'I can create Neanderthal baby'

Ummm... Google? Wikipedia?

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The Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) is a carnivorous marsupial of the family Dasyuridae, now found in the wild only on the Australian island state of Tasmania.​

They may be headed toward extinction though due to disease:

Since the late 1990s, devil facial tumour disease has drastically reduced the devil population and now threatens the survival of the species, which in 2008 was declared to be endangered.​

 

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True. I would think his method would work for any closely related species regardless of whether one is extinct or not. The bonobo proposal would seem to be a good test of the process.

 

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Did that story come from this?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013...0124?feedType=RSS&feedName=scienceNews&rpc=76

 

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I think the actual name of this sub species of humanity is a clue as to why they died out. Homo neanderthalensis was a highly successful cold whether adaptation of humanity that survived very well through the last ice age hunting the mega fauna of that time.
Neander being where their bones were first found and demonstrating the fact that they stayed in Europe excursively, whilst Homo sapains spread all around the world.

What do we know about them?

1. They were territorial staying in localized areas of Europe.
2. They hunted with thrusting spears which meant they had to get close to their prey to kill them.
3. They left no cave art, which could mean that creative or conceptual though was not as highly developed in then as with Homo sapians.
4. That we know of and did not develop agriculture or domesticate any animals.

In these four facts, I can see the seeds of their decline.

Mega fauna was in decline, the trend in animals was towards being smaller and faster. They had to competition from Homo sapiens who had better hunting techniques i.e. projectile weapons in the form of throwing spears and bows and arrows. Also Homo sapians domesticated dogs and used then for hunting and tracking purposes.
Homo-sapians were migratory, following the herds so that they had access to a protein rich food source all year round. Homo sapians spread all over the world, so no single localized disaster could wipe them all out.

If modern humans wiped out Neanderthal’s its less likely that they engaged in warfare to the extent of obliteration. Rather it’s more likely that they out competed them of the food source.

 

Sorry, I was thinking of the Tasmanian tiger. And yes, I was aware of this snout disease that might be heading them to extinction.

 

Pretty cool idea, but I don't think the world is ready to accept human cloning as a legal practice, once we start with one exception we'll start going onto "Clone Einstein" or something. Yeah, slippery slope argument

And btw, wouldn't this baby easily die/be infected.

 

Why would you think that? According to the NOVA program, mixing with Neanderthal's may have given us more resistance to disease and a lower incidence of cancer. After all that sub species of humans was around a lot longer than homo sapiens.

 

There is nothing wrong with cloning Einsteins DNA however the child wouldn't be Einstein tough.

To scarymonster the neanderthals probably did create cave paintings http://www.decodedscience.com/spains-cave-paintings-neanderthals-uranium-series-tests-show/14805
They lived as far east as siberia.

They where also relativly tech savy being able to make boats and birch pitch (a sort of glue)

 

Hm, well we'll never know what made them go extinct. But I don't think we'll be able to mix with them necessarily, dont clones die early.

 

Actually I don't really know much about cloning. But I would think any life short or long as it may be is better than not living. Also I think a real live Neanderthal would be well taken care of for as long as it did live. I think if they are going to do it, they should do both a male and female and let them have baby Neanderthals naturally, so we can observe more than one generation.

 

You can't force two people to have a baby

 

Many do not. There was a theory that Dolly (the first cloned mammal) died early due to telomere erosion, but it turned out to be a lung infection, likely unrelated to any issues with cloning.

In any case Dolly lived long enough to reproduce - and cloned cats have had normal litters of kittens.

 

That's a good point. A Neanderthal is a human and in this day and age, would have to have all the rights the rest of us have. Makes me wonder what a Neanderthal woman would look like after growing up in our society. Hope she wouldn't be to harry.

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That's not a given. Even people today (Homo Sapiens) are sometimes deemed unable to manage their own affairs and lose the right to vote, or own guns, or drive, or manage their own money. This can be a result of genetic defect (Down syndrome) insanity or just very low intelligence. Would Neanderthals fall under similar restrictions? Hard to say.

(However that doesn't mean they could be "forced to mate" or anything.)

 

Neanderthals actually have a larger brain than Homo sapiens. They've been given a bad image by us humans that they do not deserve. They did bury their dead with the possessions that had been acquired. They did make sophisticated tools. They were as intelligent as humans and they have the same genetic structure that allows humans to have speech. So we can assume they were able to communicate with eachother, much like humans do. Also they are close enough to us that we can breed with them.

If they grew up in a home with human parents, there is no reason to believe they wouldn't be able to function the same as a modern human. Again if you haven't watched the NOVA program I provided a link to earlier please do. I believe it's a 48 minute video, very well done and worth watching.

 

Agreed but not really pertinent. Whales have larger brains than humans; they do not have all the rights humans have.

We have no direct evidence of that.

Again, we have no direct evidence of that.

Agreed. But also no reason they would function the same as a modern human would. We simply don't have enough information yet.

 

That all sounds like a good reason to go forward with the cloning project.

 

Not really pertinent lol? Encephalization quotient is a very highly reliable indicator of intelligence. Brain size does indeed matter, since iirc Neanderthals were in fact smaller than us.

In fact 100,000 years ago or so some humans had significantly bigger brains than we do and therefore were more intelligent. At certain points in time there were hominids who seemed to have intelligence far greater than ours.

Some palaeontologists hummed and hawed at the time of these discoveries and came up with elaborate explanations and far-fetched theories about metabolism, or world climate at the time, or other things about how it couldn't possibly be so that they were significantly more intelligent than us. However I think it's fair to say the majority accept that we are NOT the most intelligent species that has ever existed. And why would we believe we were?

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Neanderthals-were-too-smart-to-survive-15264.shtml (claims Neanderthals were smarter)

All making the mass media billvon, perhaps you were too busy with the sports section or tv guide...

 

Most whales and elephants have larger brains than humans. So if your argument is that neanderthals were at least as intelligent as whales and elephants, that's got some backing. However, to be scientifically accurate, we simply do not know.

Agreed! Even today there are hominids with intelligence that seems to be far higher than your average human's.

Perhaps! And you may have been too busy watching Clan of the Cave Bear. While a fun film, it was in fact fictional.

 

Those are some good reasons to go forward with it. There are also some good reasons not to go forward with _any_ human/hominid cloning project.