Skip to main content

The Coming Neanderthal Congress


Good or bad news on the scientific front, depending upon one’s political orientation.

A professor at Harvard Medical School, George Church, believes he may be able to reconstruct Neanderthal DNA. And Mr. Church, a pioneer in synthetic biology who helped initiate the Human Genome Project that mapped our DNA, is not just whistling Dixie.

The thing is doable: Mr. Church has analyzed the Neanderthal genetic code using samples from bones, and the analysis, he says, is sufficiently complete to reconstruct their DNA.

The professor is now on the lookout for a womb in which he might implant a lab grown embryo. Mr. Church, who apparently has not read Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein,” is relying on stem cells to steer the development of the hybrid embryo on Neanderthal lines, rather than human ones.

“Now I need an adventurous female human,” said a hopeful Church. “It depends on a hell of a lot of things, but I think it can be done.”

Surely some pulchritudinous Hollywood starlet can be found to bear this humane burden for the sake of mankind.

Think of the possibilities: The entire U .S. Congress could easily be replaced by Neanderthals.

Where is the downside?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Blumenthal Burisma Connection

Steve Hilton , a Fox News commentator who over the weekend had connected some Burisma corruption dots, had this to say about Connecticut U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal’s association with the tangled knot of corruption in Ukraine: “We cross-referenced the Senate co-sponsors of Ed Markey's Ukraine gas bill with the list of Democrats whom Burisma lobbyist, David Leiter, routinely gave money to and found another one -- one of the most sanctimonious of them all, actually -- Sen. Richard Blumenthal."

Obamagod!

My guess is that Barack Obama is a bit too modest to consider himself a Christ figure , but artist will be artists. And over at “ To Wit ,” a blog run by professional blogger, journalist, radio commentator and ex-Hartford Courant religious writer Colin McEnroe, chocolateers will be chocolateers. Nice to have all this attention paid to Christ so near to Easter.

Did Chris Murphy Engage in Private Diplomacy?

Murphy after Zarif blowup -- Getty Images Connecticut U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, up for reelection this year, had “a secret meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the Munich Security Conference” in February 2020, according to a posting written by Mollie Hemingway , the Editor-in-Chief of The Federalist. Was Murphy commissioned by proper authorities to participate in the meeting, or was he freelancing? If the former, there is no problem. If the latter, Murphy was courting political disaster. “Such a meeting,” Hemingway wrote at the time, “would mean Murphy had done the type of secret coordination with foreign leaders to potentially undermine the U.S. government that he accused Trump officials of doing as they prepared for Trump’s administration. In February 2017, Murphy demanded investigations of National Security Advisor Mike Flynn because he had a phone call with his counterpart-to-be in Russia. “’Any effort to undermine our nation’s foreign policy – e