ahh! Think of it, the end of original sin. clone me baby?

If they can clone mice , they can clone human. They are so many very rich people ,who will use cloning technologies in the close future, that we cannot stop them. And who cares anyway? What is wrong with that? Centuries ago many people believed medicine is bad thing because it is for god to decide when we must die. Now we are complaining that it is only god's right to create humans, but at the same time most of us understand that we cannot stop sciencific progress and that once something is discovered it will be used and will never be a little secret anymore.About tranc-species: It is very strange, probably dangerous and forsure controversial issue, but believe me, when somebody rich will need half-pig-half-human heart or liver, tranc-species will be created & nobody will be able to stop smart'n'poor sciencists from making tranc-species-organ-donars for rich individuals and becoming smart'n'rich sciencists.

I disagree. I agree that there are ways to make cloning of humans unethical. For example, it would be very unethical to clone a human for the purpose of supplying others with transplantable organs. But if the purpose is normal procreation, I do not see an ethical problem once the technical problems are resolved.

Hell will freeze over before that occurs. The technical obstacles are tremendous. Also, animal organs will soon be available, and they will be cheap and reliable. If individually cloned human organs were ever to become available, they would be incredibly expensive, and probably unreliable, since without an immune system to protect it from disease, how could the organ possibly be healthy? Anyway, nothing ever happens until it is economically feasible, and I do not ever see a time when this might become economically feasible.

I disagree. I would suspect that the similarities and differences for time-differentiated twins will be roughly the same as identical twins raised separately. It may be that the outcome will be "different" in some cases, but my guess is that the genetic predisposition for similar behavior is much stronger that many people suppose, and that the similarities will be remarkable.

Right! If they can clone adult mice ovarian cells, they ought to be able to clone adult human ovarian cells. According to Dawn's post, "The special adult ovarian cells were able to be cloned, but the analogous cells (Sertoli cells) from the seminal vesicles didn't work, nor did any other adult cell types that were tested."

Therefore, if you happen to be a woman, and if you happen to have some ovarian cells available (possibly from a previous surgery), it is very likely that those cells could be cloned into another you.

Yeah, if those rich people happen to be women and if even one of them is willing to accept major surgery as the price of obtaining the needed ovarian cells, it could probably happen right away.

http://community.cnn.com/cgi-bin/WebX?224@@[email protected]/5306

Yeah, if those rich people happen to be women and if even one of them is willing to accept major surgery as the price of obtaining the needed ovarian cells, it could probably happen right away.

Would you beleive minor surgery?

In the last year the question has evolved from "When will we be able" to "Who wants to".

Cliff Beall said:

On the other hand, there is a real possibility that regeneration of organs "in place" inside the body (without the need for surgery), will become a reality. People are already working on it, and it is likely to be the next major advance in medicine.

Regenration will also allow us to replace ageing tissue with youthful tissue, which will allow us to live youthful live of indefinite length. People with physical and mental challenges will be able to get rid of them.

I think that forty to seventy years from now, people will look back on our time and shutter at our current barbaric practice of surgery.

People will look back at how we used to grow old and die and will really shudder with revulsion. I think that adeing and death will be viewed as a vestige of our barbaric past the same way we view some of the medical practices of European Dark Ages.

Biotechnology is your friend, not your enemy. Entropy is your enemy.

Free Yourself.

Mistropian Will: If they can clone mice , they can clone human.

To interrupt y'all's argument for a second here, this statement is not true. The biology of the two mammals is very different; cloning technology used on mice cannot as of yet be applied to human beings. IMHO, there's still at least 2 years to go before cloning of humans with known civilian technology becomes possible. Even then, you'll see the same type of low success rates as with mice, with very few successful clones as a percentage of actual attempts. And this is something the American public probably won't accept, meaning more time will have to be spent increasing success rates of cloning.

I agree Mike, self-determination and liberty should go with cloning. Biological pre-destination without self-determination is a deadend avenue. Anyway, God was the first Master Cloner, we are just following in His footstep's.As He made us for His world, we will make us for other worlds. If we don't take the time to design evolution into our future, then biotechnology will. Fifty years from now, do you want your children, children to be cyborgs or enhanced humans? If we allow the advancement of technology to lead us, then welcome to the cyborg age, but if we lead technology, then welcome to the age of enlightenment. Anyway, humans are in a transitory stage of evolutionnary development; where now a physical body is a necessity, but in the future it will a luxury. We need only get the human's neuronetwork from point 'A' to point 'B', not the human body. If at point 'B' there awaits a cloned body (of your design) for human cybertransportation and habitation, then we saved on valuable resouces in the A to B loop. Then we hop from one cloned body to the next, depending upon our need and self determination. We will become cyberhumans and treat clones like vehicles, to be occupied as needed. If and when we make contact with the citizens of Europa, it will be as a hybrid-cyber-clone. It should be possible to occupy several cyberclones, doing different things in different worlds, a shared experience. But, above all we maintain our idea of self determination and exercise our free will. [email protected]/~roaeja

TO ANKUR SAXENA: I didn't want to say that they are able to clone humans today. What I am trying to say is that if we can clone mice then cloning technology is not a science-fiction. Also when we talking about cloning in general , difference between mice and human is not so big. We just need more time to develope cloning technology of human than to develope cloning technology of mice.

Ankur, I think the statements I made were true enough. To understand why, you must understand why the cloning of mice is considered so significant. Mice were expected to be one of the most difficult of all mammals to clone. IOW, while sheep have been understood to be one of the easiest mammals to clone, mice were expected to be one of the most difficult. This is based, principally, on the assumption that a species difference with respect to the cell stage during which nuclei transfer can occur has a correspondence to embryonic gene activation in the different species.

The time at which embryonic gene activation occurs varies from the late 2-cell stage in mice, the 4-8 cell stage in humans and the 8-16 cell stage in sheep. The relatively late embryonic gene activation in sheep, it has been thought, provides additional cell divisions during which time nuclear reprogramming can occur. This appeared to be confirmed in prior mouse experiment in which it was shown that, in mice, nuclei at the two cell stage could be successfully exchanged between fertilized eggs, but nuclei transferred from embryos at later stages was not successful because they did not direct development to the blastocyst stage.

Now it appears that an experiment was performed in which the "difficult to clone" mammal was successfully cloned using this "new micro-injection technique." Significant? Well, maybe not as significant as first reported if only ovarian cells can be cloned in this manner, but fairly significant nevertheless since human cloning has been expected to be much easier than mouse cloning.

On the cloning of individual humans as spare parts: Is it legal or ethical to have a child for the purpose of "spare parts"? What does one then do with that child once the spare parts are used? It's ultimately the same question.

On the legal status of clones: No legal system currently in place in the Western world differentiates between children conceived through artificial insemination and the natural method. No legal system currently in place in the Western world differentiates between children born premature and incubated artificially to full health and those gestated normally. To presume that human clones would automatically be granted lesser status flies directly against all Western legal and ethical tradition.

Cloning non-human animals for the purpose of parts or of maintaining a germ-line of a transgenic animal is little different from breeding them to chop up for food, clothing, and other uses.

As for using cloning to "cheat death" in the sense of creating an adult clone body into which one would put the central nervous system, to do this, one would have to violate several laws. After all, is it legal to take the living body of a mentally-deficient adult human and use it as the receptacle of a "normal" central nervous system.

The fact that the clone would have the same genetic make-up of the template human would be no valid legal defense. Twins are not permitted to murder each other by virtue of their genetic identity.

The legal and ethical question is simple to answer: When one clones a human, one has produced a human. Now, the idea of regenerating specific tissue and/or organs is another matter, already legal and established for simple things like skin or an ear, extension should be little trouble in that area.

Anyway, why would anybody *want* to do a lot of human cloning? If a despot wants an army of obedient drones, traditional methods are far, far cheaper. Likewise, if one wants an heir, traditional methods are far cheaper,

good evening my question to you all is what effect would tampering with dna have on the enviroment.It would seem to me that any program without strong controls would be devastating.

With regard to tampering with DNA and its effect on our environment: DNA is "tampered" with on a regular basis in labs across the world. The manipulation of genetic code has been done ever since its basic properties were understood, and, in my opinion, this manipulation has done a great deal to improve the environment in which we live. The concern that some random DNA is going to make its way into the environment and cause some biological catastrophe is unwarrented. The care that must be exercised during manipulation of DNA in the lab reflects the ease of its degredation and relative fragility. There is some concern that strains of bacteria (eg E. coli) which have been transformed to be resistant to antibiotics may be introduced into the environment, but this is prevented simply with a little household bleach appropriately applied.

There has been a lot of hype recently about cloning humans, and the legal and ethical issues involved. While consideration of these issues is good, I think the frantic consideration and even almost paranoia surrounding these issues is detrimental. For example, a bill was introduced in Congress after the inital cloning stories which would have banned all manipulations of DNA. This insanity would have halted all research in molecular biology labs across the country, and demonstrates the adage that "partial knowledge can be more dangerous than no knowledge at all." In this case, unwarrented concern could have led to severely detrimental consequences. The advertisements by the physicist who claims he will begin commercial cloning of humans in two years only adds to the misperception of the status of animal cloning. While it has been done, the success rate is quite low, and just because you can do it in mice or in cattle doesn't mean you can easily tranfer the technique to humans. The technical difficulties involved in these or any similar biolgoical manipulations are both tremendous and often species specific. The general popu

I cannot believe all the hype about cloning!!! Stop this madness!!!! Having people cloned for spare parts!!!! Are we serious?? I cannot imagine the world were people are manufactured for spare parts, and I also cannot believe people would want someone to be exactly like them. This is maddening and it should be stopped. The FDA should stop this. Cloning of animals does not offend as much as the cloning of humans does. It is not right and it is not moral. It is actually very sickening. I mean, what would we do about these people we are using for spare parts and organs?? Keep them locked in a bunker somewere and then just kill them off like animals when we are done harvesting?? Come on people. We go to war with countries for violating human rights. And now we want to do it voluntarialy??

Ref. Heather Kocurek - 10:27am Aug 4, 1998 ET (#4713 of 4713)

You might want to read the cloning FAQ.

No one is suggesting that a cloned human is does not have human rights.

The question is when does a collection of cells have the rights of a human being.

I say human cloning is another method of reproduction. Another idea is to auto clone individual organs.

No one would ever suggest that in the next few decades, we won't be able to clone adult humans.

I have no idea why someone would get so excited over the mouse expirement as evidence of this. Have you never heard of Dolly the sheep? Have you been locked in a small metal box for the past year?

When any new science comes of age, humanity recoils in horror. When the benefits are reaped, all praise the miracles. If humankind fears change brought about from stepping into the unknown, let us not forget that all of nature is an experiment that is on-going. If we had only accepted the assumptions of our past generations, we'd still think most of the science that is a part of the background of our lives was horrible. Science will always push the envelope. Society will always be fifty years behind the changes. During World War II many of our soldiers died from simple infections of the skin, dying horrible deaths. Today, such diseases are treated out of our home medicine cabinets after a simple trip to the local doctor. Cloning, DNA manipulation and its programs are the answer to many ills we've lived with since the beginning of time. I have a chronic disease that hasn't responded to any known medical procedure to be considered a cure. DNA manipulation holds promise for my disease(Crohn's Disease). The ethics of it all will be solved as in the past by debate and education. Ignorance has no place in science. Learn to appreciate what benefits we as humans have brought about by pushing the scientific envelope. Opinion is just that. Opinion. Knowledge is power to conquer all that opinion doesn't address.

Let us compare cloning to buying a new car, but without an electronic brain. When you buy the new car, you become the new brain and then tell it what to do and where to go. Clones without cerebrums, spinal cords, medulla oblongata; eyes, ears will exist and only have a reptilian brain to regulate biological functions. It will be kept in cyrosupension until needed for harvesting of body parts. It will never be conscious and never want for hunger.

We do the same to cattle and other livestock, using their parts for human transplantation. Would it be easier if we design the clone in the form of a cow or pig, raising a big herd of them for a specific blood type, then we wouldn't feel bad about cutting out an organ for transplanting.

When cloning takes place, we must safeguard not to give them any higher brain functions, only a lowly mammalian one. I think cloning shouldn't be banded, but cloning of any warm blooded mammal with higher brain functions should. Remember, God cloned Adam in His own image, we are just catching up with His technique's. There will be more than enough room for an 'Old Earth' and 'New Earth'; where the science of innovation will separate the two.

Cloning will allow us to design better human shells for space exploration, underwater living, bird like creatures to live free and without boundaries. If we are to survive as a sentient race in the new technological universe, then we must redesign ourselves with better tools to defend against hostile environments. We must become superhumans with titanium skeletons; instead of bones; etc. Humans must be tempered into steel; before going forth unto the unknown domains of of this bold new universe. It will be a new evolution of humankind, but under God's precepts, and hopefully with mercy and kindness.

God, I feel inspired!

I doubt it. Robots lack finesse and intelligence. They only work well under extremely controlled situations.

And humans (and other life forms) are just a bunch of molecules?

Perhaps 1.61803398875 ;)

I would tend to think that if I grew up in the 1950's, I would be very different than if I grew up in the 1980's 'cos the social attitudes were completely different.

I'm not sure about the mental part -- we're still trying to figure out how the brain works (to the extent that we can build one in-silica that's comparable to a 'higher' life form's).

Why is this? We accept the low success rates for IVF.

Sounds good to me -- ever read Greg Bear's Blood Music and Eon?

If that is the case, why does the question continue to resurface. It seems to me that if some people are not suggesting it, they sure seem to want to dwell on the idea a lot.

Carl, I think that that is the same question with a different face. When the subject is human cloning, it seems to me that the phrase "collection of cells" is a euphemism for "clone." As near as I can tell, it means exactly the same thing. In this respect, I think Heather is right on target.

Huh? Auto...what? Carl, I am not going to assume that you do not have a point. I know better than that, and I have sworn to myself that I will never make that mistake again.

But precisely what do you mean by "auto clone individual parts"?

According to a post by Dawn some time ago--and I tend to believe just about anything Dawn says--the success rate for IVF is about 40 percent. Last I heard, the success rate for cloning was about 3 percent. It may be higher now, but I have no data available to me that would substanciate it, and 3 percent is not going to fly. But I think that when the cloning success rate gets up to 40 percent, there won't be much of a problem from the "public" unless a well publicized monstrosity is born. That would turn people off on the procedure for a very long time

This isn't really on topic, but this board comes closest.

On the Talkback Live people said they would be for research that would lead to getting rid of certain genes that made you prone to specific illness.

But then people who couldn't afford this may still be born with those genes. Could that lead to genetic discrimination? For example higher insurance costs because it's more likely that you will develop a certain disease.

I'm not saying they shouldn't do that research. IT'S JUST A QUESTION.

Carl: You can read all about the mice at www.nature.com. Choose Web Specials,Cloning, letter to Nature of July 23. You will have to register, but so far Nature online is free. I don't think an all female world would be particularly desirable, despite women's less aggressive instincts.

Cliff: Just because the mice only seemed to work with the cumulinus cells from the ovary doesn't necessarily mean that it will be the same in humans, or even always in mice. That's just the way it stands now. There can be little doubt that cloning female mice is easier, though. Cattle seem to be easier to clone than sheep, and the bovine enucleated egg is a good receptacle for nuclei of all species--although they haven't brought any primate nuclei in cow eggs to term. Yet.

Ahh, just think of it, to be born of a virgene.

Many thanks Dawn. It's a great article. I had seen the summaries before but had not checked out the specials. I will in the future.

Nature Mag. is hard to find here in Taiwan. There are a lot of bio. and genetics firms here, though most operating verrrry quietly.

From a religious standpoint, everybody should agree that cloning is wrong.

Ah, but from a scientific standpoint, cloning is the breakthrough in gene technology. Although there are many positive aspects with cloning (cures, organs etc) scientists tend to tackle such a project like cloning with full speed, never stopping to think if they should.

Do some actually think about the extreme long term side affects that it could produce - not five or ten years down the road, but 50 or even 100 years?

I wish that there were stricter laws regarding cloning; what are laws without enforcement though? Science should proceed with the utmost caution in cloning. That is all that I would like.

] Carl Nicolai: I say human cloning is another method of reproduction. Another idea is to auto clone individual organs.

Sorry I thought I read it somewhere.

By auto clone I meant to clone the modified cells or undamaged cells of an organ and let it develop to a complete organ in the same individual. Then you could just remove the defective organ and the other would already be in place and functioning.

For instance cancerous liver cells can migrate rapidly throughout the organ, but if you cloned non cancerous ones and isolated them in the same body they could grow into a new liver that did not have cancer cells in it. Something like that.

The idea is to carry your own cloned organs while they are developing. If you have heard of a better name for what I am talking about I'll use it.

Heck I still don't know what you call the equivalent of a cloned adult nucleus zygote.

I think we are going to require some new names for things and processes.

If we can clone sheep and mice, why not humans? We're all animals. Religious beliefs should be left out of this because it is a matter which requires a separation of church and state.

Please explain to me why the religious are so sure that cloning is wrong. Show me one holy text that specifically prohibits it.

If, as the religious claim, every human has an intrinsic value, then we cannot diminish that value simply by the means through which that human entered the world.

If, as the realists claim, the value of a human is determined by supply and demand, then we diminish every human's value when we create another regardless of the means by which we do it (including the old-fashioned way).

The main effect of cloning, especially when combined with genetic manipulation is to show how absurd and irrelevant the old rules are.

To grant rights to a sentient creature, regardless of its genetic makeup and upbringing is simple. To use non-sentient creatures as bioligical automata regardless of the percentage of human genes they contain is somewhat less simple but not outrageous given the way we treat domestic animals today.

The religious do not fear cloning itself but rather the eventual society that would have to justify its moralisms rather than simply repeat them.

I am reminded of futurist John W. Cambell's comment when asked in the 1930's what political system he thought would dominate the 21st century.

Would the efficiency of Fascism, the organization of Communism or the free wheeling creativity of Democracy win out.

His answer was that whichever system researched and controlled Nuclear energy first would dominate the 21st century. The differences in control methods didn't matter as much as power.Campbell was right.Imagine if America churches stopped us from exploring Nuclear technology.

By Campbell's logic;The first nation to use Genetic technology, clone and improve it's human gene pool will dominate the second half of the 21st century.I think that is enough of a reason to set religion aside.

.....................

True except it is only in the very long run that the human gene pool can be effected outside of genetic disease prevention, and possibly space or other hostile environmental problems.

The real power qua wealth creation is the engineering of plant and animal genes and using cloning to increase the speed of dissemination.

There is no reason why the average acre of land, including that not presently under cultivation could not be made to increase its useful production 10 or more times.

We are not just thinking of a single species here but a whole ecology. Evolution is ponderously slow Gen. Eng. can proceed at an unbelievable pace.

I disagree. Religions, like scientific ideas, don't just go away because they are imperfect they recede when more powerful ones are discovered, or revealed some would say.

Humans seem to require ideas that transcend strict logic.

Carl, I'm not sure what you mean by auto-cloning organs, either. One can't simply take liver cells out of a person and grow them up in the lab, and reinfuse them to form a good liver. Normal (as opposed to transformed) cells don't often grow in culture very well, and when they do they are limited in the number of cell division they will undergo. If organ replacement were as easy as that, we wouldn't need these elaborate transplant procedures. You need fetal liver cells that are still in the programmable phase to do what you suggest. I don't see performing dangerous surgery on a fetus to obtain cells it might need 50 or 60 years hence.