All Things Digital

England, for one, welcomes our new humanimal overlords…

British lawmakers voted Monday to allow the use of human-animal embryos for research after an attempt to ban the technique was overwhelmingly rejected. At issue is a bill that permits scientists to blend human and animal DNA to make “chimeric” embryos from which stem cells can be extracted.

Scientists say the technique could aid the understanding of genetic defects and diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. But critics, who’ve taken a more hysterical view of the mingling of human and animal DNA, call it a monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life. To them so-called “human-admixed embryos” recall the creatures of Marlon Brando’s fey, muumuu-wearing Dr. Moreau and his fantastical island.

Said MP Edward Leigh: “In embryos you do have the genetic makeup of a complete human being, and you cannot splice together a human and an animal. I’m not sure even my greatest political enemies would say that I was 30% a daffodil and 80% a mouse. I don’t believe in my soul or my brain I’m 80% a mouse or 30% a daffodil. But I do think that we are special and, therefore, as the human race is special, it is different from the animal race. And I think that we should take this very seriously.”

Thirty percent daffodil? Eighty percent mouse? Oh, you’re special all right, Leigh. Sure you read the right bill?

Anyway, as New Scientist’s Linda Geddes points out, this is all much ado about nothing. These “human-admixed embryos” aren’t really any more monstrous than you or I. “These embryos contain 99.9% human DNA, and 0.01% animal DNA,” writes Geddes. “Arguably I’m less than 99.9% human myself. Once you consider the billions of bacteria living in my gut and on my skin, the parasitic worms which may or may not be colonizing my intestines, and the fungi causing the itch between my toes, I’m a walking menagerie. In fact, some scientists have estimated that the total number of microbial genes in the human body outnumber human genes by up to 1,000 to 1.”

QUOTED

I’m pretty proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish in China. Google has a far superior track record than other Internet or Internet search companies in China.”

–Google co-founder Sergey Brin adjusts the company’s informal corporate motto “Don’t Be Evil” to “Don’t be AS evil” for the Chinese market.

What Yahoo would likely describe as nuance in its position on a human-rights lawsuit brought against it by two Chinese journalists, others might call talking out of both sides of your mouth. Earlier this week, the company said its Chinese subsidiary had no choice but to follow local laws when it handed over private information that led to the imprisonment and torture of Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning. In a motion to dismiss the case, Yahoo argued that it cannot “be held liable for the independent acts of the (Chinese government) just because a former Yahoo subsidiary in China obeyed a lawful government request for the collection of evidence relevant to a pending investigation. … This is a lawsuit by citizens of China imprisoned for using the Internet in China to express political views in violation of China law,” Yahoo told the court. “It is a political case challenging the laws and actions of the Chinese government. It has no place in the American courts.”

Of course, the irony, the hysterical irony, of this is that back in 2000, Yahoo policy on international legal matters like these was quite a bit different–diametrically opposed, to be exact. Defending the company against a French court’s order to remove Nazi memorabilia from its auction pages, Yahoo’s top French executive, Philippe Guillanton, said that such a ruling ran against the international nature of the World Wide Web. “Yahoo.com is not doing anything unlawful. It is completely complying with the law of the country in which it operates and where its target audience is,” Guillanton said. “Yahoo auctions in the U.S. are ruled by the legal, moral and cultural principles of that country.”

Nice, eh? As Rough Type’s Nick Carr notes, “Times change, and so do companies. This time, Yahoo executives are making no mention of ‘the legal, moral and cultural principles’ of the U.S.”

Good thing Yahoo’s working with several Internet and human-rights groups to “further advance thinking and practices around the promotion of free expression and privacy,” otherwise its shareholders’ rejection of two anticensorship proposals yesterday might make you want to question its commitment to human rights.

At Yahoo’s annual meeting, an overwhelming majority of Yahoo shareholders voted against two proposals that would require the Internet company to take proactive steps to address online censorship abroad. The first, which would have prevented Yahoo from storing personally identifying information on servers located in countries where public Internet use is monitored by the government, was sacked, with a vote of 74% opposed. The second, which would have established an independent human-rights committee on the board of directors, was rejected, with a vote of 80% opposed.

Sad, isn’t it? Although to be fair, Yahoo’s shareholders were just doing what they’d been told: The company’s board urged them to oppose the proposals in its annual proxy statement. “Yahoo! is committed to preserving and advancing the fundamental principles of free speech and expression, and … has already adopted policies to promote open access to information and communication for users of the company’s services around the world. The board of directors believes the company’s existing policies, which were carefully developed by Yahoo’s management team, provide the company with the flexibility and resources to comply with applicable laws and, at the same time, protect and advance these important freedoms.”

And what “existing policies” would those be? Turning over political dissidents’ emails to the Chinese government?