"Adventurous woman" sought to serve as surrogate mother to Neanderthal clone baby

Are you an adventurous human woman? Adventurous enough to be a surrogate mother for the first Neanderthal baby to be born in 30,000 years?

Harvard geneticist George Church recently told Der Spiegel he's close to developing the necessary technology to clone a Neanderthal, at which point all he'd need is an "adventurous human woman" — einen abenteuerlustigen weiblichen Menschen — to act as a surrogate mother.
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What would that entail? According to a 2008 study of a Neanderthal infant skeleton "the head of the Neanderthal newborn was somewhat longer than that of a human newborn because of its relatively robust face," and Neanderthal women generally had a wider birth canal than human women.

Neanderthal birth was simpler than human birth, because Neanderthal infants didn't have to rotate to get to the birth canal, but otherwise the processes were very similar.
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Church seems to think that there'll be a Neanderthal craze, as he told Bloomberg Businessweek last year:

"Let's say someone has a healthy, normal Neanderthal baby. Well, then, everyone will want to have a Neanderthal kid. Were they superstrong or supersmart? Who knows? But there's one way to find out."

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The thought experiment turns more intriguing when the subject of Neanderthals comes up.

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SPIEGEL: Let's go through a couple of different applications of synthetic biology. How long will it take, for example, until we can fill our tanks with fuel that has been produced using synthentic microbes?

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Neanderthal birth was simpler than human birth, because Neanderthal infants didn't have to rotate to get to the birth canal, but otherwise the processes were very similar.

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danzn16 said:

Uh this is weird. Didn't they discover Neanderthal humans had smaller brains so they should technically be less intelligent? What is the point of bringing that into the world? There is a reason why our species have evolved since that point.

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Genetic research has confirmed that some admixture took place.[89] The genomes of all non-Africans include portions that are of Neanderthal origin,[90][91] due to interbreeding between Neanderthals and the ancestors of Eurasians in Northern Africa or the Middle East prior to their spread. Rather than absorption of the Neanderthal population, this gene flow appears to have been of limited duration and limited extent. An estimated 1 to 4 percent of the DNA in Europeans and Asians (French, Chinese and Papua probands) is non-modern, and shared with ancient Neanderthal DNA rather than with Sub-Saharan Africans (Yoruba and San probands).[92] Nonetheless, more recent genetic studies seem to suggest that modern humans may have mated with "at least two groups" of ancient humans: Neanderthals and Denisovans.[93]

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Neanderthal cranial capacity is thought to have been as large as that of modern humans, perhaps larger, indicating that their brain size may have been comparable, or larger, as well. In 2008, a group of scientists created a study using three-dimensional computer-assisted reconstructions of Neanderthal infants based on fossils found in Russia and Syria. The study showed Neanderthal and modern human brains were the same size at birth, but by adulthood, the Neanderthal brain was larger than the modern human brain.[9] They were much stronger than modern humans, having particularly strong arms and hands.[10] Males stood 164–168 cm (65–66 in) and females about 152–156 cm (60–61 in) tall

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Ausgirl said:

We didn't 'evolve from' Neanderthals. They were an offshoot of humanity's tree, like Cromagnon man, from whom we probably -did- evolve.

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Ausgirl said:

And seeing as 2/3 of the world's kids don't have enough food or clean water, and a good percentage of the remainder will suffer child abuse of some kind before they reach 18, being a weird little Neanderthal clone with a pile of people interested in keeping him happy and healthy would not be all that bad in comparison, imo.

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danzn16 said:

Uh this is weird. Didn't they discover Neanderthal humans had smaller brains so they should technically be less intelligent? What is the point of bringing that into the world? There is a reason why our species have evolved since that point. It is a human being not a scientific experiment. It is not okay to poke and prod it and not let it live a normal live. This scientist doesn't want an "adventurous" woman he wants someone that doesn't care about the pain and heartache the child would be put through most likely. Yikes. Also Neanderthals had much thicker skull bones then we do now, no way that's going through your birth canal.

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Sonya610 said:

Do some research into Cro-Magnon man....the humans that survived in the brutal inhospitable areas of the world during the ice-age 30,000 years ago. Evidence suggests they were smarter and stronger than modern humans, they were "supermen" compared to contemporary humans. They could not depend on the "collective" intelligence of others for survival, they had to depend on their OWN individual brains and skills.

Threats lessen and the living environment and climate gets easier and organisms WILL get weaker and less intelligent as a response when those factors do not determine who survives.

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matou said:

I actually thought the brain was larger for Neanderthals. Also, I remember learning that Neanderthals had lesser abilities in language due to their skull/jaw and throat anatomy. Neanderthals are humans, *advertiser censored* neanderthalensis from what I remember. I don't know why a living clone needs to be created, what's the purpose. I'm feeling a bit sick and I'm a "let's try this" liberal science teacher.

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