Human–animal hybrid

Defined by the magazine H+ as "genetic alterations that are blendings [sic] of animal and human forms", such hybrids may be referred by other names occasionally such as "para-humans". They may additionally be called "humanized animals". Technically speaking, they are also related to "cybrids" (cytoplasmic hybrids), with "cybrid" cells featuring foreign human nuclei inside of them being a topic of interest. Possibly, a real-world human-animal hybrid may be an entity formed from either a human egg fertilized by a nonhuman sperm or a nonhuman egg fertilized by a human sperm. ==Examples==

Artificially created human-animal hybrids include humanized mice that have been xenotransplanted with human gene products, so as to be utilized for gaining relevant insights in the in vivo context for understanding of human-specific physiology and pathology. ==Moral discussions==

George W. Bush, pictured here in 2008 with then Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to his side, has advocated for increased regulation of genetic engineering, including on research mixing animal and human elements. Advances in genetic engineering have generally caused a large number of debates and discussions in the fields related to bioethics, including research relating to the creation of human-animal hybrids. Although the two topics are not strictly related, the debates involving the creation of human-animal hybrids have paralleled those around the stem-cell research controversy. The question of what line exists between a "human" being and a "non-human" being has been a difficult one for many researchers to answer. While animals having one percent or less of their cells originally coming from humans may clearly appear to be non-human, no consensus exists on how to categorise beings in a genetic middle ground that have an approximately even mix. "I don't think anyone knows in terms of crude percentages how to differentiate between humans and nonhumans," U.S. patent office official John Doll has stated. Critics of increased government restrictions include scientists such as Douglas Kniss, head of the Laboratory of Perinatal Research at Ohio State University, who has remarked that formal laws are not the best option since the "notion of animal-human hybrids is very complex." In contrast, socio-economic theorist Jeremy Rifkin has expressed opposition to research that creates beings crossing species boundaries, arguing that it interferes with the fundamental 'right to exist' possessed by each animal species. "One doesn't have to be religious or into animal rights to think this doesn't make sense," he has argued when expressing support for anti-chimera and anti-hybrid legislation. As well, William Cheshire, associate professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic's Florida branch, has called the issue "unexplored biologic territory" and advocated for a "moral threshold of human neural development" to restrict the destroying a human embryo to obtain cell material and/or the creation of an organism that's partly human and partly animal." He has said, "We must be cautious not to violate the integrity of humanity or of animal life over which we have a stewardship responsibility". ==Legality==

While laws against the creation of hybrid beings have been proposed in U.S. states and in the U.S. Congress, several scientists have argued that legal barriers might go too far and prohibit medically beneficial studies into human modification. President George W. Bush brought up the topic in his 2006 State of the Union Address, in which he called for the prohibition of "human cloning in all its forms", "creating or implanting embryos for experiments", "creating human-animal hybrids", and also "buying, selling, or patenting human embryos". He argued, "A hopeful society has institutions of science and medicine that do not cut ethical corners and that recognize the matchless value of every life." He also stated that humanity "should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale." A 2005 appropriations bill passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Bush contained specific wording forbidding any patents on humans or human embryos. A related proposal had come up in the U.S. Senate the prior year, the Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act of 2007, and it also had failed. That effort was proposed by then-Senator Sam Brownback (R, KS) on November 15, 2007. Featuring the same language as the later measure in the House, its bipartisan group of cosponsors included then Senators Tom Coburn, Jim DeMint, and Mary Landrieu. A localized measure designed to ban the creation of hybrid entities came up in the state of Arizona in 2010. The proposal was signed into law by then Governor Jan Brewer. Its sponsor stated that it was needed to clarify important "ethical boundaries" in research. ==In myth==

For thousands of years, these hybrids have been one of the most common themes in storytelling about animals throughout the world. The lack of a strong divide between humanity and animal nature in multiple traditional and ancient cultures has provided the underlying historical context for the popularity of tales where humans and animals have mingling relationships, such as in which one turns into the other or in which some mixed being goes through a journey. Other instances of these types of characters include figures within both Chinese and Japanese mythology. Specifically, the human-animal hybrid has appeared in acclaimed works of art by figures such as Francis Bacon. Additional famous mythological hybrids include the Egyptian god of death, named Anubis, and the fox-like Japanese beings that are called Kitsune. Remarking on the character's role in the religious novel Journey to the West, where the being first appears, professor Victor H. Mair has commented that "[p]ig-human hybrids represent descent and the grotesque, a capitulation to the basest appetites" rather than "self-improvement". statues on the side of a Japanese road. Several hybrid entities have long played a major role in Japanese media and in traditional beliefs within the country. For example, a warrior god known as Amida received worship as a part of Japanese mythology for many years; he possessed a generally humanoid appearance while having a canine-like head. However, the god's devotional popularity fell in about the middle of the 19th century. Other examples include characters in ancient Anatolia and Mesopotamia. The latter region has had the tradition of a malevolent human-animal hybrid deity in Pazuzu, the demon featuring a humanoid shape yet having grotesque features such as sharp talons. Theriocephaly studies , who has an elephant's head, is one of the most revered entities in the Hindu pantheon. "Theriocephaly" (from Greek θηρίον therion 'beast' and κεφαλή kefalí 'head') is the anthropomorphic condition or quality of having the head of an animal with a body either mostly or entirely looking human – the term being commonly used to refer the depiction of deities or otherwise specially able individuals. An entity with such qualities is said to be "theriomorphous". Many of the gods and goddesses worshipped by the ancient Egyptians, for example, were commonly depicted as being theriocephalic. This phenomenon partly represented an intermediate step in a longer process of anthropomorphization of former animal deities (e.g. the goddess Hathor in her earliest form was depicted as a cow and in her latest manifestation as a woman with cows ears and sometimes a hairstyle resembling cows horns). But the form of depiction sometimes depended also on the aspects of a deity an artist wanted to accentuate (e.g. Ba, the aspect of personality of a human soul, was depicted as a bird with a human's head). This can also be seen in the different hieroglyphs that could be used to write the name of a single deity. Other notable examples include: • Thoth (One of the most creative deities of the ancient Egyptian pantheon, Thoth was the god of the moon, medicine, science, magic, judgement, and writing. One of the most popular of all Egyptian gods. The hieroglyphs within the walls of the Giza Pyramids indicate that Thoth created the earth, the moon and the stars etc. • Horus features the head of a falcon. • Anubis has a jackal's head. • Set, often depicted with the head of an unknown creature, gets associated with a being referred to as the "Set animal" by Egyptologists. • Khonsu (god of the moon disc), depicted as a man with a falcon's head and/or as a human child, both with a moon disc on top of the head. Examples from other geographic areas include: • Cernunnos, a historic Celtic deity, has been adapted as the Horned God in Wicca tradition. • The Minotaur menaces people in Greek mythology. • In some Eastern Orthodox Church icon traditions, some saints, particularly St. Christopher, get depicted as having the head of a dog. • In Hinduism, Ganesha features an elephant head. • In Abenaki mythology, a part of the history of the indigenous peoples of the United States, the spirit Pamola was a being who possessed the head of a moose as well as the wings and feet of an eagle. ==In fiction==

Literature Many prominent pieces of children's literature over the past two centuries have featured humanized animal characters, often as protagonists in the stores. In the opinion of popular educator Lucy Sprague Mitchell, the appeal of such mythical and fantastic beings comes from how children desire "direct" language "told in terms of images— visual, auditory, tactile, muscle images". Another author has remarked that an "animal costume" provides "a way to emphasize or even exaggerate a particular characteristic". The anthropomorphic characters in the seminal works by English writer Beatrix Potter in particular live an ambiguous situation, having human dress yet displaying many instinctive animal traits. Writing on the popularity of Peter Rabbit, a later author commented that in "balancing humanized domesticity against wild rabbit foraging, Potter subverted parental authority and its built in hypocrisy" in Potter's child-centered books. Writer Lisa Fraustino has cited on the subject R.M. Lockley's tongue-in-cheek observation: "Rabbits are so human. Or is it the other way around— humans are so rabbit?" Writer H. G. Wells created his famous work The Island of Doctor Moreau, featuring a mixture of horror and science fiction elements, to promote the anti-vivisection cause as a part of his long-time advocacy for animal rights. Wells' story describes a man stuck on an island ruled over by the titular Dr. Moreau, a morally depraved scientist who has created several human-animal hybrids referred to as 'Beast Folk' through vivisection and even by combining parts of other animals for some of the 'Beast Folk'. The story has been adapted into film several times, with varying success. The most acclaimed version is the 1932 black-and-white treatment called Island of Lost Souls. Wells himself wrote that "this story was the response of an imaginative mind to the reminder that humanity is but animal rough-hewn to a reasonable shape and in perpetual internal conflict between instinct and injunction," with the scandals surrounding Oscar Wilde being the impetus for the English writer's treatment of themes such as ethics and psychology. Challenging the Victorian era viewpoints of its time, the 1896 work presents a complex situation in which enhancing animals into hybrids involves both terrifying violence and pain as well as appears essentially futile, given the power of raw instinct. A pessimistic view towards the ability of human civilization to live by law-abiding, moral standards for long thus follows. In Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa "transforms into an Ungeziefer (loosely, ‘vermin’), a symbolic human-animal hybrid––a supercharged synanthrope—co-inhabiting human flesh, mind, and room." Television On a more everyday life tone, featuring human-animal hybrids of mythological beings having common human experiences, ''A Centaur's Life'', known in Japan as , is a Japanese slice of life comedy manga series by Kei Murayama. The series has been serialized in Tokuma Shoten's Monthly Comic Ryū magazine since February 2011, and is published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment. An anime television series adaptation by Haoliners Animation League aired in Japan from July to September 2017. Films The 1986 horror film The Fly features a deformed and monstrous human-fly hybrid, played by actor Jeff Goldblum. The H. P. Lovecraft–inspired movie Dagon, released in 2001, additionally features grotesque hybrid beings. Heroic character examples of human-animal anthropomorphic characters include the two protagonists of the 2002 movie The Cat Returns (Japanese title: 猫の恩返し), with the animated film featuring a young girl (named "Haru") being transformed against her will into a feline-human hybrid and fighting a villainous king of the cats with the help of a dashing male cat companion (known as the "Baron") at her side. The science fiction film Splice, released 2009, shows scientists mixing together human and animal DNA in the hopes of advancing medical research at the pharmaceutical company that they work at. Calamitous results occur when the hybrid named Dren (portrayed by Delphine Chanéac) is born. Furry fandom The furry fandom consists of individuals interested in a variety of artistic materials and media, often featuring art depicting human-animal hybrids in everyday life. The majority of people involved in the fandom have a unique fursona depicting a version or versions of themselves as a hybrid creature. This practice functions as an outlet based on "personal ideas of self-expression" (self-realization) or belonging in the community. File:Jemima1.jpg|The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck, a work written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter, features a spirited humanized animal as the title character. File:Kemonomimi mouse.png|The kemonomimi art style, widely popularized since the latter part of the 20th century, involves humanoid characters with stylized animal features, such as this anthropomorphic mouse girl. ==See also==