A Chimera is essentially a single organism that is 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.
In Medicine, Chimera is a person composed of two genetically distinct types of cells. Human chimeras were first discovered with the advent of blood typing when it was found that some people had more than one blood type. Most of them proved to be "blood chimeras" -non identical twins who shared a blood supply in the uterus. Those who were not twins are thought to have blood cells from a twin that died early during gestation. Twin embryos often share a blood supply in the placenta, allowing blood stem cells to pass from one and settle in the bone marrow of the other. About 8% of non-identical twins pairs are chimeras.
More commonly, people may exhibit so-called micro-chimerism, when a small fraction of their cells are from someone else, This can happen when a woman becomes pregnant and a small number of cells from the fetus migrate into her blood and travel to different organs. A 2015 study suggested that this happen in almost all pregnant women, at least temporarily. The researchers tested tissue samples from the kidneys, livers, spleens, lungs, hearts and brains of 26 women who died while pregnant or within one month of giving birth. The study found that the women had fetal cells in all of these tissues. The fatal cells were from the fetus, and not from the mother, because the cells contained a Y chromosome (found only in males) and all of the women had been carrying sons.
A person can also be a chimera if he or she undergoes a bone marrow transplant. His or her own bone marrow is destroyed and replaced with bone marrow from another person. Bone marrow contain stem cells that develop into red blood cells. This means that, for the rest of his or her life, a person with a bone marrow transplant will have blood cells that are genetically identical to those of the donor, and are not genetically the same as the other cells in the recipient's own body. In vitro fertilization is also contributing to the number of human chimeras. To improve success rates, two or more embryos are placed in the uterus so women who have in vitro fertilization have more twin pregnancies than usual. More twins mean more chimeras.
In Greek Mythology, the Chimera was a three headed fire-breathing creature with the body and head of a lion, a goat's head rising from its back, the udders of a goat, and a serpent for a tail. The word itself comes from the Greek "Xiuaipa,"which translates as "she-goat."
The Book of Revelation describes a modification of this chimera beast with a horse's body with human face, lion's teeth, dragon wings, and scorpion tail. The particular creature is instructed not to kill humans but to torment them for 5 months.
In the natural world, a manipulation of different species of the animal kingdom is needed to form a "chimera." In the days of Noah, this type of manipulation was done right before the Deluge. Satan, by himself, does not have the power to create, but he can use parts of the creation and mix them together forming a chimera of wickedness. This abomination is what drove God to destroy the planet before our time.
Genetic engineering, in our days, is the process of breaking the natural boundaries that exist between species to produce new life forms that will show a variety of desired traits, altering their natural genetic code. For example, genes from salmon is spliced into tomatoes to make them more resistant to cold weather, thereby yielding a larger crop when the weather is less than favorable or the harvest is out of season. Another example is the sheep-goat chimera created by English researchers in 1984, by combining the embryos of a goat and a sheep; the resulting animal showed cells of both sheep and goat origin. Their successful chimeras were a mosaic of goat and sheep tissue. The parts that grew from the sheep embryo were woolly and those who grew from the goat embryo were hairy. It should not be confused with a sheep-goat hybrid that is the natural result when a goat mates with a sheep. The sheep-goat chimera has 4 parents in contrast with the hybrid that has only 2 parents. The most convenient way of identified the chimera from the hybrid is to simply look at the animal's tail. The chimera's tail extends horizontally from the base of the spine combining the characteristic of a sheep's and goat's tail.
More research needs to be done on the effect of these genetically altered techniques on animals and food, on the environment and on the people eating them in the long term.
Companies are putting profits over safety and are provoking health, environmental and socioeconomic consequences by tampering with the alteration of the natural way of things.
The act of genetically alter the nature of things just predicts an inevitable catastrophe. The lack of diverse farming practices undermine the freedom of farmers making them dependent on the firms that specialize in GMO products.
Andean agriculture is one of the best examples of the adaptation and knowledge of the sacred connection of farmers to their environment for more than 7,000 years, with their terraces, natural irrigation systems, a variety of natural crops and livestock spread at different altitudes. The Andean people shows a strong social organization and cultural rituals as tribute to the Mother Earth. This Andean methods saved the world once from mass extinction during the Black Plague, because they used diversity as a tool of survival, not as a way of become rich.
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