Building a Nonhuman Human

I recently read that a Mongolian gerbil has an ear structure like humans which means that using them in studies could help eventually help researchers to better understand a rare ear condition called superior semicircular canal dehiscence (SSCD).¹

This led me back to a passage I read in the book Stiff by Mary Roach where she “got the impression that it would be possible to construct an entire functioning nonhuman human from pieces of other species.”²

Apparently, the heart of a pig is a particularly close match to ours. The human knee most resembles the brown bear’s. Our lungs are similar to that of a Goat’s. A Jersey cow (at about six months old) closely resembles our human brain. And according to Roach, “emu hips are dead ringers for human hips.”

With a combination like that Frankenstein’s monster wouldn’t look so bad after all!