In Margaret Atwood's Flood Trilogy — a speculative fiction series about scientific advancement spiraling out of control and ending civilization — genetically engineered pigs called "pigoons" roam a post-apocalyptic Earth. Before humans mostly disappeared, the animals were raised to grow bespoke organs for transplantation into people.

Though pig-human organ transplants sound like science fiction, they may not be for long.

A team of scientists announced in early June that they're attempting to grow human organs inside of pigs for the purpose of — you guessed it — transplanting those tissues into humans.

According to the BBC, scientists at the University of California, Davis, want to create hybrid human-pig embryos known as "chimeras" by putting human stem cells in pig embryos. Their goal? Grow a functional human pancreas inside an otherwise normal pig.

"Our hope is that this pig embryo will develop normally but the pancreas will be made almost exclusively out of human cells and could be compatible with a patient for transplantation," said Pablo Ross, a biologist leading the research, to the BBC.

Atwood describes her pigoons as remarkably intelligent creatures. At one point they even glance up at a character "as if they saw him, really saw him, and might have plans for him later." Elsewhere, they are thought to have left flowers and other offerings at the burial site of a fellow pigoon. Characters in the book speculate that this is all because the pigoons contain human neocortex tissue, making them more human.

And this is where our science-meets-fiction gets really bizarre.

This ability for real human organ-carrying pigs to become more human, with human cells somehow migrating to the pig's brain, is actually a concern with the research conducted by the UC Davis scientists. "We think there is very low potential for a human brain to grow, but this is something we will be investigating," Ross told the BBC.

The science on human-pig embryos has advanced considerably since the first book in Atwood's trilogy, "Oryx and Crake," was published in 2003. But the prospect of using pigs to carry human organs has been around for decades, so it's not all that surprising she included the idea in a book featuring genetic experiments gone awry.

Clinical trials for genetically modified pig research were halted in the 1990s because of concerns about pig viruses ending up in humans. However, researchers at Harvard recently used CRISPR gene editing technology to remove pig retrovirus from the animals. That makes the prospect of delivering disease-free, pig-grown organs to humans more likely.

In Atwood's trilogy, the hyper-intelligent pigoons murderously turn on their human creators whenever possible. Which makes the prospect of pig-organ factory farms that much more disconcerting.