How have humans begun cloning?
Cloning by people can range from the natural process of creating twins in a mother's belly, to creating genetically identical pets!
The first cloned animal was a sheep named Dolly. After lots of trial and error, Dolly was the first sheep to live as a clone. She was so precious that she even got to sleep inside like a pet instead of staying outdoors like the other sheep! Dolly was a great success for scientists involved in cloning research. They worked really hard to create her. Parents can read more about Dolly in the book After Dolly: The Uses and Misuses of Cloning which not only talks more about Dolly, but can help parents understand about the good and bad things about cloning. Dolly was remarkable because even though she was cloned, she had her own lambs naturally!
You're probably not as interested in sheep as you are cute puppies and kittens. Well, good news everyone! They have also successfully cloned pets like dogs and cats! Missyplicity was a project to clone people's pets starting with dog called Missy. It was successful, and a dog called Missytwo was created! Parents can find out more about pet cloning with the book Dog, INC. which goes over the search to clone a dog named Booger and more about pet cloning. However, people think that their pets' clones will be exactly identical, and this is not always the case. While Missy and Missytwo look alike, there are other examples of pets that look nothing like the original!
Cloning by people can range from the natural process of creating twins in a mother's belly, to creating genetically identical pets!
The first cloned animal was a sheep named Dolly. After lots of trial and error, Dolly was the first sheep to live as a clone. She was so precious that she even got to sleep inside like a pet instead of staying outdoors like the other sheep! Dolly was a great success for scientists involved in cloning research. They worked really hard to create her. Parents can read more about Dolly in the book After Dolly: The Uses and Misuses of Cloning which not only talks more about Dolly, but can help parents understand about the good and bad things about cloning. Dolly was remarkable because even though she was cloned, she had her own lambs naturally!
You're probably not as interested in sheep as you are cute puppies and kittens. Well, good news everyone! They have also successfully cloned pets like dogs and cats! Missyplicity was a project to clone people's pets starting with dog called Missy. It was successful, and a dog called Missytwo was created! Parents can find out more about pet cloning with the book Dog, INC. which goes over the search to clone a dog named Booger and more about pet cloning. However, people think that their pets' clones will be exactly identical, and this is not always the case. While Missy and Missytwo look alike, there are other examples of pets that look nothing like the original!
Clones are Not Always "Identical"
While the above picture shows some identical clones, this is more of a fluke than science. The process to create clones is very complicated and many times the cloned animal doesn't look like the original at all! Take, CC, the "copycat" who was cloned from Rainbow the calico cat. While she certainly makes an adorable kitten, we can agree that she doesn't look much like Rainbow. This is very disappointing for some pet owners who want their pets to look and act just like the original. Unfortunately, this isn't the case with cloning. Even Missytwo, the cloned dog, had a much more active personality than her genetically identical donor Missy.
Cloning for the better of Man/Animal Kind!
While some people only care about cloning to try to clone their pets, there are other uses to animal cloning that are more beneficial to the community and world at large. Some scientists are working on saving endangered species like the southern corroboree frog from Australia. Parents can help you read the recent news article on saving these and other endangered species here. The article talks about saving threatened species today through the use of cloning. It's amazing to think that these are university students leading the charge to save wildlife. In no time at all you might be university/college students yourselves!
|
Another way that cloning is helping the world is when dogs are cloned for highly desired traits. Maybe they have a super-sniffer that can help policemen, or maybe their nose can detect when someone is really sick. These sorts of dogs are service dogs. They have very important jobs and scientists in South Korea have begun cloning great examples of service dogs to create more dogs that will become great service dogs. These impressive cloned dogs are going to be put to use to sniff out the stuff that bad guys keep hidden. Have a parent click and read that link with you to learn more! Or Watch the video below to see some cloned puppies that are going to be trained to sniff out cancer!
|
Common Misunderstandings of Cloning
One of the common misunderstandings of cloning is that a clone will be full-grown when it is created. This is not the case! Clones start out as babies like kittens, puppies or sprouts and will have to grow up in order to be full grown. Just like the rest of us! It's hard to remember that clones have to grow up when TV shows always show clones popping out full grown. In the video below and on the Additional Reading page, Kim Possible's clones are full grown and have all of her abilities! This is not how cloning works. If you have a cloned puppy, don't expect it to know your dog's old tricks, you still have to teach them all over again.The same thing happens with "Too Many Pinkie Pies" in My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. Pinkie Pies clones are different parts of her personality and are full grown. Just like Missytwo wasn't exactly like Missy the original dog, a clone won't act exactly like the original. Also, some people think that it would really awesome to have a clone, but other people would never want a clone. In "Kimitation Nation" Shego refuses to be cloned! There are lot of things to consider with cloning and Shego would rather not have a copy of her walking around.
|
|