Stories of human-animal hybrids have existed for centuries, from the ancient Greeks, to modern Hollywood cinema, as humans, we have always held a fear and reject the idea of science meddling with genetics in uncomfortable ways. Creating wild stories of half human-half beast monsters, or conspiracy theories of hushed up, top secret laboratories operating on man made mutations, the fundamental fear of the hybrid has persisted. Our mythology, folktales and conspiracies have created fictional accounts which horrify some, and morbidly entertain others, but whilst the story of Stalin's desire to create a half man, half ape, super warrior army may be entirely fictional, the science behind stories such as these is far from made up.

SOURCES:

McNamee, Shane Patrick. (2015) Human-Animal Hybrids and Chimeras: What’s in a Name? European Journal of Bioethics, Vol. 6/1, No. 11.

Rossianov, Kirill. (2002) Beyond Species: Il’ya Ivanov and His Experiments on Cross Breeding Humans with Anthropoid Apes. Science in Context, Vol XV.

Fridman, E. P. & Bowden, D. M. (2009) The Russian Primate Research Center - A Survivor. Laboratory Primate Newsletter, Vol 48, Number 1.

Etkind, Alexander (2008) Beyond Eugenics: The Forgotten Scandal of Hybridizing Humans and Apes. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences.

Regal, Brian (2009) Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia. Greenwood Press Inc. CT, USA.

Sykes, Bryan. (2015) The Nature of the Beast: The first genetic evidence on the survival of apemen, yeti, bigfoot and other mysterious creatures into modern times. Coronet, London, UK.

McNulty, Timothy (1981) Chinese Aim To Implant Human Sperm in Chimps. Chicago Tribune, Feb 12 1981. Accessed Online 5 March 2020: https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=sbdaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=rFgDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6991%2C3347287

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Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

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