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First Cloned Human Embryo
Human cloning, or at least the production of human embryos, is no longer hypothetical; a company called Advanced Cell Technology claims to have successfully done just that. DivideX0 writes: "The Scientific American has this article. Note the research was conducted in the U.S. although there are bills pending in Washington that will ban this research." There's also a story at MSNBC. Update: 11/25 16:07 GMT by T : Here's ACT's press release as well.
They didn't use stem cells. That's something else but related.
... In the basic nuclear transfer technique, scientists use an extremely fine needle to suck the genetic material from a mature egg. They then inject the nucleus of the donor cell (or sometimes a whole cell) into the enucleated egg and incubate it under special conditions that prompt it to divide and grow
Cloning is one way to make stem cells for other research.
The Scientific American story says what they did
The next step [after getting permission from the ethics committee] was to recruit women willing to contribute eggs to be used in the cloning procedure and also collect cells from individuals to be cloned (the donors)
This is the same technique used to make Dolly the sheep
http://www.thehungersite.com
They're not going to grow a living person from this. The aim is to use the cells after they've multiplied a bit and use them medically.
Whether that is better or worse than producing a person is up to you.
http://www.thehungersite.com
This is of course one of the first human cloning successes (that we've been told about). Let's remember that there are bound to be mishaps in early development, but at present methods and reliability have improved greatly with cows. More human successes can't be too far off.
sig
Well, actually, this cloned embryo isn't going to be implanted into a woman's uterus with the intent to let it develop into a fully-grown human/mutant/whatever. The stem cells are going to be harvested for therapeutic purposes, like regrowing heart or liver tissue. The Scientific American article made it pretty clear that they were still very much against cloning for reproductive purposes, at least until the technical and ethical problems were worked out.
/* Steve */
"Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of"-TMBG
It's a known fact that cloned DNA is often (but not always) weaker and ages faster. This may not be the case with human DNA however.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
According to the Scientific American article (which you should read now), the company, Advanced Cell Technology, is not pursuing research on reproductive cloning. What they are pursuing is research on therapeutic cloning. Without going into details (go read the article), what this will eventually allow researchers to do is grow organs, tissues, etc. from the intended receipient's own stem cells. The stem cells are created using cloning. If this becomes reality, the benefits will be huge. It's called "regenerative medicine" (quoting their CEO) for a reason.
Reproductive cloning is more difficult. While the first stage is the same - insert new DNA into egg, prompt the start of division - reproductive cloning has many more steps required to create a baby. First of all, as far as I know, babies can't be grown in vitro, so you have to implant the cloned egg into a mother. There is massive potential for danger here, not only to the growing embryo but also to the mother. Furthermore, there are issues that have yet to be resolved, such as the possibility that cloned DNA is already "aged," leading to shorter life for the cloned person or animal. Neither of these absolutely critical issues is even touched by this research. Reproductive cloning is a long, long way off.
On the other hand, it appears therapeutic cloning is making much progress. I for one am excited by the possibilites, and I think that any legislative reaction to this research is purely reactive and would ignore the facts. I see no ethical problems with this research whatsoever, and neither did the ethical board overseeing this research.
-SymphonicMan
The original publication by the authors describing their methods and partially also their motivation is available for free. You can get it here.