Hi all,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7246380.stm

Well? I have to say that I think that people cloning their fur family are wasting their money as the result will never be their beloved pet.

So...would you?

it would be lovely to have a pet back but as you pointed out it dosent work like that. plus when the clone died it would be like losing them again hence twice the pain...thats how i look at it anyway

I'm 100% with you on that one Joe- they're one offs which are a result of every experience in their lives and the outcome will never be identical twice.

Even if they could be identical I'm not sure that I'd want it to be this way.

It's a perfect example of some things that we CAN do being things that we SHOULDN'T do.

It's bad enough having them stuffed but cloning....weird.

When I worked for a previous rescue (not SDR), we had a lady that used to come down every weekend clutching the ashes of her dead dog searching for his "looky likey".

The dog was a crossbreed, perhaps a bit of collie in the mix somewhere, but pretty hard to establish the cross. The chances of this lady finding a looky likey duplicate was zero, but we had to humour the poor woman as she was devestated.

A few of the staff took her to one side and explained that there will never be another Fido, but she was obsessed with how the dog looked and the fact that a "looky likey" would have a completely different personality was irrelevant to her.

We even had to display Fido's portrait in the office.

Poor lady I hope she still isnt looking after all these years.

Id do it out of pure curiosity. Id be fascinated to see if the clone is similar in its behaviour to the original.

Jabbers, that's really interesting.

I have to say that cloning might go along way to dealing with the 'nature vs nurture' issue.

What a lot of people don't realsie is that the puppy will be born 'old' in genetic terms, the same age as the 'parent' was when the cells were taken that give rise to the clone. So, unless you do the sampling when Fido is a puppy, you'll end up with a clone that might be old before it's time. :(

So.. the genes that determine aging are already activated and aged even though the clone is a foetus?
Thats a cheat! I was rather hoping that the clone would start from square one as its "parent" did. Now thats a pity, I suppose thats what happened to Dolly? Didnt she age before her time?

So.. the genes that determine aging are already activated and aged even though the clone is a foetus?
Thats a cheat! I was rather hoping that the clone would start from square one as its "parent" did. Now thats a pity, I suppose thats what happened to Dolly? Didnt she age before her time?

Love to see Jabbers cloned wouldnt I ? Hundreds of Jabbers marching towards SF. (ooops, gets coat) :roll:

Love to see Jabbers cloned wouldnt I ? Hundreds of Jabbers marching towards SF. (ooops, gets coat) :roll:

Here you go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Caei2s1WM4


Im dissappointed about the aged genes I must say. There always seems to be there little pitfalls to science and its annoying.

it would be no good cloning your cat if it was a tortoieshell either because the two different colours are in different cells, they found that out with the first cloned cat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CC_%28cat%29

Dont need to clone mine- when one dies, it seems to be reborn in another - I don't know why this is but they definitely develop parts of my late cats' personalities, hence the barmy bengal has much of my favorite baby Felix's personality- the one who simply has to grab your attention, gets into all the scrapes and loves to be with people; Ashia has become the fluffy cuddly teddy-bear Oscar (aka 'Wolfie'); Amber is the gentle, any-thing for a quiet life Scarlet; Aero is definitely the attention-seeking highly vocal Skweek and Minty became my 'fresian presian' Sputnik -she even looks like her. The big bumbling wegie boy Charlie is a lot like Tigger (who was so much like his predecessor Tomas the stray who came in from the cold to live with us) and baby wegie Arnie is the reincarnation of my first wegie Aragorn, the one who died of anphylactic shock. It's uncanny.