When B movies attack

Remember that movie The Island of Dr. Moreau. Probably not. I don't think it was very good. I don't mean the one that came out in the 70s. This one came out, like, 10 years ago. Based on an H.G. Wells story. It starred Marlon Brando, possibly in the first role he filmed after his death, and Val Kilmer. I think. I didn't see it, either. Like I said, I don't think it was very good.
Anyway, the movie's about this crazy scientist (Marlon Brando's possibly decomposing corpse) who lives on an island filled with bizarre human-animal hybrids of his own creation. Then things go wrong. No. Not that one. You're thinking of Annie Hall.
Anyway, that's all apparently happening now. According to the BBC, regulators in Britain have cleared the way for the use of human-animal hybrids for stem cell research. I don't think Marlon Brando is involved, but somehow that only makes things a little bit less creepy.
There's a reason for all this mad science. Scientists plan to fuse human cells with animal eggs for the purpose of extracting stem cells, which can then, at least in theory, be used to create cures for everything from Alzheimer's to athlete's foot. The embryos created by these science experiments — which sound a lot like something that started with two scientists who'd spent one too many Friday nights together in the lab daring each other to create dogs with human ears or ducks with stylish pompadours — will be destroyed when the stem cells are extracted. Long before they have the chance to gestate into full-fledged freaks of nature.
Actually, this kind of hot human-cell-on-animal-cell action isn't exactly new. Just look at Vin Diesel.
According to a January 2005 National Geographic story Chinese scientists in 2003 fused human cells with rabbit eggs. Oddly enough, this bunny boy would have been born in the year of the ram.
At the time the article was written scientists at Stanford were considering creating mice with human brains, presumably to win some maze-related bet. And in 2004 scientists at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester created a pig with human blood running through its veins. I've never been so conflicted about eating bacon.
British researcher Lyle Armstrong was in favor of his government's decision, although he admitted some people might now live in fear of our eventual overthrow by an army of super-smart, super-agile man-squirrels.
"It's not our intention to create any bizarre cow-human hybrid," Armstrong told the BBC. "We want to use those cells to understand how to make human stem cells better."
Others, of course, are less excited. One protester complained such hybrids harm the dignity of man and animal like. Honestly, though, I've been on a cattle drive. You will never convince me a cow has dignity.
I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I will always be a little bit more wary now about the chances there will be a freakish human-octopus waiting for me around the next corner, tentacles flailing and hungry for blood. On the other hand, it's hard not to get excited about when the plots from bad movies start to become reality.
I'm hoping Plan 9 from Outer Space is next.