Category Archives: Cloning

We all know our credit card information is under constant attack, but according to law enforcement, more criminals are using that information to make physical, fraudulent credit cards.

"The criminals who have bee doing this for a while, it's actually really easy," Detective Tim White, with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office Economic Crime Division, said. They're able to buy the different mechanisms to make the cards and to re-code the mag-strip that's on the back of the card."

Law enforcement just arrested 34-year-old Joandy Jimenez of Miami with 20 counterfeit cards at a gas station on Gunn Highway. He was using the cards to fill an illegal bladder with as much gasoline as he could.

According to White, the criminals can re-code old credit cards or prepaid debit cards. Some criminals have the ability to print brand new cards.

"They may even print a fake number on the front of it," he said.

White says some clerks are checking to see if numbers match after the card is swiped and new chip technology is making counterfeiting more difficult.

He says the most popular ways for criminals to get your information is through unsecured wifi connections, unprotected websites and skimmers at gas stations and ATMs.

He said the best way to keep from becoming a victim is to check your credit card and bank activity daily.

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Police warn of criminals cloning credit cards using stolen information ... - ABC Action News

David Milarch is on a quest to save California's coast redwoods, some of the world's oldest and largest living things; he may be saving the planet along the way.

There is nothing like a coast redwood. Sequoia sempervirens is the planets tallest tree, soaring to heights of more than 320 feet into the sky. They have trunks of more than 27 feet wide and can live for over 2,000 years. Some of the arboreal gentle giants living today were alive during the time of the Roman Empire.

Before the mid-19th century, coast redwoods spread throughout a range of some 2 million acres along the California coast, starting at Big Sur and stretching all the way into southern Oregon. People had been peacefully co-existing with the forests forever. But with the gold rush came the logging; today only 5 percent of the original old-growth coast redwood forest remains along a 450-mile strip of coast. And as the planet warms up, the specific conditions required by the redwoods change; their future doesn't look so great. Animals can migrate north to escape the south's warming temperatures and consequential habitat change; trees, not so much.

But with David Milarch on the case, maybe they can.

In 1991, Milarch, an arborist from Michigan, literally died from renal failure, before being revived and springing back to life. There's nothing like a near-death experience to inspire a new course in life, as was the case with Milarch. His new quest? To harvest the genetics of the coast redwoods and give them an assist in migration.

"I feel tremendous sorrow that 95 percent of them were killed and we didnt even know what they do to anchor our ability as human beings to live on this planet," says Milarch. "We killed them. Thats the bad news. Its my job when I walk through there [the forest] to yell out to those trees, to hold those trees, and say Im here to do everything in my power on Earth to bring all the human beings and all the help that I can to put this back. To put back every single tree that was cut down and killed. And Im going to do it."

By cloning and replanting them in places where they once thrived but were lost, he is not only increasing their numbers but planting them in locations where they have a better chance of longevity. And the result is two-fold: Save the trees and save the planet (for humankind, at least, the planet will go on with or without us, but you know what I mean). Redwood trees are among the most effective carbon sequestration tools in the world, notes Moving the Giants, Milarch takes part in a global effort to use one of natures most impressive achievements to re-chart a positive course for humanity.

To learn more about Milarch and the work he is doing, watch this wonderful short film. It might make you wonder if one can become an angel from a near-death experience alone.

For more on the project and how to help, visit Archangel Ancient Tree Archive.

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This man is cloning old-growth redwoods and planting them in safe places (video) - Treehugger

Instagram now has geostickers similar to those found on Snapchat. Why? Because parent company Facebook has apparently given its last fuck.

Instagram todayannouncedthe introduction of geostickers to Stories. When you post a new image to your Instagram Story, you can add a sticker of the locale it was taken. This is pretty much the same as Snapchats geostickers, only with subtle design differences.

TNW Conference won best European Event 2016 for our festival vibe. See what's in store for 2017.

Credit: Instagram

Since launching Stories, Instagram has not-so-secretly started poaching Snapchats best features. Since, the social app has seen an explosion of new users. Stories, in fact, mirrors Snaps so closely from text and emoji overlays to the single feed layout that Instagram may have slowed the growth of its rival service.

Snapchat first introduced geostickers last August. They functioned very similarly to Snapchats existing geofilters, which are region-specific filters you can put over your pictures.

Apparently, Instagrams explosion post-Snapchat-lite makeover is the reason Facebook is testing a similar Story feature for Facebook.

Currently, Instagram Stories only have stickers for New York and Jakarta, although theyre not available for all users yet.

New Geostickers in Instagram Stories for New York City and Jakarta on Instagram

Read next: Palo Alto startup predicts retail failure via satellite images

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Facebook gives zero fucks about cloning Snapchat, adds geostickers in Instagram - TNW

Organ Cloning

There are three primary types of cloning, (1) recombinant DNA technology or DNA cloning, (2) reproductive cloning, and (3) therapeutic cloning.

Therapeutic cloning is the one scientists hope will be successful for organ cloning. This would be done by extracting DNA from the person receiving the transplant that DNA is inserted into an enucleated egg. After the egg (now with the donors DNA) begins to divide, the embryonic stem cells are harvested. These are the cells that can be developed in to any type of cell. Those cells can can then be grown into the complete organ or tissue for the donor and will be a full genetic match (in theory). This organ cloning would eliminate the need for anti-rejection drugs than can cause some many problems with donor recipients.

There are still several obstacles to overcome before organ cloning is a reality. The technology for creating human embryos, harvesting stem cells, and producing organs from stem cells is not efficient.

Another possibility for organ cloning is to create genetically modified pigs from wich organs suitable for human transplants could be harvested. This kind of transplantation is called xenotransplanation since it is from animal to human. Although Primates are a closer match to humans, they are more difficult to clone and their reproduction rate is lower. Of the species that have been cloned to date, pigs create the organs most similar to humans.

The technical and moral debate over organ cloning will continue for years to come. It is almost certain that organ cloning will eventually become a reality in some countries.

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Organ Cloning

by: Liz Foster Updated: Mar 3, 2017 - 10:17 PM

WAXHAW, N.C. - A man accused of cloning credit cards and using them across the entire region is facing charges after being arrested in Louisiana.

Waxhaw police have been looking for Derrick Butler for several months.

(Butler)

They said he cloned a credit card belonging to a Waxhaw woman, used it at a Charlotte store and signed his real name.

Detectives got surveillance video from the store and matched the picture and signature to the one on his drivers license. Butler was charged with identity theft and credit card fraud.

Investigators believe Butler is part of a larger group of people who are cloning credit cards and using them across the entire middle part of the state.

They said the group may be cloning cards and using them across the Charlotte area.

Detectives told Channel 9 at one point, Butler and others were in the High Point areaand found in possession ofdozens of cloned cards.

The case is still under investigation and Waxhaw police are trying to identify at least one other person suspected of fraud. They're also trying to figure out how the credit cards were cloned.

Read more top trending stories onwsoctv.com:

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Waxhaw police: Man charged with credit card cloning - WSOC Charlotte

Scientists have managed to develop a mouse embryo structure using stem cells grown under laboratory conditions, according to findings published in the academic journal Science.

The cells then grew into primitive embryos that had identical internal structures to those that emerge under normal development in the womb.

Researchers hope to gain a deeper insight into how embryos develop just before implantation.

Getty

The development marks significant progress in embryo development as previously attempts to grow artificial cells had only had limited success.

Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, who led the team, said: Im looking at it as a miracle of nature as well as trying to understand the process. Its incredibly beautiful that we can begin to understand those forces that give rise to self-organisation during the earliest stage of development.

The embryos were developed from a combination of genetically modified mouse cells, known a master cells and a 3D scaffold, referred to as an extracellular matrix, where the cells could grow.

Prof Zernicka-Goetz said: Both the embryonic and extra-embryonic cells start to talk to each other and become organised into a structure that looks like and behaves like an embryo.

The research could eventually be useful in the understanding of miscarriages and infertility should the procedure be carried out on human cells.

One in six pregnancies end in miscarriage, though there is still no explicit answer to how this happens.

Getty

She said: If we can translate the knowledge into humans it will be incredibly powerful for understanding our own development at a stage when many human lives are lost.

However researchers said although the artificial embryo closely resembles a natural one, it is unlikely to develop further into a healthy mouse foetus. This would require a yolk sac, which provides nourishment for the embryo and where blood vessels develop.

Experiments are currently legally carried out on leftover human embryos from In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF), but these can only be held for a maximum of 14 days under legal frameworks.

Getty

The outcome of the experiment has also been criticised by some concerned that it may pave the way for genetically modified (GM) humans.

Dr David King, the Director of Human Genetics Alert, said: What concerns me about the possibility of artificial embryos is that this may become a route to creating GM or even cloned babies.

Until there is an enforceable global ban on those possibilities this kind of research risks doing the scientific groundwork for entrepreneurs who will use the technologies in countries with no regulations.

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'Miracle of nature' Scientists a step closer to HUMAN CLONING after creating mouse embryos - Express.co.uk

Cloning is making news again. Last week saw the 20th anniversary of a University of Edinburgh research teams announcement of the first successful cloning of a mammal from an adult cell Dolly the sheep.

The accomplishment made headlines worldwide for its audacity. The United Kingdom-based TechRadar website has a quick, clear recap:

She was a perfectly normal sheep in every way, except that she was an exact genetic copy of another one. ... Her creation was a biological triumph. Before Dolly, it was believed that animals could only be produced when an egg cell is fertilised by a sperm cell. ...

Dolly was created in a different way a process that biologists call somatic cell nuclear transfer. No sperm is involved instead, you use a body cell from an adult animal that you want to clone, and an egg cell. Remove the nucleus from both, pop the one from the body cell into the now-empty egg cell, and you get a cell that's ready to begin doubling. Zap it with some electricity and it'll start dividing.

The first cat was cloned in 2001 and the first dog in 2005. Now pet cloning is a fairly big business, with plenty of companies making pitches like this one from ViaGen:

A beloved pet is much like a family member. The unique life-enriching bond, the love and companionship a truly special pet provides us a unique sense of comfort and life-enriching fulfillment which is nearly impossible to extend beyond your pets natural lifespan. Until now.

But mammal cloning has had one of its biggest effects on an obscure corner of the sports world. In 2015, Vanity Fair explainedhow Argentine polo champion Adolfo Cambiasos 2007 loss of his beloved Aiken Cura, a white-faced chestnut stallion, led him to team with wealthy Texas entrepreneur Alan Meeker to have cloning revolutionize his sport.

Cambiaso had a veterinarian puncture his horses neck to get a tissue sample in the vague hope of bringing him back somehow.

Now he makes millions of dollars from cloned horses and regularly sees his old Aiken Cura model.

Cambiaso, Vanity Fair reports, is ...

... surprisingly shy. Walking across the Palermo polo field, where hes come to watch his oldest daughter play, he speaks in short spurts, as if he would rather not be talking to a stranger. Staring into the distance, he says, Today, seeing these clones is more normal for me. But seeing Cura alive again after so many years was really strange. Its still strange. Thank goodness I saved his cells.

In December, Cambiaso rode six clones of the same horsein the Palermo polo tournament in Buenos Aires to help his team win one of the sports biggest events. His company Crestview Genetics raises the cloned horses in Argentina and South Carolina and is now producing clones of Storm Cat, a descendant of Secretariat and the great-grandfather of 2015 Triple Crown champion American Pharoah. But they wont be showing up at the Kentucky Derby. Thoroughbred racing bans clones.

Lately, however, advances in the CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing tool and the way the technology has become far cheaper and more available make cloning feel tame and ho-hum to those who follow science blogs. The Singularity Hub website posted a storythis week about David Ishee, a Mississippi man with a GED degree who breeds gene-edited dogs and wants to use CRISPR to improve dogs health. (Because of severe in-breeding, dogs have the most genetic diseasesof any species.) The story said:

Youd think that to tweak the genome of an animal, some serious training and education would be necessary maybe a post-graduate biology degree or several years working in the lab of a large genetics company.

But in a prime example of both the democratization and demonetization of technology, Ishee taught himself to do genetic engineering right in his own backyard shed, using a kit and some DNA he ordered online. ...

That experimentation could just as easily be done by our next-door neighbor as by a government agency [is] an idea that will take some getting used to. As Ishee put it:

When you think about genetic engineering, you think of Ph.D.s in white coats working in multimillion-dollar labs. The idea of a dog breeder in rural Mississippi doing genetic engineering in his shed is insane. But thats how you know youre in the future, right?

Ishees next project editing the genes of dalmatians to limit their susceptibility to a deadly bladder ailment is on hold. In January, the FDA issued a directiveon genetic engineering that included a ban on editing the genomes of animals.

So humanity realizes the stakes at hand, and wont rush into an era in which animal gene-editing inevitably morphs into human gene-editing and designer babies, right?

Well, no. Scientists in China have been editing human genomesfor at least two years, using what The Verge described as non-viable human embryos that were incapable of growing into adults to see if they can edit out genes that are linked to a deadly blood disorder and to add a mutation to genomes to promote resistance to HIV. Last year, the United Kingdom also gave the go-ahead to similar experiments. And two weeks ago, a 21-member committee jointly created by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine recommended the U.S. eventually allow human genetic engineering, but only to prevent babies from being born with diseases or disabilities.

If David Ishee can design dogs in his shed, does anyone really think human baby designing isnteventually going to be an immense phenomenon, with or without the governments blessing? If CRISPR can be used not just to prevent babies from being born with medical problems but to reduce their genetic predisposition to many diseases later in life, many millions of parents would want that for their children. And while the designers are at it, why not also nice teeth, enhanced intelligence and physical strength and a facial-structure gene or two from Beyonc or Jon Hamm available at a future genetic stock market in Hong Kong or Singapore? Or from a future genetic black market in the dark corners of the Internet?

Which brings us back to Cambiaso and his beloved Aiken Cura: Not just attractive people but elite athletes and geniuses may start thinking about having people puncture their necks to get tissue samples or start worrying about criminals taking a slice. Theres gold in them thar genes.

Reedis the Union-Tribunes deputy editorial and opinion editor. Twitter: @chrisreed99. If you have an idea for a topic that lends itself to this kind of treatment, please send it to chris.reed@sduniontribune.com.

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From cloning Dolly the sheep in a lab to gene editing dogs in a shed: progress? - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Dolly the Sheep in a field at The Roslin Institute.

Cloning is the process of taking genetic information from one living thing and creating identical copies of it. The copied material is called a clone. Geneticists have cloned cells, tissues, genes and entire animals.

Although this process may seem futuristic, nature has been doing it for millions of years. For example, identical twins have almost identical DNA, and asexual reproduction in some plants and organisms can produce genetically identical offspring. And scientists make genetic doubles in the lab, though the process is a little different.

There are three different types of cloning, according to the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI):

In gene cloning, a genetic engineer extracts DNA from an organism and then uses enzymes to break the bonds between nucleotides (the basic building blocks of DNA) and snip the strand into gene-size pieces, according to the University of Nebraska.

Plasmids, small bits of DNA in bacterial cells, are combined with the genes. Then, they are transferred into living bacteria. These bacteria are allowed to grow into colonies to be studied. When a colony of bacteria containing a gene of interest is located, the bacteria can be propagated to make millions of copies of the plasmids. Then, the plasmids can be extracted for gene modification and transformation.

Gene modification, or gene design, is when a genetic engineer cuts the gene apart and replaces regions of it with new material. Transformation is the step in which the new genetic material is transferred to a new organism, which changed it genetically. The organism, such as a plant, is grown, and the seeds they produce have inherited the new genetic properties.

Reproductive cloning

In reproductive cloning, a genetic engineer removes a mature somatic cell (any cell except for reproductive cells) from an organism and transfers the DNA into an egg cell that has had its own DNA removed, according to the NHGRI. Then, the egg is jump-started chemically to start the reproductive process. Finally, the egg is implanted into the uterus of a female of the same species as the egg.

The mother gives birth to an animal that has the same genetic makeup as the animals that donated the somatic cell. This was the process that produced Dolly the sheep.

Therapeutic cloning

Therapeutic cloning works in a similar way to reproductive cloning. A cell is taken from an animal's skin and is inserted into the outer membrane of a donor egg cell. Then, the egg is chemically induced so that it creates embryonic stem cells. These stem cells can be harvested and used in experiments aimed at understanding diseases and developing new treatments. [Infographic: How Stem Cell Cloning Works]

The first study of cloning took place in 1885, when German scientist Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch began researching reproduction. In 1902, he was able to create a set of twin salamanders by dividing an embryo into two separate, viable embryos, according to the Genetic Science Learning Center. Since then, there have been many breakthroughs in cloning.

In 1958, British biologist John Gurdon cloned frogs from the skin cells of adult frogs. On July 5, 1996, a female sheep gave birth to the now-famous Dolly, a Finn Dorset lamb the first mammal to be cloned from the cells of an adult animal at the Roslin Institute in Scotland.

"The birth of Dolly and the new understanding of the opportunity to change the functioning of cells made researchers consider other possible ways of modifying cells," Ian Wilmut, the scientist who led the team that created Dolly, told Live Science.

Since Dolly, many more animal clones have been born, and the process is becoming more mainstream. Research has also been conducted on human-cell cloning. In 2013, scientists at Oregon Health and Science University took donor DNA from an 8-month-old with a rare genetic disease and successfully cloned human embryonic stem cells for the first time. Unfortunately, the researchers didn't remove the cells to save the child. The project was to prove that mature donor cells could be used to produce new ones. This research has evolved into using stem cells for many different applications, including hair regrowth, treatments for burns and more.

Several companies are currently providing services that use cloning technology. For example, South Korea-based Sooam Biotech clones pets for around $100,000. And a Texas-based company, Viagen Pets, clones cats for $25,000 and dogs for $50,000.

Even plants are being cloned. One company is cloning maple trees to provide lumber for guitar-makers, with the aim of duplicating a quality in the wood, called figuring, that gives a guitar a sort of shimmering appearance.

There are many other applications for cloning. The movie "Jurassic Park" stirred the public's imagination and asked the question, "Can we use cloning to bring back extinct species through cloning?" For this process to be successful, scientists would need living DNA from the extinct animal and a living animal egg that is closely related to the extinct creature.

On July 30, 2003, a group of scientists led by Jose Folch at the Center of Food Technology and Research of Aragon, in northern Spain, brought back an extinct wild goat called a bucardo, or Pyrenean ibex. The cloned animal lived for only 10 minutes, according to National Geographic, but the scientists proved that an extinct animal could be brought back. Researchers at Harvard are currently working to clone woolly mammoths, and they say they should be able to do so by 2019.

While cloning a human is currently illegal in most parts of the world, cloning stem cells from humans is a very promising field of research. Stem cells can be reprogrammed to become any type of cell needed to repair or replace damaged tissue or cells in the body. Stem cell research has the potential to help people who have spinal injuries and other conditions.

Another area of research, the cloning of hair follicles, began more than a decade ago. It's just one potential application of human-cell cloning: treating hair loss. "We have learned recently that human hair cells lose their potential to multiply when expanded in cell cultures in a petri dish," said Ken L. Williams Jr., a surgeon and founder of Orange County Hair Restoration and author of "Hair Transplant 360: Follicular Unit Extraction" (Jp Medical Ltd., 2015). "Global gene expression analysis of the human hair follicle, however, has revealed that a special 3D spheroid culture may be able to allow cloning of hair cells in the future years. By manipulating the environment that the human hair cells grow, induction or expansion of hair cells occurs."

Another example of practical human-cell cloning is to use stem cells to help burns heal. A biotech company, RenovaCare, has created what it calls the CellMist System. In this process, stem cells are applied to the burned area on the patient, and that application triggers new skin-cell growth. Though it's still experimental, this process could help burn victims heal faster and experience less scarring.

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Facts About Cloning - Live Science

Its been 20 years since scientists in Scotland told the world about Dolly the sheep, the first mammal successfully cloned from an adult body cell. What was special about Dolly is that her parents were actually a single cell originating from mammary tissue of an adult ewe. Dolly was an exact genetic copy of that sheep a clone.

Dolly captured peoples imaginations, but those of us in the field had seen her coming through previous research. Ive been working with mammalian embryos for over 40 years, with some work in my lab specifically focusing on various methods of cloning cattle and other livestock species. In fact, one of the coauthors of the paper announcing Dolly worked in our laboratory for three years prior to going to Scotland to help create the famous clone.

Dolly was an important milestone, inspiring scientists to continue improving cloning technology as well as to pursue new concepts in stem cell research. The endgame was never meant to be armies of genetically identical livestock: Rather, researchers continue to refine the techniques and combine them with other methods to turbocharge traditional animal breeding methods as well as gain insights into aging and disease.

Not the Usual Sperm + Egg

Dolly was a perfectly normal sheep who became the mother of numerous normal lambs. She lived to six and a half years, when she was eventually put down after a contagious disease spread through her flock, infecting cloned and normally reproduced sheep alike. Her life wasnt unusual; its her origin that made her unique.

Before the decades of experiments that led to Dolly, it was thought that normal animals could be produced only by fertilization of an egg by a sperm. Thats how things naturally work. These germ cells are the only ones in the body that have their genetic material all jumbled up and in half the quantity of every other kind of cell. That way when these so-called haploid cells come together at fertilization, they produce one cell with the full complement of DNA. Joined together, the cell is termed diploid, for twice, or double. Two halves make a whole.

From that moment forward, nearly all cells in that body have the same genetic makeup. When the one-cell embryo duplicates its genetic material, both cells of the now two-cell embryo are genetically identical. When they in turn duplicate their genetic material, each cell at the four-cell stage is genetically identical. This pattern goes on so that each of the trillions of cells in an adult is genetically exactly the same whether its in a lung or a bone or the blood.

In contrast, Dolly was produced by whats called somatic cell nuclear transfer. In this process, researchers remove the genetic material from an egg and replace it with the nucleus of some other body cell. The resulting egg becomes a factory to produce an embryo that develops into an offspring. No sperm is in the picture; instead of half the genetic material coming from a sperm and half from an egg, it all comes from a single cell. Its diploid from the start.

Long Research Path Led to Dolly

Dolly was the culmination of hundreds of cloning experiments that, for example, showed diploid embryonic and fetal cells could be parents of offspring. But there was no way to easily know all the characteristics of the animal that would result from a cloned embryo or fetus. Researchers could freeze a few of the cells of a 16-cell embryo, while going on to produce clones from the other cells; if a desirable animal was produced, they could thaw the frozen cells and make more copies. But this was impractical because of low success rates.

Dolly demonstrated that adult somatic cells also could be used as parents. Thus, one could know the characteristics of the animal being cloned.

By my calculations, Dolly was the single success from 277 tries at somatic cell nuclear transfer. Sometimes the process of cloning by somatic cell nuclear transfer still produces abnormal embryos, most of which die. But the process has greatly improved so success rates now are more like 10 percent; its highly variable, though, depending on the cell type used and the species.

More than 10 different cell types have been used successfully as parents for cloning. These days most cloning is done using cells obtained by biopsying skin.

More Than Genes Can Affect a Clone

Genetics is only part of the story. Even while clones are genetically identical, their phenotypes the characteristics they express will be different. Its like naturally occurring identical twins: They share all their genes but theyre not really exactly alike, especially if reared in different settings.

Environment plays a huge role for some characteristics. Food availability can influence weight. Diseases can stunt growth. These kinds of lifestyle, nutrition or disease effects can influence which genes are turned on or off in an individual; these are called epigenetic effects. Even though all the genetic material may be the same in two identical clones, they might not be expressing all the same genes.

Consider the practice of cloning winning racehorses. Clones of winners sometimes also will be winners but most of the time theyre not. This is because winners are outliers; they need to have the right genetics, but also the right epigenetics and the right environment to reach that winning potential. For example, one can never exactly duplicate the uterine conditions a winning racehorse experienced when it was a developing fetus. Thus, cloning champions usually leads to disappointment. On the other hand, cloning a stallion that sires a high proportion of race-winning horses will result very reliably in a clone that similarly sires winners. This is a genetic rather than a phenotypic situation.

Even though the genetics are reliable, there are aspects of the cloning procedure that mean the epigenetics and environment are suboptimal. For example, sperm have elegant ways of activating the eggs they fertilize, which will die unless activated properly; with cloning, activation usually is accomplished by a strong electric shock. Many of the steps of cloning and subsequent embryonic development are done in test tubes in incubators. These conditions are not perfect substitutes for the female reproductive tract where fertilization and early embryonic development normally occur.

Sometimes abnormal fetuses develop to term, resulting in abnormalities at birth. The most striking abnormal phenotype of some clones is termed large offspring syndrome, in which calves or lambs are 30 or 40 percent larger than normal, resulting in difficult birth. The problems stem from an abnormal placenta. At birth, these clones are genetically normal, but are overly large, and tend to be hyperinsulinemic and hypoglycemic. (The conditions normalize over time once the offspring is no longer influenced by the abnormal placenta.)

Recent improvements in cloning procedures have greatly reduced these abnormalities, which also occur with natural reproduction, but at a much lower incidence.

Continuing Onward With Cloning

Many thousands of cloned mammals have been produced in nearly two dozen species. Very few of these concern practical applications, such as cloning a famous Angus bull named Final Answer (who recently died at an old age) in order to produce more high-quality cattle via his clones sperm.

But the cloning research landscape is changing fast. The driving force for producing Dolly was not to produce genetically identical animals. Rather researchers want to combine cloning techniques with other methods in order to efficiently change animals genetically much quicker than traditional animal breeding methods that take decades to make changes in populations of species such as cattle.

One recent example is introducing the polled (no horns) gene into dairy cattle, thus eliminating the need for the painful process of dehorning. An even more striking application has been to produce a strain of pigs that is incapable of being infected by the very contagious and debilitating PRRS virus. Researchers have even made cattle that cannot develop Mad Cow Disease. For each of these procedures, somatic cell nuclear transplantation is an essential part of the process.

To date, the most valuable contribution of these somatic cell nuclear transplantation experiments has been the scientific information and insights gained. Theyve enhanced our understanding of normal and abnormal embryonic development, including aspects of aging, and more. This information is already helping reduce birth defects, improve methods of circumventing infertility, develop tools to fight certain cancers and even decrease some of the negative consequences of aging in livestock and even in people. Two decades since Dolly, important applications are still evolving.

George Seidelis aprofessor of biomedical science atColorado State University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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20 Years After Dolly: Cloning Past, Present and Future - KQED

(Picture: BBC)

EastEnders could be set to turn sci-fi as fans may have discovered the first hints of a shocking CLONING storyline which will see Max Branning deploy ANDROIDS disguised as background character Tracey the barmaid in his bid to take over Albert Square.

The shocking turn of events will see the schemer, who we have already seen plotting to bring down the Queen Vic, create an army of Traceys which will leave the Carters and the rest of the community quivering with fear.

The plan is genius in its execution as no-one ever notices silent Tracey, it will be too late by the time characters realise that the Square is actually overrun with clones of the dutiful pint puller. But in a heart-stopping twist, Maxs best laid plans were nearly destroyed when Tracey actually spoke. Luckily, the Tracey that Shirley was talkingwith was the genuine article and Max breathed a sigh of relief.

While the characters are oblivious to Maxs slow burning plan, savvy fans and press have already spotted it coming to fruition. As while the real Tracey was talking with Shirley in the Vic, one of the cunningly placed droids was immersed in the pancake race crowd outside. And who knows how many others are lurking about?

And disaster soon struck when Ian Beale took a funny turn, collapsing to the ground after feeling dizzy during the race. Could this have been the work of Tracey Clone Unit TX13-40Y?

An EastEnders source whispered to us: We are very keen to preserve the secrecy of this storyline, but suffice to say we are working in conjunction with the Doctor Who team to create an explosive and pretty hypnotic series of twists for fans.

Maxs shocking plan to clone Tracey may not have gone unnoticed by fans but it will strike the heart of the Walford community without warning and soon, they will realise that incidents such as the bus crash and the materialisation of devil incarnate Keegan are all connected. Traceys clones are powerful forces to be reckoned with and Max may be about to win this war.

It is thought that actress Jane Slaughter will soon find herself appearing several times in all scenes, meaning that the extra will become the busiest member of the soap cast.

Rumours of this creating disharmony among the rest of the actors have been blown out of proportion, although an on set mole has suggested that many werent happy that Tracey the Barmaid will soon utter the iconic line: Get outta my pub! to the Carters while flanked by Max and 30 of her clones.

DISCLAIMER: We may be taking the piss ever so slightly. The real story is that Tracey appeared in two scenes in a row but given that soap episodes arent filmed in real time, this isnt really a massive issue. Let Tracey enjoy the pancake race.

MORE: EastEnders spoilers: Keegan exacts a cruel porn video revenge on teen Bex Fowler with huge consequences

MORE: EastEnders spoilers: What is wrong with Ian Beale as he suffers a shock collapse?

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EastEnders spoilers: Max Branning to clone Tracey the barmaid in his bid to take over Walford? - Metro