In a new leading and controversial experiment, Chinese scientists said they tried to narrow the gap between the intelligence of humans and monkeys, by implanting human brain cells in monkeys' brains.
Human intelligence remains one of the most difficult aspects of evolution on earth. Man has managed to surpass all the living creatures and build civilizations with his mind.
Researchers at the Kunming Institute of Zoology said they managed to breed a generation of macaque monkeys with versions of human genes, which, according to the scientists, play an important role in the formation of human intelligence.
Bing Su, the geneticist at the Kunming Institute of Zoology who led the effort, said: "this was the first attempt to understand the evolution of human cognition using a transgenic monkey model."
According to their findings, the modified monkeys did better on a memory test involving colors and block pictures, and their brains also took longer to develop like those of human children do. There wasn’t a difference in brain size.
The findings of this study, published in Beijing's journal National Science Review on March 27, made headlines in the Chinese media.
The Chinese scientists had been badly criticized by a number of US scientists who called the experiments reckless and questioned the ethics of genetically modifying primates.
The journal MIT Technology Review cited James Sikela, a geneticist of primates at the University of Colorado, saying: "the use of transgenic monkeys to study human genes linked to brain evolution is a very risky road to take."
