Do they want super-intelligent apes?

Because this seems exactly like how one would go about creating super-intelligent apes. Yeah, what even am I talking about? I'm talking about growing ape brains in a lab, and then poking at the genes to see what happens. This can't end well, can it?

Pictured: some scientist, seen here poking something, possibly genes.

Probably.

The gene pokers in question are Dr. Madeline Lancaster from Cambridge University in the U.K. and her team, and this is science so I should walk it back a bit. Nobody's growing ape brains, they're just growing brain cells. Specifically those from chimps and gorillas. Human brain cells too. But they're just cells in a Petri dish or something, so it's not like they can get out and run around or anything. Probably. Also they're not so much poking at the genes as they are manipulating a specific gene that controls how large the brains grow in development. 

Like seriously, don't go to zoos.

They found that the gene, Zeb2, tells the cells to stop dividing and start maturing. This happens later in humans, which is why our brains are so much larger than other primates, or losers as I like to call them. Of course, whether or not brain size is directly connected to intelligence is still up for debate, and even if true, it's probably more complicated than big brain = smart. Still though, last time I checked, we're not the ones in the zoos. Which, incidentally, is incredibly cruel. 

The very idea is fraught with unsettling,
yet adorable ethical concerns.  

Anyway, Lancaster's team found that if they delay Zeb2 in ape brain cells, they keep dividing and develop more like our brains. Likewise, if they activate Zeb2 early in human brain cells, they stop dividing and are more in line ape brains. Or something. I don't know, I'm not a neuroscientist, but you're probably wondering why they're even doing this? According to Lancaster, it's important to know how the brain develops in order to get a better understanding of neurodevelopment disorders and that's great, but I also think it's important not to create a species of super-ape.

And again, to be clear, that's not what's happening here. Lancaster and her team aren't growing brains, just brain cells. Everything is under control. For now. I mean, nobody thought anyone would sabotage the electric fence in Jurassic Park either, and look how that turned out. I guess what I'm saying is that maybe we shouldn't not worry about our inevitable take over by super-intelligent apes of our own making.

Behold: Dr. Madeline Lancaster, grim architect of our extinction.
That is if pandemics, war, or climate change don't get us first.