Kyiv and Moscow have previously said they will not negotiate without certain preconditions.

Chimpanzees are our closest relatives, so it’s not surprising that they can do many of the things that we can. They’re able to create tools and can even use sign language, plus they share 98.8 per cent of their DNA with humans. It is, therefore, no wonder that the question has often been asked: could humans and chimps ever produce offspring? The answer, according to one evolutionary psychologist, is yes – and it’s already happened. Gordum Gallup made the eyebrow-raising claims in an interview with The Sun Online back in 2018. He told the news site that a human-chimpanzee hybrid – which he dubbed a “humanzee” – was born in a Florida lab 100 years ago. And if you’re wondering how the scientists behind the experiment managed to keep it hushed up for decades, it’s because – according to Gallup – they swiftly killed the infant when they realised the implications of what they’d done. Gallup, a professor at New York’s University at Albany, said his former university teacher told him that the secret birth took place at a research facility in Orange Park, where he used to work. “They inseminated a female chimpanzee with human semen from an undisclosed donor and claimed not only that pregnancy occurred but the pregnancy went full term and resulted in a live birth,” the psychologist told The Sun. “But in a matter of days, or a few weeks, they began to consider the moral and ethical considerations and the infant was euthanised.” Putting Gallup’s unsubstantiated story to one side, it’s unclear whether a human-chimpanzee hybrid is even possible. Some experts believe that our human ancestors and chimpanzees may have been capable of interbreeding as late as 4 million years ago according to IFL Science, which notes that our last common ancestor lived 6-7 million years ago. However, the website also notes that this theory is widely contested. It also points out that other animals with similar genetic differences to that of humans and chimps, such as horses and zebras, have been able to reproduce. And yet, the offspring are often infertile. Nevertheless, back in the 1970s, plenty of people believed that a chimp called Oliver was a human-monkey hybrid thanks to his humanistic walk, intelligence and physical features (he was said to have a smaller, flatter face than his ape peers, according to Historic Mysteries). It wasn't until tests were conducted on Oliver in 1996 that the matter was finally settled: he had 48 chromosomes so was categorically not a humanzee but a regular chimp. Oliver The Humanzee www.youtube.com Still, one certainty is that scientists continue to tread an ethical tightrope when it comes to investigating chimps and their potential to further biomedical research. In 2021, scientists created the first (publicly documented) part-monkey, part-human embryo by growing human stem cells in a macaque monkey. The aim of the work, which was carried out at California’s Salk Institute, was to help create organs for transplants and improve our understanding of human development and disease progression. In 2020, a team of German and Japanese scientists spliced human genes into the brains of marmosets, resulting in the monkey fetuses having larger, more human-like brains, according to the study, which was published in the journal Science. Once the experiment was complete, the team destroyed their creations “in light of potentially unforeseeable consequences with regard to postnatal brain function”. One thing’s for sure, no scientist wants to find themselves the architect of a real-life Planet of the Apes. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Dr Katharine Roxanne Grawe, popularly known as Dr Roxy, was also accused of harming some patients due to her botched procedures

KYIV (Reuters) -Ukraine on Wednesday reported some success in fighting near the Russian-occupied eastern city of Bakhmut as its troops

Elon Musk's X has not paid a fine imposed for failing to outline its plans to stamp out content depicting child sexual abuse on the platform, Australia's internet...

Wholesale prices in the United States dropped 0.3% from April to May, another sign that inflationary pressures continue to ease in the face of repeated interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve

Corbin Carroll, Ketel Marte and Gabriel Moreno homered against Corbin Burnes, helping Arizona erase an early three-run deficit and sending the Diamondbacks to a 6-3 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 1 of their NL Wild Card Series

BERLIN Germany has offered to Poland extending the deployment of three Patriot air defence units until the end

Jacklyn Zeman, who for 45 years played Bobbie Spencer on ABC's ‘General Hospital" has died at 70

Judge Aileen Cannon has set a date for the trial in the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump. The Trump-appointed judge has signed a court order listing the trial as starting on 14 August of this year in Fort Pierce, Florida. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden has reached a plea deal with the Justice Department over three federal charges. The news comes the morning after the former president denied that he ever possessed a secret document about attacking Iran despite the fact a recording exists that had him discussing a document he kept from his presidency. Mr Trump spoke in an interview with Fox News anchor Bret Baier at his property in Bedminster, New Jersey less than a week after he pleaded not guilty to 37 charges in a federal court in Miami at his arraignment. A federal grand jury had indicted him for allegedly willfully mishandling classified documents, obstruction of justice and making false statements. The former president was also confronted by Baier over his insistence that he won the 2020 election — which he did not, as the Fox News host made clear in a testy exchange. Read More Trump calls Fox News ‘hostile’ as he declines to commit to first GOP debate on network Trump staffers are using the rat emoji to describe Mark Meadows amid testimony rumours Democrats downplay Hunter Biden's plea deal, while Republicans see opportunity to deflect from Trump Trump claimed the Durham report would uncover the ‘crime of the century.’ Here’s what it really found

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is sharing center stage with senior delegates from Russia and China as he rolled out his most powerful, nuclear-capable missiles in a military parade in the capital, Pyongyang, marking a major war anniversary with a show of defiance against the United States

North Korea has amended its constitution to bolster and expand its nuclear force, with leader Kim Jong Un pointing to the growing cooperation between the United States, South Korea and Japan as "the worst actual threat" facing the isolated nation.