Well, lemme tell you how it all started, because you can't just jump into things. You have to start at the beginning. My grandpa always used to say that. "If you don't start at the beginning, you haven't started because to start means to begin which means that you've started at the beginning!" Actually, now that I think about it, my grandpa never said anything of the sort.
Well, I first heard about him in class. The professor was talking about his adventures in DNA. I guess he spent a good portion of his life researching pigs. He claimed that he was doing something important. He isn't doing it anymore though, so I don't see how it could have been. Anyways, he told the class about the Shoat. It turns out that it's real. They mash together embryonic cells from both a sheep and a goat. These cells are stem cells, so they haven't turned into any specific type of cell yet. These cells just start growing together with the DNA inside of them. What comes out is a creature that is truly half sheep half goat. One of the more interesting things is why this animal can survive. After all, sometimes a person will reject an organ transplant or similar procedure. How can these cells from two distinct animals survive together? Well, the reason that an organ transplant is rejected is because the body's immune system recognizes the new organ as a foreign invader. It mistakes it as a foreign invader rather. The Shoat accepts cells, indeed organs, from a totally different animal because its immune system hasn't formed a sense of self yet. It might be strange to think of it that way, but the immune system has to learn what belongs and what doesn't. That is when it develops a sense of self. The Shoat is evidence that the immune system doesn't create this sense of self until much later in development than fertilization. Pretty neat, huh? |
