In ancient times, there was a very special book called the Classic of Mountains and Seas. Some people say that this book is an ancient encyclopedia, which records a variety of strange folk customs and strange races, many of which are human-headed snake-headed or beast-headed humans. Now let's not discuss how the ancients actually arranged such a book, just think about the strange creatures that exist in the book, is there any possibility in the real world?
For countless descendants of Yan huang, Fuxi and Nüwa are the great saviors of the human race, and the folk legend of Nüwa creating people is spread. According to legend, Fuxi and Nüwa are both human-headed snakes and gods in ancient times. So let's think about it, ignoring the question of the moral bottom line, with the genetic technology currently mastered by human beings, is it possible to create such a creature?
In fact, to judge whether this hypothesis is possible, we must first understand why the creatures in the Classic of Mountains and Seas rarely appear in nature. Speaking of which, I have to mention 4 words, that is, reproductive isolation.
Regarding reproductive isolation, many people have done a little research on this. Because in the high school biology textbook, the explanation of these 4 words has been very clear. Reproductive isolation refers to the fact that between groups of taxons that are closely related for various reasons, they do not mate under natural conditions, and even if they can mate, they cannot produce offspring. Or even if they give birth to their offspring, they cannot produce offspring by the isolation mechanism.
To put it in layman's terms, reproductive isolation means that there is no way to mate between different species, even if mating produces some magical species, there is no way to continue this species. The people often use a kind of livestock, which is the product of breaking the reproductive isolation, that is, the mule often mentioned in the village population.
Mules combine the characteristics of horses and donkeys, but we know that mules have no way to procreate. In nature, there is a very obvious reproductive isolation between almost all species. However, horses and donkeys belong to the equine family, and in a sense, their ancestors are the same species, so under certain conditions, there is a chance that reproductive isolation will be broken.
What about humans?
According to the scientists' research, it is quite possible that the ancestors of humans and the ancestors of chimpanzees were in some way the same species. If humans and chimpanzees hybridize, can some novelty species be produced without regard to moral constraints? Of course, for this conjecture, ordinary people just imagine it in their minds, but a scientist turned this conjecture into an experiment.
In 1927, the whole world was still in the middle of World War 2. Ilya Ivanov, a Scientist in the Soviet Union, came up with a bold idea after communicating with the military hierarchy. That is, through the experiment of ape hybridization, the ape hybrid warrior was bred. Once this new generation of soldiers is born, then the combat effectiveness of the Soviet Union will be greatly improved.
Ivanov's theory is based on the fact that humans and chimpanzees belonged to the same species about 6 million years ago and shared a common primate ancestor. Even millions of years later, there is still a small gap in the genes of humans and chimpanzees, about less than 2 percent.
No one knows what the results of this experiment will be. However, there is a saying in folklore that Ivanov once really created an ape warrior. This new soldier is far superior in all aspects of physical fitness to ordinary people, and his strength is even greater.
Although the reproductive isolation was briefly broken, it still left a genetic defect and there was no way to reproduce. In the end, this so-called super soldier naturally all died. Of course, as of now, this claim has not been confirmed. According to the research of biologists, although the genetic gap between humans and chimpanzees is not very large, it is still impossible to break the reproductive isolation.
So what is the meaning of reproductive isolation?
Imagine if there were no reproductive isolation in the whole world, and all species could mate freely and reproduce. Perhaps in most people's minds, the whole world will be in chaos, and all kinds of strange species will be born.
But in fact, if reproductive isolation completely disappears from nature, different species will definitely choose the best genes for fusion. In a short period of time, many species will emerge on the earth, but over time all species will gradually become monolithic.
When species are in a single state, there is no so-called food chain in the whole world. Except for the law of the jungle and the natural selection, there are almost no laws, and it is conceivable that such a world must be very frightening. As of now, it has been 4.6 billion years since the birth of the Earth.
From a desolate planet to now full of all things, everything that happens on Earth has undergone countless evolutions and evolutions. Biologists study the evolutionary line of organisms in the evolutionary process is very clear, from single-celled organisms, and then slowly developed into aquatic organisms, and then aquatic organisms continue to extend to the land to become amphibians, and amphibians are followed by current terrestrial organisms.
In the process of evolution, all species continue to evolve their abilities in order to adapt to environmental changes, and the survival of the fittest is formed, thus forming the world we see now. Still, most species are continually evolving. In the process of evolution, reproductive isolation slowly emerged.
In general, reproductive isolation is mainly divided into three stages. The first stage is that a small number of genes between the same species begin to diverge, and some genes may allow the species to adapt better to the environment, or may cause the species to die quickly in a short period of time.
After the end of the first stage, the excellent genes will be slowly passed on, at which time the species as a whole has undergone a relatively large leap forward and entered the second stage. Although they still belonged to the same species at this time, a certain degree of reproductive isolation had begun to appear between them.
Then, over time, we entered the third stage of reproductive isolation, which is geographical isolation. To put it simply, it is as if we have a good relationship with each other at the beginning, but once we are separated from each other, we will slowly become strangers. It is undeniable that reproductive isolation is a great masterpiece of nature. It is the existence of reproductive isolation that puts the whole world in a state of equilibrium.