8 years ago
3 Human Chimeras That Already Exist
The news that researchers want to create human-animal chimeras has generated controversy recently, and may conjure up ideas about Frankenstein-ish experiments. But chimeras aren't always man-made—and there are a number of examples of human chimeras that already exist. A chimera is essentially a single organism that's made up of cells from two or more "individuals"—that is, it contains two sets of DNA, with the code to make two separate organisms. One way that chimeras can happen naturally in humans is that a fetus can absorb its twin.
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