Chimeras
I don’t really like to blog about myself. I started blogging in 2001, and I think I exhausted most of my interest in me by 2004 or so. I will, however, continue the psycho bitches entries, because I think I’m learning something by doing them. That, and maybe some other guys who share my faults will learn as well.
But like I said, I don’t like to blog about myself, so instead, I’d like to direct you to this radio show: RadioLab; and this entry at the ever-fascinating Damn Interesting about human chimeras…
RadioLab is broadcast nationally on National Public Radio. The subject for today was — at least in part — the human chimera. Indeed, I think they may have been referring at one point to the very chimera mentioned in the Damn Interesting article, a 50-something woman named “Jane.” From the piece:
What happened to Jane is a much rarer. Rather than a simple exchange of blood, she and her fraternal twin merged in utero, leaving only one fetus. The cells in her body are a mosaic of genes from both of the original embryos. The cheek cells from which the genetic testing was done were from one of those embryos, but at least some of the cells in her ovaries came from the other. Interestingly this genetic oddity gives her a better-than-usual chance of having a successful kidney donation, as her immune system does not reject as foreign either of two distinct tissue types. She would, however, be a poor candidate as a kidney donor were she in that position, due to the likelihood of two tissue types being present in her kidneys…
It’s one of those things that makes you realize why the term “truth is stranger than fiction” was coined in the first place. CSI has even incorporated human chimeras into the plot of one episode; a rapist and serial killer was a chimera. Gil Grissom discovered this when he saw strange markings on the killer’s back.
Today, human chimeras made me think of Stephen King’s The Dark Half. It’s one of King’s more troublesome books — for me, anyway — but even though King didn’t specifically use the phenomenon of the chimera in the work, I remembered how it ended today and realized that one of King’s main characters was essentially a chimera.
Scientists say the phenomenon is quite rare, but you know, how sure are they about this? What if it’s just rarely been reported? And another question comes — while scientists speak of chimeras having two sets of DNA, bodily organs that are essentially from different bodies, no one seems to address the chimera and personality issues. Could a chimera cause two different personalities? They result when two fertilized embryos merge in the womb. Imagine if the brains merged as well. I have to wonder how that could factor in to some cases of multiple personalities — the ones that are real, that is.
Walt Whitman once wrote of containing multitudes. To realize that this is quite literally true for a select few human beings is nothing short of stunning. That’s really the only purpose for this entry, I think. To just say, wow.
