No Harvard Cave Baby.....Bad Translation.

I must have missed this one, but this is what the the online magazine Britian's Daily Mail ran recently:

• “Wanted: ‘Adventurous Neanderthal man — Harvard professor seeks mother for cloned cave baby

Geneticist George Church  the Harvard scientist in the middle of this mess says that the story was completely untrue!    Church said that the real story centers around an article he was interviewed for in the German magazine Der Spiegel in which he said that:

• such a cloning might theoretically be possible someday  

Whoever wrote the article for Britain's Daily Mail mis-translated the article and came to the conclusion that Church was actively looking for a woman to host a child from the DNA scrapings of Neanderthal bones.  

Church goes on to say that he wasn't even involved in the gene sequencing!  In fact, he goes on to say, his line of research is in how to use DNA to improve health, produce synthetic fuels, and other products, not cloning ancient humans!

Full Boston Herald article

Photo George M. Church

Stem Cells to Brain Cells?!

Lets talk about weird cloning in the Dolly world....
Hell that didn't even make sense to me! So lets se if I can unravel it a bit.

Scientists at the Centre for Regenerative Medicine were able to make brain cells using stem cells from people suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses. Why? To study the neurons and specifically to look at standard psychological medicines, such as lithium, to see how they affect these cells in the laboratory.

It seems that many of the drugs used to treat mental illness are well documented as to their effication but little is truly known as to how the drugs actually affects the brain cells of the patient.

The article goes on to say

• Scientists also hope to work on multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease and motor neuron disease.

Is It Possible to Clone a Mammoth?

Jurassic Park's science may have been fundamentally flawed, but the idea refuses to die!

Akira Iritani, a professor at Kyoto University seems to think so. Using techniques pioneered in 2008 by Dr. Teruhiko Wakayama, of the Riken Centre for Developmental Biology, Dr Iritani will again try to resurrect the species that died out 5,000 years ago. He will use Dr Wakayama's methods to identify viable mammoth cells. These cells nuclei will then be inserted into the egg cells of an African elephant, which will act as the surrogate mother for the mammoth. If successful, we could see living mammoth in as early as four year!

Read complete article here

The Clone Song

Have you ever see this? Its the Clone Song rumor has it that it was written by the good doctor himself. Found a copy....Wonder if John could voice this? lol

The Clone Song

By: Isaac Asimov

Tune: Home On The Range

Oh, give me a clone

Of my own flesh and bone

With its Y chromosome changed to X.

And after it's grown,

Then my own little clone

Will be of the opposite sex.

Clone, clone of my own,

With its Y chromosome changed to X.

And when I'm alone

With my own little clone

We will both think of nothing but sex.

Oh, give me a clone,

Is my sorrowful moan,

A clone that is wholly my own.

And if she's X-X,

And the feminine sex,

Oh, what fun we will have when we're prone.

Clone, clone of my own,

With its Y chromosome changed to X.

And when I'm alone

With my own little clone

We will both think of nothing but sex.

My heart's not of stone,

As I've frequently shone

When alone with my own little X.

And after we've dined,

I am sure we will find

Better incest then Oedipus Rex.

Clone, clone of my own,

With its Y chromosome changed to X.

And when I'm alone

With my own little clone

We will both think of nothing but sex.

Why should such sex vex,

Or disturb or perplex,

Or induce a disparaging tone?

After all, don't you see,

Since we're both of us me,

When we're having sex, I'm alone.

Clone, clone of my own,

With its Y chromosome changed to X.

And when I'm alone

With my own little clone

We will both think of nothing but sex.

And after I'm done

She will still have her fun,

For I'll clone myself twice ere I die.

And this time without fail,

They'll be both of them male,

And they'll each ravage her by and by.

Clone, clone of my own,

With its Y chromosome changed to X.

And when I'm alone

With my own little clone

We will both think of nothing but sex.

Scientists cloning endangered Amami rabbit

It's no secret that cloning has been in the news and public imagination for years and in Science Fiction even longer. All manner of animals have been attempted, from frogs to sheep with varying degrees of success. Of late, talk about reviving extinct animals has gained some interest with the success in extracting DNA material from extinct mammoths in the hope that this material will someday be enough to clone the entire animal. Lost in the fray has been the animals that are not extinct but certainly are teetering on the edge. Now comes news of plans to clone the Amami rabbit.

According to Pink Tentacle: The Amami rabbit (Pentalagus furnessi) is a nocturnal, forest-dwelling “primitive” rabbit with dark fur, short legs, large curved claws and small ears. Found only on the islands of Amami-Ōshima and Toku-no-Shima, it is sometimes called a “living fossil” for its resemblance to ancient rabbits that once inhabited the Asian mainland. The Amami rabbit’s dwindling population — now estimated at between 2,000 and 5,000 — has earned it a spot on Japan’s endangered species list.

Scientists at Osaka’s Kinki University have cloned an embryo of the endangered rabbit and are awaiting its birth. If successful, the Amami will join a small but growing group of endangered animals that have been cloned with varying degrees of success.

Of course cloning bring with it the concerns of environmental impact. One concern that I have is that even succeeding there is still great danger of loss of the animal group. One item that must be addressed is genetic diversity. Without a healthy gene pool, no matter how large the population, there is still risk of loss when the animal can no longer adapt or fight off disease.

[Source: Asahi] via pink tentacle

Mice cloned after 16-yr freeze

Pink tentacle runs an article that at the very least shows hope for suspended animation. Though this discovery doesn't deal directly with animals resuscitated after freezing but equally exciting. A RIKEN research team successfully demonstrated a promising new cloning technique by replicating frozen laboratory mice whose cells were severely damaged after 16 years in permafrost-like conditions (-20 degrees Celsius). The technique might one day be used to resurrect mammoths and other extinct species, according to the researchers. The cloned mice grew to maturity and bred healthy offspring.

Future Dialysis Machine: Sheep?!

I swear that IO9 online loves to find material that does more than get you thinking - no, it's more like something to deeply disturb. Example? Well lets just say that if you were disturbed by Dolly the clone, then your going to love the next generation of Dialysis Machines - transgenic sheep. Oh I know, it's got prank all over it, but IO9 goes to lengths to inform and disturb. Meet the transgenic dialysis machine - a live sheep. The idea is Revital Cohen's brain child for the final project at the Design Interactions Department which came to the attention of We Make Money not Art and ultimately IO9. (Why do I list everyone's path, well, each has their own unique take on this project, plus there is a wealth of back information) The idea was to breed transgenic sheep that would graze all day, cleansing their blood of toxins and adding minerals and glucose - and at night, the transgenic sheep's kidneys are connected via blood lines to the patient. During the night, waste products from the patient's blood are pumped out of the body, filtered through the sheep's kidney and the blood is returned, cleaned, to the patient. Another of "Life Support"'s projects aims to use greyhounds as artificial lungs for patients who require ventilators to breathe. The device works by strapping a bellows to a retired racing dog (one that would be euthanized anyway) and having it chase a bunny while on a treadmill. As the dog runs, it's increased lung movements pump the bellows, providing air for a human patient.


I can see science fiction written all over this stuff. Realistically people like PETA would have a fit and there are practical concerns that really are not addressed but whooohooooo Brave New World acommin!

Cloneburger with cheese, please

After more than five years of study, the Food and Drug Administration concluded that cloned livestock is "virtually indistinguishable" from conventional livestock. FDA believes "that meat and milk from cattle, swine and goat clones is as safe to eat as the food we eat every day. said Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine.

Hummmm seems the operative words here is as safe to eat as the food we eat every day.

But this is further evidence to support my claim that Ronald MacDonald is really a clone....yeah thats the ticket....