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First Human Clone Born?

Posted by michael on from the grand-army-of-the-republic dept.

slantyyz writes "A religious cult, the Raelians, has claimed that the birth of first human clone is one of theirs. While this hasn't been corroborated yet, it's making headlines in Canada, where the cult is based. There's supposed to be a press conference on Friday in Hollywood. This story just may have legs."

6 of 635 comments (clear)

  1. Silly People Don't Realize... by CrazyDwarf · · Score: 4, Interesting

    the first human clone has probably already been walking around for a while. I have a hard time believing that the experts would sit by not doing it because people are afraid. As many people as are looking at cloning, surely someone had already done it before this.

    --
    It's easy to stand out when the general level of competence is so low.
    1. Re:Silly People Don't Realize... by mr_z_beeblebrox · · Score: 5, Interesting

      the first human clone has probably already been walking around for a while. I have a hard time believing that the experts would sit by not doing it because people are afraid. As many people as are looking at cloning, surely someone had already done it before this.

      As a biologist I find it easy to believe that there are no clones among us. It is not that the technique is morally controversial so much as current techniques still need more work. Scientists are ethically obligated to provide as much data as possible from a living creature for research (hmmm.... a clone for example) while having the minimum required amount of disturbance. These are the rules for normal mammals (dogs, cats etc...) the rules for Chimps are MUCH more strict as they are humanlike. (I would quote them but I am unfamiliar with them) the rules for a human would be IMMENSELY more strict. Scientists do not risk lives lightly, that is the job of the politician.

  2. Probably fake... by Bartmoss · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Let's assume this is just PR by a cult sect. But still, it is worrying - that here we have people who are willing to perform what amounts to human experimentation *despite* the defects shown in many of the cloned animals. Doing this to a human being is in my eyes not any better than the medical experiments conducted by the Nazis.

    We need to regulate this type of research and deal with rogue 'scientists' and 'doctors' who are willing to do such acts. Please note that I think an outright ban on human cloning is not a good idea, there is too much promise in the technology - just, we need to be very, very careful what we're doing with it.

  3. Cult? What kind of cult? by ianscot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Some basic exposition is missing from this story. We get the words "religious cult" and then no explanation other than that they want to clone people.

    The Raelians, who advocate the cloning of humans, created a company called Clonaid in 1997. The company's web site says its "main goal is to give life to the first human clone."

    ...The Raelians, who claim 55,000 members worldwide, believe human life was created by DNA brought to earth by an alien race. Their founder and leader is Rael, a former French journalist known as Claude Vorilhon.

    The group's headquarters, called UFO Land, are located in Valcourt, Que., about 200 km east of Montreal.

    So, um, what about this "cult" is "religious"? You read a story like that, and the labels get used, but what exactly are the "religious" aspects of the cultism, here? 'Cause I'm kinda curious.

    --
    "Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
  4. How do they prove it? by redwoodtree · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is incredibly hard to prove, because of "ethical" and "privacy" reasons there is going to be no way to prove this. We don't know where the baby is born, there's no picture, there's no video tape or any other details.

    So now, the cloners are allowing a freelance journalist to get together a group of scientists and they're going to take samples of DNA from the mother and the child and send them back. How much do you want to bet that they won't let the scientists take the actual samples?

    For example, I could give you two samples of my own DNA and tell you I have a clone. The microchondial DNA would of course be identical.

    There's going to be more to this story once these journalists and scientists get to the location.

  5. human parthenogenesis - clones walk the Earth now? by js7a · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The whiptail lizard genus Cnemidophorus of the southwestern U.S. includes sexual species and parthenogenic strains, e.g., C. uniparens. Females of the parthenogenic strains can still mate.

    Natural parthenogenesis in mammalian species is considerably more common than most people think, and is considered normal in certain breeds of mice, cattle, and camels, occuring as a result of defective egg cells. In the vast majority of cases, mammalian parthenogenesis fails to produce offspring and results in noncancerous ovarian tumors.

    However, such parthenogenic ova can produce clones of their mother when (A) they are simultaniously ovulated into a receptive womb, e.g., shortly after an ordinary egg which became fertilized, and (B) contain a diploid nucleus. Although ova are supposed to be haploid some human haploid cells are naturally diploid. Presumably this is an ordinary kind of haploid mutation.

    Although it is difficult to estimate the rate of occurance of natural human parthenogenic offspring, it is probably more common than one in a billion over the course of a modern human female lifespan, meaning that there are probably already a handful of clones on the planet. ["Wow, you really do look like your mother."]