• Question: if you found a hot water spring full of human animal and genes would there be a chance of it turning into a half human animal? And if it did would it have the same amount of intelligence as us?

    Asked by chaitwad01 to Amelia, Jim, Liz, Prateek, Richard on 16 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Jim Caryl

      Jim Caryl answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      I think it’s unlikely that we could find anything in a hot water spring that could be turned into a human. Hot water springs are actually deadly to most types of life as most animals at least are adapted to a particular range of temperatures, and if they get too hot (or too cold) those creatures can die. However, hot water springs CAN often be teaming with life, but it is usually quite basic life such as microorganisms like bacteria and archaea (which kind of look like bacteria, but are different inside).

      What is interesting about the genes that have evolved in hot water springs, is that the proteins and enzymes they make (the things that make up cells, and do lots of the work to keep those cells alive), are extremely resistant to high temperatures. The genes are little instructions on how to make each of those proteins, so for many years scientists have been hunting for life in these springs, and then we look for interesting genes inside them. The proteins that are made from the gene’s instructions can be used for all sorts of modern technologies, such as DNA fingerprinting that crime scene investigators (CSI)
      use to catch criminals. They can also be used to make special proteins that break down toxic waste in hot environments and hundreds of other uses, many of which are used in our own research in the laboratory.

      So there’s a lot of interesting stuff in hot water springs, but just not much ‘intelligent’ life.

    • Photo: Amelia Markey

      Amelia Markey answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      Interesting question. Well Jim has told you some of the things you would find in hot water springs. DNA can be quite sensitive. Once we’ve taken the DNA out of the cells we use in the lab we can keep it in the fridge for a short period of time but it’s better to keep it in the freezer. This is why forensics and studying ancient DNA is so tricky as the DNA begins to degrade (break up) after a period of time. So I can imagine that it wouldn’t really like being in a hot spring for any length of time and you would soon end up with lots of little DNA fragments.

      If you’re interested in human animal hybrids I’ve had a few questions about mixing human and animal DNA…

      There’s a fancy thing called recombinant DNA technology. What this means is that you can insert bits of DNA into another organism. So you can put human DNA into the DNA of a mouse or pig cell for example and you can put rabbit DNA into mouse DNA. A lot of nasty viruses like HIV can insert their DNA into your DNA.

      This type of work raises a lot of “ethical” questions which mean people ask is it right to do this? Scientists have to show that what they are doing is safe and put peoples’ fears to rest before they carry out their work.

      This technology is used a lot today to make human proteins such as insulin. I found a really good website with cartoon videos that show how it’s done:

      http://www.abpischools.org.uk/page/modules/diabetes/diabetes6.cfm?coSiteNavigation_allTopic=1

      You can also make animals that glow in the dark! There’s a protein that is made in jellyfish called green fluorescent protein which glows green. Scientists can take the gene that has the code for this protein and insert it into animals so that they also glow green. Glofish are a good example of this and here’s a link if you want to find out more (there’s also some videos):

      http://www.glofish.com/

      Any more info wanted please ask!

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