Quote:
|
Originally Posted by kronckew
IMHO think it applies more to a creature made from dissimilar parts that should not or could not have been put together.
|
Not exactly. Here is Wikipedia:
"The term Chimera has come to describe any mythical or fictional animal with parts taken from various animals,
or to describe anything composed of very disparate parts, or perceived as wildly imaginative, implausible, or dazzling."
This term is used in modern molecular biology: for example, hybrid genes, where regulatory region of one gene is fused with the coding region of another gene, or a single organism composed of cells with different genotypes.
The former is the cause of glucocorticoid-remediable hyperaldosteronism, a human disease causing hypertension. The latter has multiple human examples : again, Wikipedia:
-The Dutch sprinter Foekje Dillema was expelled from the 1950 national team after she refused a mandatory sex test in July 1950; later investigations revealed a Y-chromosome in her body cells, and the analysis showed that she probably was a 46,XX/46,XY mosaic female.[14]
-In 1953 a human chimera was reported in the British Medical Journal. A woman was found to have blood containing two different blood types. Apparently this resulted from her twin brother's cells living in her body.[15] A 1996 study found that such blood group chimerism is not rare.[16]
-Another report of a human chimera was published in 1998, where a male human had some partially developed female organs due to chimerism. He had been conceived by in-vitro fertilization.[3]
-In 2002, Lydia Fairchild was denied public assistance in Washington state when DNA evidence showed that she was not related to her children. A lawyer for the prosecution heard of a human chimera in New England, Karen Keegan, and suggested the possibility to the defense, who were able to show that Fairchild, too, was a chimera with two sets of DNA, and that one of those sets could have been the mother of the children.[17]
-In 2017, a human-pig chimera was reported to have been created, the chimera was also reported to have 0.001% human cells, with the balance being pig.
Chimeras are very real in biology. In the case of arm and armor they are widespread: the majority of older Indian swords have blades and handles coming from different sources ( see Elgood). Most, if not all, swords in the Topkapi collection of " Blessed Swords" are chimeric: the Ottomans put new handles on the swords taken from Mamluk armories.