A mythical beast

Abstract

On the popular US TV series CSI , a rapist almost walks free until crime scene investigators realize he is a chimera: the semen found at the crime scene came from his unborn twin. In an episode of House, MD , doctors tackle the case of a boy, a product of in vitro fertilization, who thinks he has been part of an alien experiment. Conflicting medical tests and the discovery of cells with a different type of DNA are not evidence of alien torture, but rather a sign of the real problem: he is a chimera. On Grey's Anatomy , a tumour turns out to be the testis of a vanished twin, revealing an adolescent to be a hermaphrodite—and a chimera. On All My Children , tests initially indicate that Emma is not Annie's daughter, though Annie swears she gave birth to the girl. A switch in the nursery? No: tissue tests from several organs show Emma is a chimera. The examples do not end there. Over the past few years, US comedies, documentaries and even cartoons have featured chimeric characters, and the condition is now beginning to appear in European programming. > Ironically, although chimerism has long been thought to be rare in humans, the TV writers might have inadvertently got it right Genetics have been a common story line in police series, medical dramas and soap operas for some time. But now that DNA has become mundane, writers are turning to unusual medical conditions such as chimerism to boost their plots. Wikipedia attributes this chimera‐mania to Lawrence Lessig, a law professor at Stanford University (CA, USA), who described chimerism as an underused plot device in his 2004 book Free Culture . Within months, Hollywood responded. Ironically, although chimerism has long been thought to be rare in humans, the TV …