Category Archives: Cloning

Its common knowledge that cloning has broken the bonds of sci-fi, and that labs around the world are experimenting with cloning techniques. But how exactly does cloning work, and why havent we heard more about it? More specifically, why havent clone armies overrun us yet? Heres how researchers clone living organisms, and why it remains a complicated process.

Caroline Davis2010 | Flickr

Cloning isnt a very scientific word, so its no surprise that there are several different techniques that you could call cloning. That includes the common gene cloning, where biological materials are reproduced and used for medical techniques or even meeting demand for red meat as well as therapeutic cloning, which involves swapping nucleus DNA between eggs for a shortened development process.

But for the real, thats what I meant style of cloning, we need to talk about somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). This is the type of cloning that takes the DNA of an adult specimen and reproduces it, so that an embryo with that same DNA is created. Its the sort of science that inspired stormtroopers and dinosaurs in our favorite movies, and its probably exactly what you were thinking of. So lets talk about how somatic cell nuclear transfer works.

awesome tech you cant buy yet conductive legos bento lab compact portable affordable dna testing

First, scientists need healthy, durable cells from a donor a.k.a. the organism they aimto clone. There are different kinds of cells in the average sexual organism, but somatic cells are the neutral type of cell that just hangs out doing its job with the typical two complete sets of chromosomes.

Somatic cells cant be found among red blood cells, but white blood cells are somatic and a common source for DNA products. Skin cells and the traditional cheek-swab also work, but the cells have to be healthy and undamaged. Thats why it is usually impractical to try to clone ancient frozen or trapped animals: Their cells are almost always heavily damaged.

dna image storage close up header

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Tara Brown Photography/ University of Washington

While one part of the scientific cloning team is working on extracting a plentiful supply of somatic cells from the donor, another part is working to prepare a viable egg cell. It doesnt necessarily have to be an egg cell from the same species, but for greater chances of success, the closer the better.

When scientists find the right undamaged egg cells, they carefully extract the nucleus of the cell. The nucleus is what holds the single set of chromosomes that contributes to reproduction. But for cloning, they dont want that DNA they want an intact, empty shell that can house an embryo. So the nucleus and all its DNA is removed, while the rest of the egg is delicately preserved.

center for cellular construction cell

Creative Commons

Remember, because somatic cells are complete, adult cells not used for reproduction, they have the full dual set of chromosomes, already present and ready for action. However, scientists need to get this DNA into the egg cell and prepared to grow into a new organism. So they again, very carefully remove the nucleus and insert it into the waiting, empty egg cell.

The goal is to combine them into a single cell again, which is not easy. Current successful techniques use a very light, directed flow of electricity so that the nucleus and egg cell bind together, and hopefully agree to their new living arrangement.

cosmocrops 3d printing j a5gkzu

Now we have a cloned egg, ready to start growing! But, while the egg does have two sets of chromosomes and, in theory, everything it needs to grow into a copy of the donor organism, it hasnt actually been fertilized and it cant be fertilized without ruining the cloning process.

So scientists try to convince the egg that its fertilized and should start growing. This is another area where there is a lot of experimentation with new techniques: Usually, the egg is subjected to chemical cocktails designed to trigger the growth process, often while being zapped with more electricity (sometimes science really is like the movies).

When the cell starts to divide, scientists move quickly onto the next stage, keeping the egg in similar conditions to the real reproductive process. If the egg starts to develop into an embryo that appears healthy, they typically implant that embryo into a living female organism to gestate. This is better for the egg and much less expensive than trying to grown an embryo externally in a lab.

scientists grow human embryos in artificial womb embryo3

Closeup of the researched embryos

As you probably noticed, theres a certain amount of uncertainty and delicate work involved in all the previous steps. Even small amounts of cell damage can be disastrous, and theres no guarantee a doctored egg will develop correctly either inside or outside the carrying organism. In other words, viability is a major issue. There are a lot of failed attempts and embryos that just dont develop correctly (often going awry when the embryo is only a small collection of cells), so it takes massive resources, plenty of time, and hundreds of attempts to create a successful clone. Successful live births are a rarity.

Even then, the process is not usually kind to the successful clones. They tend to suffer from shortened lifespans and other problems summed up by what you could call DNA whiplash. However, these problems have diminished as technology has advanced.

1152543 autosave v1 2 stem cell

Juan Grtner/123RF

The first true cloningusing SCNT occurredin 1996 after 276 attempts: The famous Dolly the sheep. This was quickly followed by cloned calves in Japan, and then a number of other animals were added to the list, including cats, dogs, rabbits, rats, horses, and even a rhesus monkey.

Except for rumors, there is no evidence that a human has ever been cloned primates are especially difficult to clone, and humans are the most difficult of all because of the complex way that our cells divide. Reports of human clones have either been debunked or dropped due to lack of evidence.

Full cloning like this also has relatively little value to the scientific community thus far. Gene cloning is far more advantageous when it comes to healthcare and profit, and much easier to accomplish. True cloning with SCNT has become something of a sideshow as a result: Today, most interest in the process focuses on the applications of stem cells from successful embryos, but that also remains an expensive, controversial process for now.

Read more:

How does cloning work, anyway? Your guide to real-world replication - Yahoo News

Image used for representational purpose only.

Midas, king of Phrygia, was granted a boon by Bacchus: Whatever the king touched, would turn to gold. Midass delight was short-lived. The food that he raised to his lips turned to yellow metal, as did the water he tried to drink. Desperate, Midas begged Bacchus to take back his baneful gift. The god took pity on the king and told him to bathe in a sacred river, which washed away the sin of specious enrichment.

We might not be so lucky. The fable of Midas has disturbing echoes today when genetic engineering promises to put within our grasp the cornucopia of endlessly replicated life. The biotechnology of cloning has already created its mitochondrial ewe in the form of Dolly the sheep. The Noahs Ark of the brave new world seems set to embark on a fantastic voyage at the end of which the animals will come out, not in twos but in their limitless multitudes. Technicallyif not ethicallythere would appear to be no reason why humans also cannot be produced on this genetic assembly line.

Despite widespread fears about what such an industrialisation of humanity might lead to, the gathering momentum of genetic research could prove irreversible. One researcher has been quoted as saying, Its not a matter of should it (human cloning) be done, but when can it be done. According to reports, it already has been done, by accident. Belgian doctors who rubbed the surface of a frozen fertilised human ovum to facilitate implantation in the mothers womb discovered, three weeks later, that the egg had divided to develop two embryos following the friction treatment. The result was identical twins today who are living in southern Belgium.

Cloning has become the new Frankensteins monster. The cloning of more productive livestock has been extolled as an economic miracle and denounced as a transgression of natural laws. The deliberate cloning of humans, though still in the realm of science fantasy, has provoked an outcry against a host of test-tube hobgoblins from mass-produced Nazis to captive organ farms, which could be harvested and cannibalised by affluent patients in need of transplants.

Such extreme and unlikely scenarios apart, it is clear that the issue raises a thicket of prickly social, legal and philosophical questions, which we are ill-equipped, both intellectually and emotionally, to answer. Like Midas, we have been given a seemingly divine gift, which could turn into a self-destructive curse.

The Midas touch and the biotechnicians clone of thorns encompass a single quest: both represent the human yearning for everlasting life. Using the technique of engineered cell division, cloning seeks to usurp the sovereignty of creationalong with that of its inevitable concomitant of dissolution and deathand reward its adherents with an ersatz immortality.

The legend of Midas expresses the same desire, employing the metaphor of incorruptible gold as an allegory of deathless life. The Midas myth is a foreshadowing of the alchemists search for the so-called philosophers stone, the magical substance, which supposedly could transmute base metals into gold.

Sixteenth century alchemists used the sorcerers cloak of secrecy to mask a far greater enterprise than that of the molecular transformation of metal: what they sought was the transubstantiation of perishable flesh into an imperishable prototype.

C G Jung notes that the ostensible making of gold was a red herring, a diversionary symbol for the transformation of the personality through the merging of the elements, the conscious and the (collective) unconscious. Marlowes Faustus, who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge of the secret lore and who longed for the kiss of immortality from the lips of long-dead Helen, was an anachronistic clone of the alchemists, and of Midas.

The fugitive desire for a surrogate perpetuity has adopted many guises in many cultures: from the birth of Minerva, goddess of learning, who sprang forth fully-formed from the head of her father, Jupiter, to the Biblical creation of Eve from Adams rib; from the Yiddish legend of the golem, the elemental and indestructible humanoid who both protected its creator and represented his primal self, to the Gothic cult of the vampire, the everlasting undead. Its present avatarthat of cloningrepresents a form no more, or less, bizarre than many others it has earlier taken.

The fatal flaw that lies at the heart of this recurring allegory is that it chooses the inescapable prison of eternity over the irrepressible freedom of the infinity of life in its untrammelled diversityand its necessary transience. Death is the mother of beauty, said the poet. The abyss, which lies beneath the nectar in a sieve, makes each drop as it falls into oblivion sweeter and more dazzlingly golden than all the eternally unchanging, eternally barren riches of Midas.

Jug Suraiya

Writer, columnist and author of several books

jugsuraiya@gmail.com

Excerpt from:

Midas, Cloning and the quest for eternal life - The New Indian Express

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Its common knowledge that cloning has broken the bonds of sci-fi, and that labs around the world are experimenting with cloning techniques. But how exactly does cloning work, and why havent we heard more about it? More specifically, why havent clone armies overrun us yet? Heres how researchers clone living organisms, and why it remains a complicated process.

Cloning isnt a very scientific word, so its no surprise that there are several different techniques that you could call cloning. That includes the common gene cloning, where biological materials are reproduced and used for medical techniques or even meeting demand for red meat as well as therapeutic cloning, which involves swapping nucleus DNA between eggs for a shortened development process.

But for the real, thats what I meant style of cloning, we need to talk about somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). This is the type of cloning that takes the DNA of an adult specimen and reproduces it, so that an embryo with that same DNA is created. Its the sort of science that inspired stormtroopers and dinosaurs in our favorite movies, and its probably exactly what you were thinking of. So lets talk about how somatic cell nuclear transfer works.

First, scientists need healthy, durable cells from a donor a.k.a. the organism they aimto clone. There are different kinds of cells in the average sexual organism, but somatic cells are the neutral type of cell that just hangs out doing its job with the typical two complete sets of chromosomes.

Somatic cells cant be found among red blood cells, but white blood cells are somatic and a common source for DNA products. Skin cells and the traditional cheek-swab also work, but the cells have to be healthy and undamaged. Thats why it is usually impractical to try to clone ancient frozen or trapped animals: Their cells are almost always heavily damaged.

While one part of the scientific cloning team is working on extracting a plentiful supply of somatic cells from the donor, another part is working to prepare a viable egg cell. It doesnt necessarily have to be an egg cell from the same species, but for greater chances of success, the closer the better.

When scientists find the right undamaged egg cells, they carefully extract the nucleus of the cell. The nucleus is what holds the single set of chromosomes that contributes to reproduction. But for cloning, they dont want that DNA they want an intact, empty shell that can house an embryo. So the nucleus and all its DNA is removed, while the rest of the egg is delicately preserved.

Creative Commons

Remember, because somatic cells are complete, adult cells not used for reproduction, they have the full dual set of chromosomes, already present and ready for action. However, scientists need to get this DNA into the egg cell and prepared to grow into a new organism. So they again, very carefully remove the nucleus and insert it into the waiting, empty egg cell.

The goal is to combine them into a single cell again, which is not easy. Current successful techniques use a very light, directed flow of electricity so that the nucleus and egg cell bind together, and hopefully agree to their new living arrangement.

Now we have a cloned egg, ready to start growing! But, while the egg does have two sets of chromosomes and, in theory, everything it needs to grow into a copy of the donor organism, it hasnt actually been fertilized and it cant be fertilized without ruining the cloning process.

So scientists try to convince the egg that its fertilized and should start growing. This is another area where there is a lot of experimentation with new techniques: Usually, the egg is subjected to chemical cocktails designed to trigger the growth process, often while being zapped with more electricity (sometimes science really is like the movies).

When the cell starts to divide, scientists move quickly onto the next stage, keeping the egg in similar conditions to the real reproductive process. If the egg starts to develop into an embryo that appears healthy, they typically implant that embryo into a living female organism to gestate. This is better for the egg and much less expensive than trying to grown an embryo externally in a lab.

Closeup of the researched embryos

As you probably noticed, theres a certain amount of uncertainty and delicate work involved in all the previous steps. Even small amounts of cell damage can be disastrous, and theres no guarantee a doctored egg will develop correctly either inside or outside the carrying organism. In other words, viability is a major issue. There are a lot of failed attempts and embryos that just dont develop correctly (often going awry when the embryo is only a small collection of cells), so it takes massive resources, plenty of time, and hundreds of attempts to create a successful clone. Successful live births are a rarity.

Even then, the process is not usually kind to the successful clones. They tend to suffer from shortened lifespans and other problems summed up by what you could call DNA whiplash. However, these problems have diminished as technology has advanced.

Juan Grtner/123RF

The first true cloningusing SCNT occurredin 1996 after 276 attempts: The famous Dolly the sheep. This was quickly followed by cloned calves in Japan, and then a number of other animals were added to the list, including cats, dogs, rabbits, rats, horses, and even a rhesus monkey.

Except for rumors, there is no evidence that a human has ever been cloned primates are especially difficult to clone, and humans are the most difficult of all because of the complex way that our cells divide. Reports of human clones have either been debunked or dropped due to lack of evidence.

Full cloning like this also has relatively little value to the scientific community thus far. Gene cloning is far more advantageous when it comes to healthcare and profit, and much easier to accomplish. True cloning with SCNT has become something of a sideshow as a result: Today, most interest in the process focuses on the applications of stem cells from successful embryos, but that also remains an expensive, controversial process for now.

Original post:

How does cloning work, anyway? Your guide to real-world replication - Digital Trends

Four persons, including three former employees of PVR cinemas in Gurgaon, were arrested by Gurgaon police for allegedly cloning credit and debit cards of customers who visited the theatres.

The accused are suspected to have cloned around 45 to 50 cards of customers and siphoned off an amount of Rs20 to Rs25 lakhs of customers who visited the theatres located on two malls on MG Road, the police said on Friday.

The accused have been identified as Ajay Raghav, Sanjay Jat, Rahul Yadav and Sonajeet. They took note of ATM pin numbers of customers and later used it to withdraw cash from the cards cloned by them. Raghav, Jat, and Yadav worked in the mulitplexes.

Two ATM card readers, one card cloning machine, one laptop and few cloned cards were recovered from the accused. The accused have been sent on three days police remand for further questioning.

The machines are easily available online at a very low price, police said.

A few days earlier, a similar racket was unearthed inDelhi where an employee of Farzi cafe in Connaught Place was caught by police for cloning cards.

Sumit Kuhar, deputy commissioner of police (crime), said that Ajay Raghav, a resident of Mathura in UP,was the kingpin of the gang and was arrested from Mathura.

Raghav got to know that police was after him so he had shifted his accommodation. He is married and used the stolen money for familys expenses, said Kuhar.

Raghavs arrest and unraveling of the gang came after a Gurgaon resident Dhrishti Bhasin complained at Sector 56 police station that someone had withdrawn Rs50,000 from her account using a debit card on May 25.

The matter was referred to the Cyber crime cell, which formed a team under cell in-charge inspector Anand Kumar that started identifying the ATMs from where the cash was being withdrawn.

After sustained investigation, the police was able to identify Sanjay Jat, a resident from Alwar in Rajasthan, and arrested him from his brothers house in south city 2, said Kuhar.

On questioning, Jat spilled the beans and this led to the arrest of others including Raghav, Sonajeet who lives in DLF phase 4, and Rahul Yadav who is from Kosli in Rewari.

It is being suspected that there are more members involved in the fraud, who used to steal ATM pin numbers from different locations. Police is also on the look out of a person, who had taught card cloning to Jat, which led to his entry into this trade.

The accused have been arrested in a case registered at sector 56 police station under section 379 (theft), 420 (fraud), and 120b (criminal conspiracy) of IPC and section 66 of the IT Act.

A representative of the PVR cinemas said that officials authorised to speak to the media were not available.

See original here:

Former employees of multiplex arrested for cloning cards at ... - Hindustan Times

GURUGRAM: A four-member gang of cyber criminals, in their early-to-mid 20s, who cheated many people by cloning credit and debit cards, was busted on Friday. The accused had duped around 50 people of over Rs 20 lakh in total, in only the last three months, by employing a unique trick, police said.

The mastermind, Raghav, was employed at the canteen of a multiplex at DT City Centre Mall, Sector 29, not too long ago. One of his accomplices was currently working there. Police have recovered a laptop and three electronic gadgets, which they used to clone plastic cards.

The accused had bought the card reader and card writer on an e-commerce website for Rs 27,000 and then used them to dupe many unwary customers of lakhs of rupees. All four were produced in a city court today. Police have taken them on four days remand for questioning.

The cyber crime cell was alerted following the complaint of Gurgaon-resident Drishti Bhasin, who alleged that Rs 50,000 had been fraudulently withdrawal from her account using her debit card. Following the leads provided by the cyber crime team, headed by inspector Anand Kumar, crime branch arrested the accused Sanjay, resident of Mundawar village, Alwar district, Rajasthan; Rahul Yadav, resident of Kosli village, Rewari district; Sonajeet, resident of Gurgaon and Ajay Raghav, resident of Mathura district, UP.

During interrogation, the accused revealed so far, they had cloned over 50 debit and credit cards, and duped many people in the NCR of a total of over Rs 20 lakh.

Read the original here:

Multiplex workers in card cloning racket - Times of India - Times of India

PUNE: The cyber crime cell arrested two Nigerian nationals, one on Tuesday and the other on Wednesday, for using a magnetic card reader to clone debit and credit cards, swiping them at ATMs and withdrawing huge amounts of money, illegally.

One came to India on a medical visa and the other arrived on a student's visa. Both their visas had expired in 2015.

Several debit cards and Rs 1.8 lakh in cash was recovered from both. They were arrested under provisions of the IPC and the IT Act.

Ogbehase Fortune (43) and Bashar Dakin Garim Usman (27) would visit ATM kiosks in isolated places and withdraw money from them. Ogbehase was caught by a cyber cell team while effecting a transaction at an ATM kiosk in Pimple-Gurav on July 11. Both were remanded in police custody till July 18.

"We have arrested Nigerian nationals for card cloning in Pune for the first time," deputy commissioner of police (cyber crime) Sudhir Hiremath said on Thursday.

Police received a tip-off about Ogbehase after his image was caught on CCTV camera at an ATMs. Technical investigations confirmed his involvement. Later, they arrested his accomplice Bashar from his residence at Pirangut near Pune on Wednesday.

Police suspect them of using the cards at select petrol pumps for getting some money on a commission basis.

The involvement of more Nigerian nationals and others is suspected because they have used a magnetic card reader for cloning cards and used these cards in hotels, malls, pumps and ATM kiosks.

Ogbehase and Bashar were arrested on charges of duping an official Hemant Appasaheb Phalke (45) of Ammunition Factory, Khadki to the tune of Rs 67,000 on June 24. The Khadki police had registered a case on July 11.

The rest is here:

Two Nigerians with expired visas held for card cloning - Times of India

Asia & Pacific

19:10 13.07.2017(updated 19:20 13.07.2017) Get short URL

BEIJING (Sputnik) Beijing-based SinoGene biotechnology company said that it had successfully created a cloned beagle puppy named Long Long. The puppy is not only the first clone tobe made froma genetically modified dog, butalso the first cloned canine.

Sputnik correspondents visited the company's laboratory inorder tofind outwhy scientists chose a dog forcloning and spoke withSinoGene Director General Mi Tzidun and his deputy Zhao Jianping.

Super Dog?

The cloning process ofa genetically engineered dog takes anywhere fromtwo toseveral months. According toMi, withinone experiment, scientist try toclone 10 dogs, butmodification inthe genome can occur only intwo individuals. At the same time, he stressed that it is not possible topredict the success rate, sincethere is always a factor ofuncertainty. In some cases, the experiment may be completely unsuccessful.

Sputnik/ Irina Gavrikova

Cloned dogs

According toZhao, gene modified dogs retain their reproductive capacity and are able toreproduce fromthe age of10 months. Gene modifications are transmitted tonext generations.

The life expectancy ofsuch dogs does not differ fromthose ofordinary ones, Mi added.

"An animal withthe quite well-developed motor and olfactory functions, performing special work, can be called a super dog. A guide dog, forexample, or hunting dog or a dog performing search and rescue work. But we create dogs using a method ofgenetic editing, which causes disease. In simple terms, infuture the dog acquires the ability tosuffer fromhuman diseases, so it can not be called a 'super dog,'" a SinoGene researcher said.

The Goal Justifies the Means

Genetic engineering technologies have significant importance forthe development ofmedicine, asthey help totreat tumors and genetic disease, the SinoGene researcher added.

"It is possible totest the drugs safety and check their effectiveness using cloned dogs. Previously, dogs were used relatively rarely insuch experiments, because the process ofediting a dog's genes is rather complicated. We conduct these studies, because the course ofthe disease indogs and humans is relatively the same. Dogs and humans also have a high degree ofgenetic similarity," the researcher added.

In particular, SinoGene scientists have already studied such diseases asatherosclerosis, autism, muscular dystrophy and diabetes mellitus, using genetically engineered dogs.

General Director of Sinogene Mi Jidong

Sputnik/ Irina Gavrikova

Cloned dogs

Sputnik/ Irina Gavrikova

Zhao Jianping

Sputnik/ Irina Gavrikova

1 / 3

Sputnik/ Irina Gavrikova

General Director of Sinogene Mi Jidong

Speaking aboutthe morality ofthis practice, Chinese scientists say that unfortunately the development ofscience and medicine requires such victims.

Future Plans

SinoGene experts said that the next step intheir research could be the cloning ofa genetically modified cat.

"However, atthe moment we do not yet have the necessary technologies, we need toaccumulate experience and knowledge, then we can make further plans. Using this knowledge, it will be possible toconduct appropriate studies ofthe entire feline family, especially withregard toendangered animal species, forexample, the Amur tiger and some species ofleopard," Mi said.

The director general added that the company maintains transparency inits research and is ready toshare its discoveries withthe world community forthe development ofscience.

Link:

Genetically - Sputnik International

There are very few feelings worse than suddenly realising someone has access to your precious monies.

Through a combination of a small card scanning device added to the card-slot on the ATM, which sends the information wirelessly to a nearby receiver, coupled with a small camera that is placed to see you enter your PIN, or sometimes a fake keypad placed over the real one, the scammers get all the info they need to get access to your account.

Reddit-er Bendeton took to the internet to let folks know of a scanning device he discovered while using an ATM.

I can honestly thank Reddit for this...

Bendeton went on to say that he shook the device, found it to be loose, and proceeded to pull the entire thing off the ATM.

However, another person weighed in on the Reddit thread, claiming to be an ATM repair person, and proceeded to give their tips on what to do if you think the ATM might be dodge city:

"ATM Repair guy here. I'm not usually one to hijack a comment, but here are some tips. As stated in other comments, check to see if the card reader seems janky. If it's loose, if it looks like anyone has tampered with it or it is damaged or something about it just looks off, don't use it.

On a Diebold ATM, all of the previous still stands but you should also look for green flashing LEDs on the insert for the card reader. If they are red or nonvisible, do not use the ATM. Tell the bank that they have an issue and either they will check it or a guy like me will show up to check it out.

If you believe you have found a skimmer and you are not at a bank branch or they are closed,LEAVE THE PREMISE, CALL THE COPS AND DO NOT REMOVE IT LIKE OP [Original poster] DID. Your finger prints will be on it which will make it more difficult for the police to recover bad guy prints. Good job. But beyond that, the way these things work is that there is a person nearby watching a bluetooth connection on a laptop. They probably see you. This is a quick way to get mugged.

Good luck and stay safe, folks."

Go here to read the rest:

This is how to spot a card-cloning device at your ATM - JOE

Katie Price has laid into her former best friend Jane Poutney for "cloning into" her.

The Loose Women panelist's husband Kieran Hayler famously had a seven-moth affair with Jane only five months after they got married in January 2013.

And Katie has now insisted she knew Jane "wanted her life" but no one would believe her.

Speaking on Loose Women, she said: "I'm usually good at seeing through people.

"I could tell my friend Jane was cloning into me, but everyone thought it was hormones, because I was pregnant."

Janet Street Porter then asked what she meant by "cloning", and Katie explained: "She was trying to look like me, be like me, and then she did, she even got my man in the end.

"I like helping my friends and trying to make them look better, but Jane did it different.

"She had the same nails as me, same hair, same clothes.

"I told other people, but never said it to her, and I was right.

"She wanted me, wanted my life, and my man."

Kieran admitted 25 trysts with Jane, and previously told how he met her for sex in a pub car park and Katies stables. He also admitted to a fling with another friend of his wife, Chrissy Thomas, 41.

But Katie stood by her man as he underwent therapy for sex addiction.

*Loose Women continues on ITV1 weekdays at 12.30pm

See more here:

Katie Price KNEW Jane Poutney was 'cloning into her' before she had affair with Kieran Hayler - Mirror.co.uk

A beagle puppy recently born in a Chinese laboratory is the first dog in the world to have been successfully cloned from a gene-edited parent, state-owned newspaper Science and Technology Daily reported Thursday.

Longlong was born on May 28 from a surrogate mother, but a test proved on Wednesday that he is genetically identical to another dog, two-year old Apple.

The dogs birth marks a breakthrough in cloning research that will potentially allow for cheaper medical research, but it also raises ethical issues. When Apple was an embryo, his genes were modified so he would develop atherosclerosis, a disease that causes blood clots. Genetically identical Longlong will, too.

The cloned puppy was born at Sinogene, a biotech company in Beijing. Lai Liangxue, the companys head scientist, told Sixth Tone that Longlongs birth means China will now be able to rely on its own clones for biomedical research to test disease treatments, for example. Moreover, cloning the animals will be more cost-effective than editing their genes, the company said.

In 2005, the worlds first cloned dog, an Afghan hound called Snuppy, was born in South Korea, and named Invention of the Year by Time magazine. Since then, the country has been the world leader in the science of cloning dogs, which are especially difficult to clone compared with other mammals. Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, was born in 1996.

I believe that we have achieved a cloning success rate close to that of the South Korean teams, Lai said. Half of the surrogate dogs were successfully impregnated during their experiment, and of these, two have given birth to a total of three puppies, with Longlong being the very first. Sinogene invested 10 million yuan ($1.5 million) into the project, the companys deputy general manager, Zhao Jianping, told Sixth Tone.

Sinogene plans to apply the technology to medical research, as well as to the cloning of police dogs and pets. Zhao said some dog owners have already reached out to his team, asking for their deceased or sick dogs to be cloned. In South Korea, cloning a pet dog currently costs around $100,000. Our price will be half of that, he said. We hope to popularize [such cloning] for the public.

Zhou Yujuan, a professor at Hebei University who has been experimenting on a cure for atherosclerosis using mice, told Sixth Tone that she would prefer dogs as research subjects because they are more genetically similar to humans. But, she added, this would require more funding. Usually, we use rats or mice because they are cheaper, she said. A gene-edited mouse with atherosclerosis costs 250 to 450 yuan, while a dog with similar symptoms does not yet have a price tag.

Environmental activists have not responded to the genetic breakthrough with likeminded enthusiasm. Cloning is unethical, said Guo Longpeng, the China press officer for the Asia division of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the worlds largest animal welfare organization. Like any other laboratory animal, these animals are caged and manipulated in order to provide a lucrative bottom line.

Guo said protection for animals is lacking under Chinese law, and, as a result, horrible treatments are possible in those laboratories. A regulation on lab animals published in 1988 and modified in 2011 regulates the feeding and accommodation standards for the animals but does not set guidelines for experiments.

Lai said he believes animal cloning is ethically permissible, though human cloning is not.

Currently, there are only a few companies providing cloning services in China. Boyalife Group, a company that aims to become the biggest cloning factory in the world, performs dog cloning in cooperation with the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation, a South Korean company led by the scientist who cloned Snuppy. And Beijing Genomics Institute, a biotech company headquartered in Shenzhen, proposed to sell genetically modified mini pigs as pets beginning in 2015, but shelved the plan for unknown reasons.

Editor: Kevin Schoenmakers.

(Header image: The cloned puppy Longlong sleeps on a blanket in Beijing, May 2017. Courtesy of Sinogene)

The rest is here:

First Gene-Edited Dog Cloned in China Raises Ethical Concerns - Sixth Tone