Ever since Dolly the sheep was cloned eighteen years ago, scientists have been trying and failing to use that same technique to create cloned human embryos from adult cells. Now, they’ve finally succeeded, in what could a major step toward personalized organ transplants and other therapies that rely on a pool of stem cells.
This is a game changer, folks. Whereas mining stem cells has been either an ethical quandary or a months-long affair, scientist can now turn any old blood cells into stem cells in just 30 minutes—by dipping them in acid.
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A new report by the BBC reveals that China isn’t just experimenting with cloning—it’s doing it on an "industrial scale." Which is at best interesting and at worst more than a small cause for concern.
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The 2,500-year-old Ankerwycke Yew, which sits near a medieval nunnery in Southern England, has borne witness to some serious history. It shaded the King of England during the signing of the Magna Carta. It was a favorite meeting spot of Anne Boleyn and King Henry. And it’s likely going to see a whole lot more, after the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive finishes cloning it.
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They’ve already done it with frogs and sheep, so what’s to stop them from doing the same thing with trees?
I’m talking about cloning and how some people in the scientific community are turning to it to repopulate the earth with species that were once abundant before humans and other factors came and endangered their existence.
A non-profit group called Archangel Ancient Tree Archive is eager to jump-start reforestation programs of old trees before they become extinct. Described as group ”that locates and propagates the world’s largest and most iconic trees,” AATA will employ traditional and modern methods in the process.
The cloned trees will come from all over the world and will represent the “best” of old growth tree populations.
During this year’s Earth Day, the group planted and distributed redwood trees in Germany, Ireland, Wales, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia and the United States. Now this is one application of cloning that I have no qualms about.
Japanese researchers from the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology recently announced that they have cloned one mouse a total of 581 times. They did this by making clones, then making clones out of its clones and so on for 25 generations. The Nutcracker is screwed.
Original images by Karl Palutke and CJ Isherwood; resulting masterpiece by Lambert Varias
The researchers, who began their experiment back in 2005, used a technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer. That in itself is nothing new; in fact it’s the same technique that was used to clone the legendaryDolly the sheep. However, according to Live Science and the researchers themselves, repeated cloning was usually highly improbable, if not outright impossible, probably because successive clones had genetic defects in them. Interestingly enough, Dolly lived for only 6 years, even though domestic sheep live 10 to 12 years on average.
To counteract the defects, the Japanese used trichostatin, a histone deacetylase inhibitor or HDI. HDIs are compounds that stop certain genes from being expressed. As a result, not only is my nose bleeding because of all these advanced biology terms, the 581 mice clones (seen above) “were all fertile, they gave birth to healthy pups and lived a normal lifespan of about two years, similar to normally conceived mice.”
The leader of the research team Dr. Teruhiko Wakayama said that they hope their breakthrough could be used to make “superior quality animals” for conservation and agricultural purposes. All I know is that it is imperative that these people not get their hands on Jango Fett, or we’re all doomed.
[via RIKEN, Cell Stem Cell & Live Science via Popular Science]
When you think of cloning, you’ll probably either think of dolly, or maybe some sort of sci-fi clone army. German scientists, on the other hand, their minds hop to Christmas trees, and the hope that cloning can bring us all perfect ones forever. More »
Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days.
Are you reading this? Seriously, are you? Sure, we know you think you are, but what if you’re just a sub-feature of a complex computer program. A sprite, nothing more than the creation of software. The problem with this question is, how would you ever know? You wouldn’t, right? Well, not so fast there. Turns out, maybe there is a way to unravel the matrix (if there is one). It’ll come as no surprise, that this is one of the topics in this week’s collection of alternative stories. Think that’s all we got? Not even close. We’ll explore the truth behind cloning dinosaurs, as well a rare performance by singing mice — all before dinner. Or is it really dinner? This is alt-week.
Continue reading Alt-week 10.13.12: is the Universe a simulation, cloning dinosaurs and singing mice
Alt-week 10.13.12: is the Universe a simulation, cloning dinosaurs and singing mice originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Oct 2012 17:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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