Many people will think that clones are a thing of science fiction. However, clones have been with us for a long time! Cloning is a natural process that a vast majority of organisms on this planet undergo everday. There are many different ways that these organisms clone themselves but each time the parent produces an offspring that is identical to itself.
Cloning is the process of forming identical offspring from a single cell of tissue. Clones are always geneticaly identical to there parent because the clone only has one parent. Therefore, cloning is referred to as asexual reproduction.
Animal scientists hope that cloning will allow them
to increase the amount and quality of foods.
Cloning superior plants that are used for foods could increase the food supply. The idea, would be to select those animals with the most desirable chariteristics, and clone them over and again. This process is already done by breeding together those animals with the most desirable characteristics. Cloning these superior animals, can produce an exact genetic duplicate.
At the same time that plant clones were being developed, animal clones were also being conducted. Robert Briggs and Thomas King produced a clone of a common grass frog. The clone's genetic information came from a different frog than the one that gave birth to it. The frog could claim that it had two mothers!(for more information, see Animal Procedures)
