Today in additional monkey-related horror:

Why does science hate macaques? I ask because earlier this month we heard about Elon Musk's cyborg monkey horror show and now some scientists have injected human stem cells into macaque embryos to create human/monkey hybrids that will almost certainly turn against us. I mean, how can they not?

Above: a baby macaque which, according to
scientists, is the worst of all monkeys.

Pictured: a chimera. Feel better?
Yeah, I don't either...

Ok, ok, settle down. The researchers aren't actually creating human/monkey hybrids, they're just creating something called chimeras. The term comes from a mythological creature with the body of a lion, a snake for a tail and a goat's head growing out of its back, so basically a hybrid, although different from a human/monkey hybrid. Somehow. I don't know, I'm not a scientist, or an expert on classical Greek monsters. The important thing is that these embryos which spit in the face of nature are just embryos and aren't going to be allowed to develop into the architects of our extinction. 

Yeah, but does anyone set
out to create a monster?

Instead, according to the study's co-authoer, Dr. Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte from the Salk Institute, we have nothing to worry about:

"Our goal is not to generate any new organism, any monster. We are trying to understand how cells from different organisms communicate with one another."

-Dr. Belmonte, on how 

terrified we all shouldn't be

I mean, basically, right?

Well that's a relief. I'm not super clear on what he means by cells communicating with one another, but the upshot here is that Belmonte's research is actually geared towards solving the problem of an insufficient supply of organ donors. According to the American Transplant Foundation, about twenty Americans die every day waiting for organ transplants, so a supply that doesn't rely on drunk drivers would be revolutionary. Belmonte and the other scientists hope that their research will one day lead to human organs being grown in animals.

Which...which is great I mean, it would save lives, human lives anyway but...but we are actually are talking about engineering monkeys filled with human-compatible organs with the eventual goal of killing them and harvesting the parts. So maybe we don't have to worry about a Planet of the Apes scenario right away. Instead, our only concern will be the nightmares of the vast, monkey-filled organ farms of the near future. 

Although these organ farms which will inevitably be the scene of an uprising
that leads to a Planet of the Apes scenario, so we're back to that I guess.