Ilia Ivanov’s Experiment

In February 1926, Russian biologist Ilia Ivanov set out for Guinea in French West Africa, where he planned to perform one of the world's most sensational experiments. Ivanov was an expert in artificial insemination and had used his methods to create an assortment of hybrid animals. Now he was going to try something even more radical – crossing an ape and a human.

At the start of the 20th century, Ivanov was internationally acclaimed for his pioneering work in artificial insemination (AI). He had produced a zeedonk (zebra-donkey hybrid), a zubron (European bison-cow cross) and various combinations of rats, mice, guinea pigs and rabbits. In 1910, he told a gathering of zoologists that it might even be possible to create hybrids between humans and their closest relatives. Despite the disapproval of the scientific establishment Ivanov got the go-ahead – and the funds to mount an expedition to Africa to collect apes. He reached Guinea in late March only to discover none of the chimps was mature enough to breed.

Ivanov passed the summer in Paris, working with the celebrated surgeon Serge Voronoff. That summer, he and Ivanov made headlines by transplanting a woman's ovary into a chimp called Nora and then inseminating her with human sperm. While the press waited for the outcome, reporters turned their attention to Ivanov's unusual project. The idea of an ape-human hybrid was both shocking and fascinating. Was it possible? Were humans really that closely related to apes? What would the result be like?

In November, Ivanov returned to Guinea, captured his chimps and with considerable difficulty eventually inseminated three of them. By now, he had a second experiment in mind: to inseminate women with chimp sperm. None of the three chimps conceived. Disappointed, Ivanov headed home with 20 chimps to the subtropical Soviet republic of Abkhazia. He knew now that his best chance of creating his hybrid was to find Soviet women willing to carry half-ape babies in the interests of science. Only four chimps made it to Abkhazia and so Ivanov looked for volunteers.

At least five women volunteered. But by the time Ivanov was ready to proceed the only adult male left was Tarzan, a 26-year-old orangutan. Ivanov pressed on until fate dealt his project a fatal blow. Tarzan had a brain haemorrhage. "The orang has died, we are looking for a replacement," Ivanov cabled the woman he chosen to receive Tarzan's sperm. More chimps arrived in 1930 – but Ivanov fell victim to the widespread purge of scientists and was exiled to Kazakhstan. He was released the next year but died soon after.

/Stephanie Pain for New Scientist /

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A Culture of “Sleep Bulimia”

Homo sapiens is not a nocturnal animal; we don’t have good night vision and are not especially effective in darkness. Yet in an instant on the evolutionary time scale, Edison’s invention of the light bulb shifted our time-and-light environment in the nocturnal direction. At the snap of a switch, a whole range of nighttime activity opened up, and today we live in a 24-hour world that is always available for work or play.

Consequently most of us now sleep less than people did a century ago, or even 50 years ago. “We are living in the middle of history’s greatest experiment in sleep deprivation and we are all a part of that experiment,” says associate professor of psychiatry Robert Stickgold. “It’s not inconceivable to me that we will discover that there are major social, economic, and health consequences to that experiment. Sleep deprivation doesn’t have any good side effects.”

Sleeping well helps keep you alive longer. Among humans, death from all causes is lowest among adults who get seven to eight hours of sleep nightly, and significantly higher among those who sleep less than seven or more than nine hours. (“Those who sleep more than nine hours have something wrong with them that may be causing the heavy sleep, and leads to their demise,” David P. White, McGinness professor of sleep medicine, notes. “It is not the sleep itself that is harmful.”)

Sleep is essential to normal biological function. “The immune system doesn’t work well if we don’t sleep,” says White. “Most think sleep serves some neurological process to maintain homeostasis in the brain.” Rats totally deprived of sleep die in 17 to 20 days: their hair starts falling out, and they become hypermetabolic, burning lots of calories while just standing still.

There once was a fair amount of research on total sleep deprivation, like that which killed the rats. Doctors would keep humans awake for 48, 72, or even 96 hours, and watch their performance deteriorate while their mental states devolved into psychosis.

Sleep researcher Eve van Cauter at the University of Chicago exposed sleep-deprived students (allowed only four hours per night for six nights) to flu vaccine; their immune systems produced only half the normal number of antibodies in response to the viral challenge. Levels of cortisol (a hormone associated with stress) rose, and the sympathetic nervous system became active, raising heart rates and blood pressure. The subjects also showed insulin resistance, a pre-diabetic condition that affects glucose tolerance and produces weight gain. “[When] restricted to four hours [of sleep] a night, within a couple of weeks, you could make an 18-year-old look like a 60-year-old in terms of their ability to metabolize glucose,” Czeisler notes.

Stickgold compares sleep deprivation to eating disorders. “Twenty years ago, bulimics probably thought they had the best of all worlds,” he says. “They could eat all they wanted and never gain weight. Now we know that they were and are doing major damage to their bodies and suffering major psychological damage.”

/Craig Lambert for harvardmagazine.com/

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