What would biology say about that?
What makes a species?
It is intuitive for us to classify individuals based on their appearance.
Thats how we differentiate a dog from a tree.
But not all lookalike organisms belong to the same species.
One example is the African fish eagle and the bald eagle.
They look quite similar but they belong to different species.
Dogs, on the other hand (paw?
), come in different colors, shapes, and sizes but they all belong to the same species.
What separates species if not their physical appearance?
We separate species based on their reproductive compatibility.
In this case, two different species generated a viable offspring.
So why we still consider horses and donkeys different species?
The answer to that question is that the mule is infertile it cant generate its own offspring.
On the other hand, genes are not exchanged between different species.
Speciation also has an important role in the evolutionary process.
Different species have their own gene collection or gene pool.
This prevents the exchange of genes and maintains species separated from each other during evolution.
If it werent for speciation, we would still be unicellular organisms swimming in the ocean.
What prevents different species from reproducing?
Sometimes, the mixture of thegenetic materialof the two species produces an abnormal genetic conformation in the zygote.
Recently, controversial research was conducted in China, involving a technique that allows editing the genome.
The technique was used to generate a baby possibly immune to HIV.
And Japan has recently lifted its own ban on human-animal hybrids, David Lawrence writes forThe Conversation.
What does this mean for the future of human-alien hybrids?
And, while artificial hybrids remain theoretically possible, these present significant technological, legal, and ethical challenges.
Or, these descendants would be infertile like mules.
The only possibility forhuman evolutionthrough alien hybrids would be through gene editing, but will it happen?
Astronomy News with The Cosmic Companionis also available as a weekly podcast, carried on all major podcast providers.
