SCI/TECH: Koreans produce world's first cloned dog

Korean scientist successfully cloned the worlds first dog. The Afghan hound named Snuppy (short for Seoul National University puppy) was created using the cells from a 3 yr old male Afghan. The cloned canine is the latest in a string of cloned animals, including cats, goats, cows, mice, pigs, rabbits, horses, deer, mules and gaur, a large wild ox of Southeast Asia. Ian Wilmut, a reproductive biologist at the University of Edinburgh, who produced Dolly nearly a decade ago, says that increased number of cloned mammalian species point towards the possibility of a successfully cloned human.




This is sure to re-spark the controversial subject of cloning. I think it will hit a different place with the general public considering it is a common household pet that is now the subject of debate. I personally know people who believe animals, like dogs, have souls. This is trespassing into some very sensitive territory, IMO.

Below is a link to the first ever sale of a cloned pet:
www.msnbc.msn.com...



[edit on 3-8-2005 by mpeake]

[edit on 3-8-2005 by mpeake]

Apart from the obvious joke about Koreans eating dogs, this raises the spectre of pet owners paying to have their much loved deceased dogs cloned.

There's plenty of money to be made with this.

It's only a matter of time for cloned dogs start selling. They are already selling cloned cats.

I feel that this will lead to companies taking advantage of pet owners.

People are going to run to these clone clinics with the still-warm body of their beloved Spot.

They're going to pay 100,000 dollars or whatever, and then be mad in 5 years.

Why? Because you can clone from today till tomorrow and it's not the same dog. Not the same personality, probably not even the same looks.

If you really look into this you'll find most of the pet clone demands are to replace dead pets. And that just will not happen.

Same genetic makeup does not = restored life.

Bob Barker is going to be UPSET!!!! He's gonna have to modify the speach at thend of the "price is right" to include getting your cloned animals neutered and spayed.

Seriously though, I don't think cloning anything other than an endangered species should be allowed. Cloning common pets is wrong. There is no need and the Korean's were just showing off, if they wanted to do real "valuable" science then there are several endangered species that they could have cloned.

Ok, if even one person was denied entry into that university because they couldn't afford it and millions of dollars were spent to clone a damned dog then the researchers should be given the boot.

Hey... didn't Dolly die from premature aging at like 5 years old?

Has that been fixed or are they still encountering such problems?

... wheres putins skeleton? can we get DNA from it? eh? we need him back to lead Russia into destruction again... or maybe change it for the better....
i wonder if the koreans are making an army underground
can we clone spielberg and wish that the new 1 will have better ideas?
can the gov clone an alien? like some wierd thing that crashed in Roswell?
can we clone something but change something? like change some properties? clone a cat but make it mad at everything? or something like that?

[edit on 3-8-2005 by russiankid]

Here is Snuppy


Snuppy and his "dad". Photo: Scanpix/Reuters


Snuppy and his other "dad", Woo-Suk Hwang. Photo: ScanpixAP

Pictures are from this norwegian article...

Nice dog!

cue the "RePet" commercials..

can I get them with softer teeth, and in colors to complement my living room?

Pass a law that forces them to work on rejuvination first so all the old rich people can be made young again.

I'm hoping legislators in America start to realize (as some are) that they need to stop falling behind the rest of the world when it comes to cloning, and get on the bandwagon ASAP. If we go another five or ten years without doing anything, the rest of the world will have passed us by.:shk:

Cloning? Considering the current state of mankind, what makes us think that cloning would be any better? Can you just see 27 George Bush's running around? Like with most science, it is a nice idea on paper and in labs but in the hands of gov't leaders, it is just another crisis waiting in the wings.

This is sure to re-spark the controversial subject of cloning. I think it will hit a different place with the general public considering it is a common household pet that is now the subject of debate. I personally know people who believe animals, like dogs, have souls. This is trespassing into some very sensitive territory, IMO.

Are you implying clones wouldn't have souls? Clones are really nothing more than genetic matches of the source. In essence, not much different than natural twins except the way they were created. Suggesting a clone doesn't have a soul would be like suggesting a twin, or a test tube baby doesn't have one. Just from a logical standpoint. The overriding idea in most religions touting a "soul" is that it "inhabits" the body as a physical vessel. Why would a soul not choose a cloned body just as readily?

Can you just see 27 George Bush's running around?

While that is indeed, a disturbing thought, my greater worry would be:

1. Clones bred as soldiers (like the movie "Soldier"), not treated like humans.

2. Clones bred for "spare parts".

These two issues are really the darkest parts I see about cloning. Not to mention, what about ingrained memories, etc.? What if memory is (as many believe) carried on in a genetic level. Racial memory, etc. What if a clone starts seeing "memories" of the source? How would one handle that? Especially if those memories are disturbing?

[edit on 5-8-2005 by Gazrok]

double post

[edit on 5-8-2005 by mpeake]

I'm not implying anything. I'm saying the "soul" aspect of it is what seems to concern many of the religious naysayers. They use the term "playing God" because it is a common beleif that the natural born human body has a soul that was put there by God, and when you take "god" out of the equation, then where does the sould come from? And like I said before, there are those who feel that natural born dogs have souls, so therefore I threw them into the same catagory as the human controversy.

Not that I'm anti-religion or anything, but just how far down into the animal kingdom -- or for that matter into the plant kingdom -- do souls allegedly exist?

Originally posted by Hellmutt
Here is Snuppy


Snuppy and his "dad". Photo: Scanpix/Reuters


Snuppy and his other "dad", Woo-Suk Hwang. Photo: ScanpixAP

Pictures are from this norwegian article...

Nice dog!

Awwwwwwww! He's soooooo cute!

I used to be completely against cloning when it first came on the scene, what 10 years ago? (Public knowledge anyway....) Now I have warmed to it, and as long as it isn't used for harvesting organs and such, or other seemingly unethical purposes I really don't see anything wrong with it. I do seriuosly hope that they don't start offering to clone deceased pets, or at the very least that if they do, that they (whoever "they" winds up being) inform the person who wants to do it that it will not be the same animal, just an animal that looks like the original one. But that's just my opinion...

Clone is such a loaded word... How about we say "artificially created identical twin"? It's much more accurate. I think there's still misconceptions of what clones actually are. It's not like your creating a duplicate of a being, they'll have the same genes, but will grow up completely differently.

It's that whole nature v nurture argument... So, to take the example given earlier, if you created a bunch of George W. clones, they all wouldn't grow up to be like their cell donor. One might end up as a pacifistic, peacemaking world leader like a Nelson Mandela. Another might be an famous artist. Another might end up a drunk coke addict....oh wait. Well, you get my point.