap and plentiful (unlike, say baboons) and (B) their organs are very similar in size to an adult human’s. But humans are pigs are not cross compatible at all, so in order to make it work, you’d have to effectively shut down the recipient human’s immune system with immunosupressing drugs. It’s been proposed mainly as a last resort short term solution for, for instance, someone who needs to last a few more days until a human organ is available for transplant. As far as I can remember, it’s never actually been done.

I’ve also heard speculation of using genetically engineered pigs to grow organs that would be compatible. Again, because of the size similarity, pigs would be a good choice for this. Theoretically, you could do a little cloning, grow up a pig, and have a set of organs that are identical to your own down to the molecular level. But, obviously, that’s still a looong way off.

[Loopydude]

Word has it pigs and people taste almost the same. And, no, not like chicken.

[daffyduck]

I used to work in a lab that made artificial heart valves for humans from the heart valves of pigs. The general term is xenograft. The valves are “harvested” from the pig hearts, fixed in gluteraldehyde (similar to formaldehyde), and then mounted in “stents” so they can be sewn into the body. As it was explained to me, the fixation process denatures the protiens in the pig valves so the body doesn’t try to reject them as it would if they were used “fresh.” Pig valves were used because they are readily available and similar in size to human valves.