An Atlantic article by Betsy Morais explores whether the simian engineering in Rise of the Planet of the Apes could actually occur. While no one expects chimps to transform into geniuses overnight, there is fear that introducing human DNA into non-human creatures could create unfortunate hybrids. An excerpt;

“Nature magazine published a report last year suggesting that non-human primates with sections of human DNA implanted into their genomes at the embryonic stage—through a process called transgenics—might develop enough self-awareness ‘to appreciate the ways their lives are circumscribed, and to suffer, albeit immeasurably, in the full psychological sense of that term.’

‘That’s the ethical concern: that we would produce a creature,’ says bioethicist Dr. Marilyn Coors, one of the authors of the Nature report. ‘If it were cognitively aware, you wouldn’t want to put it in a zoo. What kind of cruelty would that be? You wouldn’t be able to measure the cruelty—or maybe it could tell you. I don’t know.’

Although Walker doesn’t know of anyone doing research to enhance cognitive function in apes, and Coors knows of no transgenic apes, Coors points out that scientists theoretically have the technical capability to produce them.”

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Ham, the first Astrochimp, 1961: