Clone that little bea$t of Your$

[teej]

The first cloned-to-order pet sold in the United States is named Little Nicky, a 9-week-old kitten delivered to a Texas woman saddened by the loss of a cat she had owned for 17 years. The kitten cost its owner $50,000 and was cloned from a beloved cat, named Nicky, that died last year. Nicky’s owner banked the cat’s DNA, which was used to create the clone.

“He is identical. His personality is the same,” the woman told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. She spoke on condition of anonymity because she said she fears being targeted by groups opposed to cloning. Yet while Little Nicky, who was delivered two weeks ago, frolics in his new home, the kitten’s creation and sale has reignited fierce ethical and scientific debate over cloning technology, which is rapidly advancing.

The company that created Little Nicky, Sausalito-based Genetic Savings and Clone, said it hopes by May to have produced the world’s first cloned dog — a much more lucrative market than cats. While it is based in the San Francisco Bay area, the company’s cloning work will be done at its new lab in Madison, Wis.

Commercial interests already are cloning prized cattle for about $20,000 each, and scientists have cloned mice, rabbits, goats, pigs, horses — and even the endangered banteng, a wild bull that is found mostly in Indonesia. Meanwhile, several research teams around the world are racing to create the first cloned monkey.

Aside from human cloning, which has been achieved only at the microscopic embryo stage, no cloning project has fueled more debate than the marketing plans of Genetic Savings and Clone. Animal rights activists complain that new feline production systems aren’t needed because thousands of stray cats are euthanized each year for want of homes.

Lou Hawthorne, Genetic Savings and Clone’s chief executive, said his company purchases thousands of ovaries from spay clinics across the country. It extracts the eggs, which are combined with the genetic material from the animals to be cloned.

Critics also complain that the technology is available only to the wealthy, that using it to create house pets is frivolous and that customers grieving over lost pets have unrealistic expectations of what they’re buying.

“The thing that many people do not realize is that the cloned cat is not the same as the original,” said Bonnie Beaver, a Texas A&M animal behaviorist who heads the American Veterinary Medical Association, which has no position on the issue. “It has a different personality. It has different life experiences. They want Fluffy, but it’s not Fluffy.” Scientists also warn that cloned animals suffer from more health problems than their traditionally bred peers and that cloning is still a very inexact science. It takes many gruesome failures to produce just a single clone.

Between 15 percent and 45 percent of cloned cats born alive die within the first 30 days, Hawthorne said. But he said that range is consistent with natural births, depending on the breed of cat.

Source: MSNBC

[Storm.]

people who clone are "playing god" eventually in some way this will backfire like everything else will - i.e. robots eventually i reckon 1nce 1 robot gets a "virus" then it will be just like terminator...

[NaughtyPerry]

whoa, if only i could have done that when my dog died after bein hit by a car But i got 2 springers and a gr8 dane now

[BADDOG]

It seems that we are going to be faced by many issues regarding cloning in the future.

There are so many moral, legal and other pitfalls regarding this technology but it is here to stay even if we don't particularly like it, like the bomb, this knowledge cannot be undone.

Regards & Seasons Greetings

[staffy bull]

picture this we were all clones...............nobody would be able to pwn me lol

[Hellfighter]

maybe you never heard about that sheep that was cloned it die and only live a short amount of time. only what right we have to try to do something without a error to it. it should be banned for the world.

if a liven thing is clone and it has a virus would the virus involve into something new be on what we can handle. people trying to look for a cheap way to easy and make money on something that will not last long and in the end only means pain of a life forum to what end? we don't know a lot about the DNA till we know all the fact should be hands off.

think the animal right be in a uproar about this one.

like so many things we have done in the pass there a good side of it and a bad side of it. science have back fire on the world it not funny jerks only looking to make money without thinking it all the way though.

[BeBop]

i honestly dont think

people trying to look for a cheap way to easy and make money on something

are going about it the right way if theyre using cloning to do it