Cloning: a giant step
For the first time, scientists have created dozens of cloned embryos from adult primates. But what are the implications of this technical breakthrough for the future of mankind?

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 12 November 2007
A technical breakthrough has enabled scientists to create for the first time dozens of cloned embryos from adult monkeys, raising the prospect of the same procedure being used to make cloned human embryos.

Attempts to clone human embryos for research have been dogged by technical problems and controversies over fraudulent research and questionable ethics. But the new technique promises to revolutionise the efficiency by which scientists can turn human eggs into cloned embryos.

It is the first time that scientists have been able to create viable cloned embryos from an adult primate – in this case a 10-year-old male rhesus macaque monkey – and they are scheduled to report their findings later this month.

The scientists will also demonstrate that they have been able to extract stem cells from some of the cloned embryos and that they have managed to encourage these embryonic cells to develop in the laboratory into mature heart cells and brain neurons.

Scientists who know of the research said it was the breakthrough that they had all been waiting for because, until now, there was a growing feeling that there might be some insuperable barrier to creating cloned embryos from adult primates – including humans.

rest of the article here:
http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3152325.ece

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personally I think they have been attempting to clone humans behind closed doors for years now...this does raise many questions...need a heart?...grow a new one from your clone...
new liver?...no problem....
if you've seen the movie The Island....it may be more prophetic than we know...

Hmmmmm,,,

Maybe that was me I saw downtown!!!

I want my heart to be grown on a pigs butt!!

I'd pay to have a new brain grown for you Fanta...

i wonder

what the life expectancy for a clone will be

is this a chance at eternal existance of your

concisenesses

if you clone an 80 year old

will they be able to but the clone in a young body

thus maybe living another 80 years

and doe the clone maintain the awareness and knowledge

of the subject donor

hhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

adj4u ...go to the video store and rent The Island...it is thought provoking...

Cloning a human being, or parts? This is something to be very afraid of. Is it that one can clone the heart and it becomes a heart? In how long? Is it where they can clone the whole human? That would be so very wrong. In so many ways. Then there is the "Stepford wives part to think about". People are going too far me thinks. A clone that I assume will have feelings and emotions...What about that? No parentage, to speak of.
What about cloning and brainwashing humans to do and think the way the government wants us to think? Don't like us? Make another one....that minds.
Kat