Thursday, July 31, 2008

Hybrid Vigor

One of the great drunken scientist conversations is the Humanzee. No one really knows if it could exist which makes it a fun source of speculation. Like most people, I always thought that if possible this creature could be expected to be significantly dumber than the average human, and perhaps even the average Chimpanzee. That level of hybridization would have to cause issues with the brain, right?

Anyways, seeing the article on newscientist.com with the title:

'Hybrid vigour' may explain why mules – the offspring of male donkeys and female horses – are smarter than either of their parents

Gave me a much scarier idea of what could happen. That wouldn't make for a bad science fiction book.

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