Category Archives: Cloning

Take a bunch of celebrity chefs; add biometric technology, bad intentions, a handful of bank accounts, a tablespoon of misspellings and a healthy sprinkling of lax verification safeguards. This is apparently the recipe for an identity cloning scam that has hit high profile chefs in the UK, which the BBC says has enabled fraudsters to siphon money from fake loans and other sources.

Celebrated gourmets Heston Blumenthal and Yotam Ottolenghi are among those who had identities stolen or cloned for malicious purposes.

Over the last six weeks, more than 750 fake firms have registered with Companies House, the UK governments central business registry. Registration and a small fee allow users to set up clone restaurants, withdraw overdraft money from accounts and place orders that will go unpaid. Verification measures only require the name of one director.

Employees have been registered without their knowing, leading to baffling calls from scammers. In some cases, the names of targeted restaurants were misspelled in their clone registrations; both Mr. Blumenthal and Mr. Ottloenghi got extra letters at the end of their surnames.

Alexis Gauthier, a Michelin-starred chef at Gauthier Soho in London, says he was most surprised that fraudsters were able to create a fake company with the same address as his real restaurant. Others are less surprised and accuse Companies House of doing far too little in the matter of identity verification.

UK law not allowing Companies House to verify ID of company directors has been bonkers for many years, says a LinkedIn post Robin Tombs, CEO of Yoti. He echoes sentiments that fraud expert Graham Barrow expressed to the BBC, calling Companies House not fit for purpose.

In response to the criminal activity, Companies House is setting up new authorities to address the issue of fraudulent identities, and says via a spokesperson that in the longer term we will be requiring company directors and people who file information to verify their identity to ensure they are who they say they are. But the timeline could run to eighteen months, according to Barrow an aeon in the evolution of the synthetic and AI-driven identity threats that have exploded around the world in half that time.

This is not the first time Companies House has leveraged digital identity. In 2022, it set up the Register of Overseas Entities (ROE), requiring companies to disclose their registrable beneficial owners or managing officers, to try and curb the use of shell companies for economic fraud. Its pledge to incorporate improved intelligence, data science and enforcement methods led to the September 2022 announcement that it was launching a digital identity verification system for those looking to register and operate a business in the UK.

For his part, Robin Tombs is optimistic that biometrics and digital identity providers such as Yoti can play a key role in mitigating new threats. As more ID fraud is committed against innocent individuals and businesses, it becomes inevitable that individuals will create and use super secure reusable digital IDs like the free Yoti app, he writes. More businesses will accept reusable digital ID providing more utility for more individuals to get their reusable digital ID.

The odds may seem stacked against innocent victims today but over the next few years the odds swing strongly against most fraudsters.

Companies House | digital identity | fraud prevention | identity verification | KYB | KYC | Yoti

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UK business registry says yes, chef to hundreds of cloned IDs and restaurants - Biometric Update

Summary

One of the stars of Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 3 has explained why the stakes are so much higher in the shows third and final season and Palpatine has a big role to play. The Bad Batch has, throughout its tenure, been instrumental in connecting the events of the Star Wars prequel era with the events of the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Above all, it has proven that Palpatines cloning plans were set into motion long before the Rebellion began to take shape. Clone Force 99 has, unfortunately, been forced to get involved.

Speaking exclusively to Screen Rant, Dee Bradley Baker, who voices the majority of the Bad Batch clones, explained that the stakes were much higher this time, implying that Palpatines interest in the cloning program is a driving force behind the seasons narrative:

But then you lose [Omega], and then you lose Crosshair, and so again there's this vacuum that's pulling everyone apart, and the forces are then to get everything back together again. So they've gotta go back in, they've gotta get her and hopefully Crosshair, we'll see how that plays out - as we also learn that this is also very important, it has the interest of the Emperor, and that doesn't look good.

At the end of The Bad Batch season 2, Omega was captured by Dr. Hemlock, the leading scientist in the Empires Advanced Science Division. He, much like Palpatine, has an unsettling interest in cloning, and Omega is now caught in the middle of their horrific experiments.

Thankfully, the season 2 finale of The Bad Batch showed audiences that Omega wasnt in any immediate danger. Instead of being a test subject for Palpatines Force-sensitive clones like Grogu was Omega is instead being used as leverage. Dr. Hemlock needs the help of chief Kaminoan scientist Nala Se to fulfill Palpatines wishes; she was part of the project that created Clone Force 99 and a chief scientific adviser on Kaminos overall cloning program. Hemlock needed Nala Se to co-operate, and so had to find something, or someone, to coerce her into helping with his research.

In her own strange way, Nala Se cares for Omega. Whether that is because she truly cares about Omega as a person or because of Omegas unique status amongst the clones is still unclear. Either way, Hemlock discovered that he could persuade Nala Se to join his research efforts by threatening Omegas life. Omega may not be facing an immediate threat (The Bad Batch season 3 trailer implies that shes been waiting to be rescued for a long time), but Palpatine is not a benevolent man. As long as hes calling the shots, anything can happen in Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 3.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch is an action-adventure animated series set after the events of The Clone Wars, following Clone Force 99 (a.k.a. the Bad Batch.) Finding themselves immune to the brainwashing effects of Order 66, the Bad Batch become mercenaries for hire while outrunning the empire, now seeing them as fugitives of the law.

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"It Has The Interest Of The Emperor": Bad Batch Star Hints At How High The Stakes Are In Season 3 - Screen Rant

Always enable the caller ID feature on your smartphone.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated voice cloning has been on the rise and cyber criminals across India have been using it to extort money. Delhi, the national capital, alone registered 685 cybercrime cases in 2022 as against 345 in 2021 and 166 in 2020, as per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

Just last year in December, a senior citizen, Lakshmi Chand Chawla from Delhi's Yamuna Vihar, was tricked into sending Rs 50,000 to the scammers. He received a ransom demand via WhatsApp, which included a child's voice cloned using AI.

The police revealed that Mr Chawla received a WhatsApp message from an unknown number claiming that they had kidnapped his cousin's son. To convince the victim, the criminals played a voice recording of the child, pleading for help.

Panicked and misled by the realistic voice, Mr Chawl readily complied with the scammers' demands and transferred 50,000 via Paytm.

What is Voice Cloning?

With just three or four seconds of audio input, the voice cloning technology can recreate anyone's voice. Surprisingly, only a basic level of experience and expertise is required to produce a clone with an 85 per cent voice match to the original, as per the assessment of security software company McAfee.

The assessment report added that further efforts could increase the accuracy even more in future. Training the data models, McAfee researchers achieved a 95 per cent voice match based on just a small number of audio files.

Now, fraudsters use this voice cloning technology to deceive victims. They create a family emergency scam and convince them with replicas of family members in distress. Just as we saw in Mr Chawla's case.

How can we avoid being scammed by AI voice cloning?

Always enable the caller ID feature on your smartphone. The caller ID feature will alert you of who is calling and their location. In addition, it even indicates if the call was from a telemarketer or a scam.

Avoid sharing sensitive information, including your phone number and email ID.

Implement call blocking. You must take advantage of the call-blocking feature on your smartphones.

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AI Voice Cloning: What It Is And How To Avoid Getting Scammed By It - NDTV

The Big Picture

If there is one thing you need to know about They Cloned Tyrone, it is that John Boyega is just so good as an actor and a certain other science fiction franchise didnt take full advantage of this. It is thus refreshing that he has thrived in other films of late and this latest is no exception. Even as it is a little shaky at times, just seeing him in action will never get old. However, there is still the matter of the films ending itself and what it reveals about everything that preceded it. Thats right, in case it wasnt already clear, this piece is going to spoil everything in the film from beginning to end. In the event that you havent seen it, best bookmark this page and come back when you have. Beyond that, lets get started.

As some background, the film follows a trio of characters who discover that there is a vast conspiracy governing their lives. There is the lonesome hustler Fontaine (Boyega), the snarky pimp Slick Charles (Jamie Foxx), and the street-smart sex worker Yo-Yo (Teyonah Parris) who all begin with their own beef with each other before realizing they have bigger fish to fry. Specifically, as the title tells you, they are actually merely one version of themselves as there are actually countless clones that have been made as part of an experiment being overseen by Kiefer Sutherland's Nixon that targets the Black community. From the food they consume to the hair products they use, they are being pumped full of a substance that will make them more agreeable AKA docile. This is all being done from an underground facility with cameras surveilling every corner of the world above. Fontaine doesnt even have a real family, as his entire life was just a fabrication. Soon, he and the rest of the community come together to launch a rebellion that will blow up the conspiracy as well as bring one additional revelation.

A series of eerie events thrusts an unlikely trio onto the trail of a nefarious government conspiracy in this pulpy mystery caper.

In order to pull this off, the trio come up with a plan that involves Fontaine getting shot in the shoulder. As happened earlier in the film, he will then be brought underground for him to be swapped out for a new clone. However, this time, hell wake up and begin making his way through the facility from the inside. All of this goes according to plan, but then Fontaine discovers that he is not alone down here. No, it isnt the clones that they go about freeing. Rather, it is the original version of Fontaine who we discover actually was the one who set this all in motion as the lead geneticist who entered into a deal with the Devil. The memory all the clones had of their brother dying was based on reality, and he convinced himself that these experiments, however inhumane, would prevent future deaths like this in the future. Specifically, he wants to eliminate any differences by making everyone the same. It is a nightmarish idea of a literal melting pot that the original Fontaine wants to slowly implement over generations. As he says, assimilation is better than annihilation in a grim proclamation that makes all the humorous gags from prior into something more horrifying.

As clone Fontaine processes this information, which is spelled out in a rather extended exposition scene that grinds everything to a halt, we can see the wheels turning as he hatches a new plan on the fly. Not buying into the justification that his original self provided, he turns the tables on him. He does so by commanding the other clone to shoot the original via a code he had heard used earlier. The moment, while not as effective as it could have been had it been more flushed out, is built around Fontaine rejecting the false choice provided to him and embracing the community that had his back. The film could be more than a bit silly, but the sentiment behind this ending remains grounded in a skepticism of the premise of the bargain the older Fontaine made.

Where that version was willing to sacrifice many others for a safety that may not even come, the uprising showed that a collective coming together is what is really the key. Community looking out for each other rather than throwing each other under the bus is what holds the greatest chance to push away the evil forces of the world. As Fontaine reconnects with Slick and Yo-Yo, they discuss continuing putting this into practice by traveling around to take down similar sinister forces throughout the country. This culminates in one fitting final punchline of a scene where we see another such corner of the world.

True to what we learned from the original Fontaine, the cloning had indeed rolled out across the country, and we see another, Tyrone himself, living in Los Angeles. He goes about his day just like his other counterparts, checking in on his mother in her room even as she isnt actually there, before ending up at a friends house where he is smoking and watching the news. That's when he sees the clone version of himself which all his friends immediately clock as being him.

It's constructed as a joke, eliciting one more closing chuckle to send us into the credits, with the humor coming from meeting the titular character in the final minutes of the film. More than that, it provides one more glimpse at the broader world, serving as a reminder of how there is so much out there that is similar to our day-to-day existence and still much to be done to come together to make them better. Just as was the case with Fontaine and his friends, there is hope for the young Tyrone in the surrounding community.

They Cloned Tyrone is streaming on Netflix in the U.S.

Stream on Netflix

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'They Cloned Tyrone' Ending Explained: Are Two John Boyegas Better Than One? - Collider

A multinational research team has developed a method for efficient genetic cloning of trees, Tel Aviv University (TAU) said in a statement on Sunday.

The new method, detailed in an eight-year study that was published in Nature Biotechnology, uses a material developed by a team led by TAU and the Volcani Institute in central Israel.

The research focused on the common stem cuttings technique, with tree branches cut, exposed to conditions promoting root growth, and then planted as new independent plants.

This asexual reproduction method with no seeds allows for multiplying desired tree properties like fruit taste and resistance to dryness and disease.

Despite its benefits, this technique is economically impractical for many plants, with rooting often not reaching 50 percent, even with the widespread use of the plant hormone auxin.

Eucalyptus grandis is commonly known as the flooded gum or rose gum. /CFP

Eucalyptus grandis is commonly known as the flooded gum or rose gum. /CFP

To find a better alternative to auxin, the researchers created a "library" of molecules, attaching synthetic auxin to various chemical groups.

After experimenting on the Eucalyptus grandis tree, the team identified a substance that improved rooting efficiency, allowing the active component to stay in the plant for one and a half weeks, compared to the standard two days.

This enhanced treatment raised the rooting rate to 60 percent, six times higher than the standard method.

The researchers said the new method could reduce costs for farmers and consumers, improve crop yields and contribute to environmental sustainability by developing plants resistant to climate change.

(Cover image via CFP)

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency

The rest is here:

Researchers develop method to boost tree genetic cloning - CGTN

This story originally appeared in Digital Future Daily, POLITICOs newsletter about how technology is redefining global power. Subscribe here.

The impact of deepfakes on society and elections particularly has been an anxiety for years. Easy-to-use generative AI tools have recently moved it from an issue in niche areas to a top security risk across the board. Before the Biden robocall, AI deepfakes were used in attempts to disrupt elections in Slovakia and Taiwan.

Congress has taken note. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) told POLITICO that as the Senate hashes out its priorities on AI legislation, there is growing recognition that tackling the use of AI in campaign ads and communications should top the list. And after explicit deepfakes of Taylor Swift spread on X last week, lawmakers renewed calls for urgent legislation on the issue.

A reminder: no federal laws currently prohibit the sharing or creation of deepfakes, though several bills have been proposed in Congress and some states have passed laws to crack down on manipulated media. The Federal Election Commission, too, has been considering rule changes to regulate the use of A.I. deepfakes in campaign materials.

Deepfakes is the first test that generative AI has thrown at us because it fundamentally eliminates all trust, Vijay Balasubramaniyan, CEO of the phone fraud detection company Pindrop, told Steven Overly on a POLITICO Tech podcast episode that delved into the Biden robocall incident. If we cant get together and figure out how to solve that problem, yeah, the killer robots will definitely get us.

No surprise thats easier said than done. One especially tricky part will be figuring out how to tackle the full range of manipulated media from older techniques like splicing in fake audio to the new generative AI-fueled advancements, and all the hybrids in between. The robocall, for one, was not a very advanced audio deepfake, according to Matthew Wright, who chairs Rochester Institute of Technologys cybersecurity department.

There are tools available now that that can do a better job, and consequently be more dangerous, he told DFD.

Looking at the proposed federal bills and enacted state laws, it turns out theres not a whole lot they collectively agree on, starting with even what should be regulated.

California and Washingtons laws target false depictions only of political candidates, while Texas and Minnesota go further to include those created with the intention of harming a political candidate or influencing election outcomes.

Consensus on what constitutes a deepfake is also lacking. Some bills distinctly cover images and video, while others extend to audio.

This episode does highlight how important it is to have audio be included in these efforts, said Mekela Panditharatne, counsel for the Brennan Centers Democracy Program. It could be kind of separated and done piecemeal. But I do think it makes sense to consider those different forms of gen-AI production together.

Piecemeal seems to be the way regulation on deepfakes is moving. Wright drew parallels with the landscape for privacy legislation, where a patchwork of laws offer varying levels of protection.

A key question is who should be held accountable: phone service providers, platforms, developers or distributors of the deepfakes? How you answer that ends up defining the focus of proposed solutions.

At the federal level, bills have assigned responsibility to two main groups, said Panditharatne. The first includes the actors that fall under campaign finance disclosure requirements: campaigns, super PACs and donors. Often, the resulting bills address the timing of deepfakes like one act that bans false endorsements and knowingly misleading voting information 60 days before a federal election or transparency, as in the case of Rep. Yvette Clarkes (D-N.Y.) bill which requires that political ads reveal their use of AI-generated material through mandatory labeling, watermarking or audio disclosures.

The second category targets deepfake disseminators, so long as they meet certain knowledge or intent requirements in some cases. Rep. Joe Morelles (D-N.Y.) Preventing Deepfakes of Intimate Images Act would make it illegal to share deepfake pornography without consent.

There is relatively little attention both at the federal and state level in holding other actors to account for deepfakes, Panditharatne added, giving social media companies and AI developers as examples.

As with past content moderation issues, social media giants enjoy some protection from legal liability under federal law (thanks to the famous Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act), which complicates such efforts. The bipartisan Senate NO FAKES Act is one attempt; it proposes holding liable anyone who makes or publicly shares an unauthorized digital replica including companies and allowing for penalties that start at $5,000 per violation.

Still, its unclear to Wright whether any regulations under consideration, or industry solutions in development, could have prevented the Biden robocall. Wright said he has built a deepfake detection tool of his own, but also offers one solution for which the technology does not currently exist on phones. Every microphone is going to have to have even live audio being constantly re-certified. That might have to be whats required.

The design of the scheme exploited an area on which detection focuses less: a direct line with no real-time feedback from social media and limited playback capabilities.

Enforcing the regulations being floated will require some sort of detection mechanism ( many have been invented). But for now, some bad actors with just a voter registration list, phone, and 30-second clip of a political figure can inevitably fly under the radar. The FTC has sponsored a challenge with a $25,000 top prize for the most effective approach to safeguard against the misuse of AI-enabled voice cloning, covering everything from imposter fraud to using someones voice without consent in music creation. Its suggestions include real-time detection and monitoring to alert users to voice cloning or block calls.

Excerpt from:

A mysterious phone call cloned Biden's voice. Can the next one be stopped? - POLITICO

You can speed up your PC and laptop by cloning HDD to SSD free. But Windows does not come with a free disk clone tool. Fortunately, there are some great free SSD cloning utilities to clone HDD to SSD for Windows 10/11.

This article will tell you all you need to know to use cloning software, including clone HDD to SSD freeware and a complete step-by-step guide. Read on to upgrade your hard drive to a larger SSD now.

A good free disk clone software should have a simple interface and be able to replace or upgrade the disks on your current PC successfully. EaseUS Partition Master Free is reliable and free, provides a Disk Clone option and improves the cloning function. This tool suits all Windows OS, including Windows 11/10/8/7. And it provides more comprehensive features:

Pros

Cons

EaseUS Partition Master has received positive reviews and user feedback. Heres a review from G2:

The user interface is easy to navigate, and the software is really useful, especially when upgrading my HDD/SSDs and m. 2 drives. This is the only software Ive used to clone hard drives that does what it says compared to other competitors.

EaseUS Partition Master offers advanced features, such as partitioning SSD, 4k aligning SSD, checking SSD speed and health, etc

You can download EaseUS Partition Master Free Edition and follow the guide below to learn how to clone a disk to another for free!

This part will show you how to clone HDD to SSD for free or clone SSD to a larger SSD on Windows. Please prepare yourself before you start cloning:

Then, follow the steps below to use HDD to SSD cloning tool and clone to SSD in Windows 11/10/8/7:

Step 1. Install and launch EaseUS Partition Master, then select Disk Clone on the left side.

Step 2. Choose Clone Partition to clone the target partition from HDD to SSD.

EaseUS

Step 3. Select the original partition from HDD and click Next to move to the next step.

Step 4. Continue to select the destination partition from the SSD you want to clone to, and click Next. And acknowledge the warning message.

(Note: The destination partition you choose needs to have sufficient capacity. If there is insufficient space, please extend the partition in the Partition Manager section.)

Step 5. Preview or adjust the steps for the target partition and click Start to begin the cloning process.

EaseUS

Note: After you finish the above partition cloning, if your boot partition and system partition are separated on your HDD disk, you need to repeat the operation to finish cloning all partitions to SSD.

And these are the steps to clone partitions. You can clone HDD partitions to SSD partitions easily. SSD has better performance, faster speed, lower power consumption, and stability. You can choose SSD as an internal disk. Cloning allows you to keep all the OS settings and installed programs to enjoy a better experience without installation.

After following the above steps to clone your hard disk, you can use it normally. Many users will migrate their system to SSD and seek ways to boot their computer from the cloned SSD. This section will show you the completed process to boot from cloned SSD on Windows 11/10/8/7:

Step 1. Properly connect the cloned SSD to the computer and restart the PC.

Step 2. Press F2/F8/F11 or Del to enter the BIOS environment.

Step 3. Find the Boot tab in the BIOS setup and move the target hard drive to the first position.

EaseUS

Note: If your PC can only hold one disk, please remove the case cover to unplug the old drive and install a new SSD.

Are you still looking for a safe and reliable clone HDD to SSD freeware? Windows doesnt offer a built-in free SSD cloning tool to migrate a hard disk to another drive. However, you can download and use EaseUS Partition Master Free, which wont cost you anything at all.

This tool can help you quickly clone HDD to larger or smaller SSD without installing systems and applications. And it offers multiple cloning modes to meet your different needs.

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How to clone a HDD to an SSD for free on Windows - PCWorld

Ian Wilmut, the British scientist who led the project that cloned a mammal for the first time, Dolly the sheep, shocking scientists who had thought that such a procedure was impossible, died on Sunday. He was 79.

The Roslin Institute, a research center near Edinburgh where Dr. Wilmut had worked for decades, said in a statement that the cause was complications of Parkinsons disease. It did not say where he died.

Dr. Wilmut and his team were catapulted into headlines worldwide in February 1997, when they announced their ovine subjects remarkable birth in the journal Nature.

Cloning from embryonic cells was already known to work; in 1995, Dr. Wilmut and his research partner, Keith Campbell, had swapped out the nuclei of two sheep embryos with those of two others, producing two identical ewes, Megan and Morag. (Dr. Campbell died in 2012.) But most scientists had thought it would be impossible to clone an animal using adult cells.

The problem, they said, was that an embryonic cell would accept only a nucleus from another embryo. It was Dr. Campbell who devised a solution: By taking a differentiated cell and starving it, he could essentially put it into hibernation, a state that would trick a receiving embryo into accepting it.

The work was rough going. Out of some 300 attempts, only one embryo proved viable. Dolly, named for the singer Dolly Parton, was born in July 1996. Dr. Wilmut decided to keep the news secret until he and Dr. Campbell were sure that she would survive infancy.

The announcement of Dollys birth was among the biggest news events of 1997, alongside the handover of Hong Kong from the British to China and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. It was met with a mixture of awe and anxiety, with politicians and medical ethicists calling for an immediate ban on human cloning.

Dr. Wilmut agreed. In the spring of 1997, he toured the United States, meeting with scientists, speaking to standing-room-only crowds and testifying before Congress.

His message was consistent: Human cloning should never, ever be permitted. He called the very prospect of it offensive, because of both the risk of birth defects and the fact that a clone would never be accepted as a full human being.

Human cloning has grabbed peoples imagination, but that is merely a diversion and one we personally regret and find distasteful, Dr. Wilmut wrote in The Second Creation: Dolly and the Age of Biological Control, which he published in 2000 with Dr. Campbell and Colin Tudge.

Dollys life seemed to play out some of the risks. Though she was able to bear lambs, she developed early-onset arthritis and exhibited other traits more commonly associated with older animals. After she developed a viral lung infection in 2003, veterinarians euthanized her.

Her stuffed body was put on display at the National Museum of Scotland later that year.

Shes been a friendly face of science, Dr. Wilmut said in an interview with The New York Times after Dollys death. She was a very friendly animal that was part of a big scientific breakthrough.

Ian Wilmut was born on July 7, 1944, in Hampton Lucy, a village near Stratford-upon-Avon, England. His parents, Leonard (also known as Jack) and Eileen (Dalgleish) Wilmut, were teachers.

He entered the University of Nottingham intending to become a farmer, but gave up after he realized that he was, he later said, helpless on tractors. A summer internship in an animal-science lab at Cambridge University persuaded him to try academic research instead.

After graduating with a degree in animal science in 1967, he went directly to Cambridge, where he received a doctorate in embryology in 1971; his dissertation was on freezing boar semen. He continued that work at the Animal Breeding Research Station, outside Edinburgh. (The facility became the Roslin Institute in 1993.)

In 1973, Dr. Wilmut and a team of scientists became the first to breed a calf from a frozen embryo, an achievement that revolutionized animal husbandry.

By the 1980s he had become more interested in the medical, rather than the commercial, applications of his work. His father had lived with diabetes, which left him blind for the last 30 years of his life, a family tragedy that drove Dr. Wilmut forward.

He and Dr. Campbell chose to work on sheep, they said, because in Scotland the animals are everywhere, and they are cheap. Their original goal was to create milk containing proteins used to treat human diseases and to make stem cells that could be used in regenerative medicine.

After the clamor around Dollys birth died down, Dr. Wilmut continued to research cloning. Despite his early opposition to working with human cells, in 2005 he received a license from the British government to clone human embryos in order to produce stem cells, with the understanding that the embryos would be destroyed before becoming viable.

But he soon gave up that work after a team of scientists in Japan found a way to develop stem cells without the use of embryos, a much more efficient process and one that relied directly on his own work.

Dr. Wilmut received a knighthood in 2008, an honor that was met with some protest by medical ethicists, who contended that his achievement was morally fraught, and by former colleagues who believed that other people, including Dr. Campbell, deserved more of the credit. He moved to the University of Edinburgh in 2005 and retired in 2012.

Dr. Wilmut married Vivienne Craven in 1967. She died in 2015. He is survived by his second wife, Sara; his son, Dean; his daughters, Naomi Wilmut and Helen Wilmut; and five grandchildren.

Dr. Wilmut revealed that he had Parkinsons disease in 2018. It was incidentally one of the conditions that he had envisioned his work addressing. He also said he would participate in a research program to test new types of treatments intended to slow the disease, which affects the part of the brain that controls movement.

It was from such a rich seedbed that Dolly developed, he told The Times in 2018, and we can hope for similar benefits in this project.

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Ian Wilmut, Scientist Behind Dolly the Cloned Sheep, Is Dead at 79 - The New York Times

Warning: Contains spoilers for Venom #25!Kang the Conqueror has a new power, chrono-cloningand it proves he is one of Marvels most ruthless villains. As one of Marvels premier time-travelers, Kang has a number of fantastic powers at his disposal, and in Venom #25, he showcases a brand new one: chrono-cloning. This mind-blowing new power is not only good for confusing opponents, but shows the depths of Kangs depravity as well.

Venom #25 is written by Al Ewing, drawn by Sergio Davila, Sean Parsons, Ken Lashley, Cafu and Julius Otha, colored by Frank DArmata and lettered by Clayton Cowles. Doctor Doom and Eddie Brock are tripping through time, and they arrive at Kangs ship. After Doom and Kang trade insults and barbs, Kang attacks Eddie Brockbut before he does, he creates three duplicates of himself. Doom recognizes what he is doing: he is chrono-cloning himself. This power involves Kang leaping back through time by a fraction of a second. Doing so creates a new timeline where he arrives next to his past self. He then repeats this process until he has created three new Kangs, each from their own newly-created timeline. However, the three other Kangs are no match for Eddie Brock. With their deaths, the real Kang remarks that he is his own worst enemyand he has three new timelines to conquer.

Related: Kang the Conqueror Gets His Own Iron Man Armor in Jaw-Dropping Upgrade

Since his first appearance nearly 60 years ago, Kang has been not only one of Marvels premier villains, but also an unmatched master of time travel. Hailing from the utopian 41st century, Kang grew bored with life in paradise, and sought worlds to conquer. As a result of his manipulations of the time stream, Kang has had numerous identities, including Immortus, Rama-Tut and the Scarlet Centurion. He possesses some of the most advanced time travel tech in the Marvel Universeand his only peer in this area may be another ruthless villain: Doctor Doom.

Yet, in Venom #25, Kang sets himself apart from the pack. Kangs fantastic new power of chrono-cloning can give him a serious advantage over his opponentsbut it comes with a price. The chrono-cloning process creates new timelines and Kangsbut these timelines are created for self-serving purposes, namely to confuse a foe. The clones that Kang creates have independent thought and seem to work as a cohesive unit, until the odds are downthen it becomes every Kang for himself. Once the danger has passed, and the other three Kangs are gone, the first thought the real deal has is that he has three timelines he can now conquer. With those timelines respective Kangs gone, they stand no chance against the real thing.

Kangs chrono-cloning power shows how low of a villain he is. The other Kangs created in the chrono-cloning process joined the real one in solidarity and to take down Eddie Brock and Doom. However, the real Kang double-crossed them almost instantly and flippantly dismissed them when they died; to add insult to injury he then conquers their timelines. Kang has shown a self-serving streak in the past, and the chrono-cloning process is the purest expression of this yet. It exists solely as a monument to his ego and his ruthlessness, and proves how evil a villain Kang the Conqueror is.

Venom #25 is on sale now from Marvel Comics!

Original post:

Kang the Conqueror's New Chrono-Clone Power Proves He's ... - Screen Rant

Star Wars characters once confined to the animated TV shows have been appearing in the live-action Mando-verse by the bushel. Theres Ahsoka, obviously, and her old friends Hera, Sabine, and Chopper from Rebels. But Rebels isnt where most fans know Ahsoka from; she made a name for herself as the spunky padawan at the center of The Clone Wars.

Because The Clone Wars was set decades ago, cameos from that era are looking extremely unlikely. However, a forgotten novel thrown out of the canon may provide a clever workaround to the inevitable problem of times passage.

In a flashback during Ahsoka Episode 5, a younger Anakin and Ahsoka find themselves in an old Clone Wars battle. At one point we briefly see Commander Rex, the clone trooper who became Ahsokas closest friend and ally. Fans were excited to see him appear in live-action, but the moment was a little underwhelming; theres no word of where he is in the Ahsoka timeline. Given that hes a clone soldier, he probably met his demise long ago, and that tiny little glimpse will be all we get.

Lost Legends is an Inverse series about the forgotten lore of our favorite stories.

Commander Rexs cameo in Ahsoka Episode 5.

The cloning process makes a Rex cameo in Ahsokas main story a very slim possibility. All of the Republics clone soldiers were created with advanced aging technology, which was great for speeding their troops through puberty but not so helpful when it came to enjoying a cozy retirement. Rex is simply too old to appear in Ahsoka... unless his advanced aging could somehow be reversed.

In the 2006 novel Republic Commando: Triple Zero by Karen Traviss, we meet the Null-class Advanced Recon Commandos, early clones of Jango Fett considered failures because they werent pliable. Basically, theyre the Bad Batch before The Bad Batch, and one of these clones, Mereel Skirata, made it his mission to take back his lifespan.

They used our genes against us, the ones that make us bond with our brothers, make us loyal, make us respect and obey our fathersthats what they manipulated to make us more likely to obey orders. They had to remove what made Jango a selfish loner, because that makes a bad infantry soldier, Mereel wrote to his brother, Ordo. Theres one thing I dont know yetand thats how they controlled the aging process. Thats the key. They robbed us of a full life span.

Mandalorian veteran Kai Skirata and his adopted clone sons Ordo and Mereel in Star Wars Insider #87.

Mereel tried to fix the problem with the help of kidnapped Kaminoan scientist Ko Sai, but Palpatine also sought Ko Sai to help with his own life-lengthening mission. Sad story short, Ko Sai met her demise, and Mereel never got his cure.

This story, or one like it, could be given a happier ending in canon. Perhaps, through a clone-focused show like The Bad Batch, we could finally see some clones unlock the lifespans they deserve, allowing them to age at the same rate as the rest of the galaxy. The lives of clone soldiers remain underexplored in Star Wars, and the prospect of more stories focused on them is tantalizing.

Throughout The Clone Wars, Ahsoka evolved from treating the clones as nothing more than a manufactured tool to seeing them as close friends, compatriots, and even family. They deserve to live to see Ahsoka achieve greatness, and Rex, who she saved from Order 66, deserves this most of all. The Republic may have robbed the clones of their lives, but the New Republic could help restore them.

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17 Years Later, a Forgotten Star Wars Invention Could Save a ... - Inverse