Cloned Cat Not a 'Carbon Copy'

Why... by GrodinTierce · 2003-01-21 21:55 · Score: 0

that darn cat!

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Tierce
Who sponsors your feelings?

A different cat, yes... by DarklordJonnyDigital · 2003-01-21 21:57 · Score: 5, Funny

It's both the same cat AND a totally different cat. You changed the results by observing them.

Re:A different cat, yes... by Billly+Gates · 2003-01-21 22:00 · Score: 4, Funny

Ah, the quantum cat theory.

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Re:A different cat, yes... by slimordium · 2003-01-21 22:10 · Score: 2, Insightful

So our challenge is that we as humans need to first be able to create matter, then cloning will be irrelevant.
Re:A different cat, yes... by bigfleet · 2003-01-21 23:38 · Score: 5, Funny

Shouldn't we know better to think that cats give a damn about us?
Re:A different cat, yes... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 01:07 · Score: 0

And, they can lose their breakaway collar and rabies tag jumping over fences in persuit of birds and squirrels. Cats own their masters, not the other way around.
Re:A different cat, yes... by Arnulf · 2003-01-22 01:12 · Score: 1

> It's both the same cat AND a totally different cat.

Is there no difference between same and similar?
Re:A different cat, yes... by cp5i6 · 2003-01-22 02:42 · Score: 1, Redundant

you mean schrondinger's famous cat?
Re:A different cat, yes... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 03:43 · Score: 0

Excuse me, but why is the explanation of a joke "+5 Funny" in and of itself? Sure, the *joke* might be funny, but this reply? It's not even slightly clever.
Re:A different cat, yes... by C21 · 2003-01-22 04:01 · Score: 0, Redundant

actually we cannot "create matter" excepting maybe a few virtual particles for a few millionths of a second. Cloning is little more than fertilizing an egg with a duplicate genetic code. You really arn't "creating matter" anymore than we create matter through common sexual intercourse.

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Re:A different cat, yes... by Sunda666 · 2003-01-22 04:34 · Score: 5, Funny

of course it is.

It is only gray/white because it is a "Carbon Copy", not a color copy.

They should really upgrade their copiers.

cheers

--

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Re:A different cat, yes... by Amazing+Quantum+Man · 2003-01-22 04:47 · Score: 1, Redundant

So *THIS* is Schroedinger's Cat?

(Yeah, yeah, I know it was Heisenberg, but it was too good a line to pass up)

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Re:A different cat, yes... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 04:52 · Score: 0

the only experiment I ever liked involving cats was that one Schroedinger did. Why clone a cat? You can learn a lot more from Schroedinger!
Re:A different cat, yes... by Anonymous+Cow+herd · 2003-01-22 05:01 · Score: 1

It's the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, but Schrodinger formulated the cat-in-the-box theory based on Heisenberg's theories.

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Re:A different cat, yes... by AGMW · 2003-01-22 05:29 · Score: 5, Funny
Not to be confused with the totally unsuccessfull Pavlov's Cat experiment.
- Ring Bell
- Put down cat food
- Cat eats food
- [Repeat]
- Ring Bell
- Don't put food out
- Cat doesn't Turn Up either
[thinks] I wonder if this would work with dogs
An interesting footnote is that the Cat was writing his own journal that runs something like
- Hear a bell ring
- Find some food
- I wonder if I can train the Human to put food down every time the bell rings?
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Re:A different cat, yes... by drinkypoo · 2003-01-22 06:46 · Score: 1

Perhaps they should be working on feline mimeograph technology. I'd love to have a purple cat.

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Re:A different cat, yes... by Lux · 2003-01-22 08:34 · Score: 1

And coat coloration will always be different for tabbies because of the way cat genetics works.

Coat color is a sex linked trait, so females have two (distinct in the case of tabbies) coat color genes. Proper "gene dosage" for sex linked genes in cats (and humans) is 1 (so us males don't get too much more freakish than we already are.) Therefore, one of those coat color genes has to be turned off at all times. But which one? It's randomly, but permanently determined during growth, resulting in certain regions being one color, and certain regions being the other. But that random process is not gene-encoded, so you're going to get different coat patterns, even in tabby clones.

Kind of dissapointing. Both for the cat owners wanting to clone their tabby, and for the humans. We don't have sex-linked hair colors, so our females have less interesting coloration. :)

-Lux
Re:A different cat, yes... by Kintanon · 2003-01-22 08:51 · Score: 1

That was a remarkably stoic cat. With my cat, if you are holding food above the level of his head he will leap upon it and devour it. If it is too high for him to leap to he will climb you until he is high enough to leap upon it and devour it. If you are so discourteous as to attempt to EAT the food he is after he will bite your face in an attempt to liberate his unjustly imprisoned food from you.

So I dunno where this guy got a cat that would just sit there when the food was nearby, But I wanna trade!

Kintanon

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so it is not a copy cat? by amentia · 2003-01-21 21:57 · Score: 3, Insightful

Everything is not in the genes!

Re:so it is not a copy cat? by amentia · 2003-01-21 22:04 · Score: 1

This is good, this is something I can refer to when I speak with my dad or some other conservative it-is-all-in-the-genes-person.

Tabula rasa, people are blank papers when they're born. Our environment form us.
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by frozenray · 2003-01-21 23:28 · Score: 5, Insightful

> Tabula rasa, people are blank papers when they're born. Our environment form us.

The extreme points of view ("blank slate" and "all in the genes") have been thoroughly discredited by scientific research. We are both a product of our genes and our environment.

May I suggest reading Steven Pinker's "The Blank Slate" for an intelligent discussion of the subject? The book is worth its money IMO.

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Re:so it is not a copy cat? by Anne+Thwacks · 2003-01-22 00:27 · Score: 5, Funny

Nope ... they have different birth dates, so their star signs are different. Anyone who reads womens' magazines knows star signs are far more important than genes (But Levi's Rule :-)

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Re:so it is not a copy cat? by BerntB · 2003-01-22 00:58 · Score: 1

I though the existence of Tabula rasa believers were the same as believers in "it's all in the genes" -- a myth. (-: Ok, some communist neo-lysenkoists might hang around reading their Gould... :-)
I think you're joking and not really believe in Tabula rasa. But, then, I have a hard time understanding that people believe in Jesus and Muhammed, etc.

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Re:so it is not a copy cat? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 01:05 · Score: 0

oooooh... steven pinker has such luxuriously flowing hair!!!
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 01:40 · Score: 5, Insightful

Rainbow is reserved. Cc is curious and playful. Rainbow is chunky. Cc is sleek.

Hardly surprising. My translation is:

Rainbow is an old cat. Cc is a kitten. Rainbow is chunky. Cc is still growing.
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by whovian · 2003-01-22 01:44 · Score: 2, Insightful

Here, here! I for one am glad to see this information starting to enter the mainstream press -- that genetics isn't everything. From the article:
"Not only does cloning not produce a physical duplicate, but it can never reproduce the behavior or personality of a cat that you want to keep around.
I really hate it when the media plays up the evocation "aw, how cute!" when comparing the appearance of human identical twins. I couldn't decide whether it was the media being stupid, or the media thinking people are stupid, or people being stupid.

Sorry for the gripe...better go get myself a cuppa joe.

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Re:so it is not a copy cat? by jonhuang · 2003-01-22 02:18 · Score: 1

False Dichot. Between environment and genes, you've left out free will!
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by hackstraw · 2003-01-22 02:44 · Score: 2, Insightful

One thing that most of the general public (and appatently people in the field??) don't realize that there occurs genetic drift when cloning organisms. This has been known by botanist when cloning plants. One thing that you "don't do" is clone clones. Its analagous to photocopying a photocopy over and over again. Also, there is simple deteriation of genetic goodies over time. And one cannot discredit the environment, etc.

Bah, cloning is only good for important herbs.
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 02:49 · Score: 1, Insightful

This is hardly insightful. Cats don't change that much as they age. I have an older cat that was never playful and has always been very slim and sleek. The other cat is playful and fat and has been since he was a kitten.

I would also point out that a kitten is no longer a kitten after 1 year.
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by Hrothgar+The+Great · 2003-01-22 02:55 · Score: 2, Funny

False Dichot. Between environment and genes, you've left out free will!

Uh.... that's part of environment.
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by kirkjobsluder · 2003-01-22 03:11 · Score: 4, Informative

One thing that you "don't do" is clone clones.

Bwah? At it's base cloning is basically asexual reproduction of an organism. Making clones of clones is something we did all the time back in my misspent youth training to be a microbiologist. It is something I still do by giving cuttings of "shamrock" and sweedish ivy to friends and relatives. Basically for organisms that already propigate asexually cloning is as simple as taking a cutting and giving it a fresh source of food. There is nothing magical in sexual reproduction that insures good copies. In fact, a large number of mutations are known to only occur during sexual reproduction. Overall, somatic-line cloning is preferred if you want a large number of basically genetically identical individuals.

Of course it is obvious that the clone is not identical. A basic equation in quantitative genetics is:

phenotype = genetics + environment + developmental noise.
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by Alsee · 2003-01-22 03:13 · Score: 1

False

Are you just throwing aroung meaningless accusations, or you would like to provide some evidence? Or at least a rational argument?

Unfortuately this is extremely difficult to actually test because quantum level differences in the enviornment will quickly be magnified into observable differences. We would need to create an enviornment identical on the quantum level. We aren't going to be able to do that in the forseeable future.

The cat clone CC certianly doesn't provide any evidence for your position. The clone was raised in a radicly different environment. They raised it like a lab rat in a sterile enviornment. It's no supprize that it had a radicly different personality.

-

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Re:so it is not a copy cat? by ENOENT · 2003-01-22 03:28 · Score: 1

With cats, it doesn't take much to make a huge difference. We have two cats, one big, fat, black, nuzzly, and loud, and one small, mottled tan and white, thin, nervous, and quiet. They are from the same litter. We should have named them "DeVito" and "Schwartzenegger".

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Re:so it is not a copy cat? by talesout · 2003-01-22 03:29 · Score: 3, Insightful

Maybe not. But they still act like a kitten until they are two or three. That is, unless they are in a really oppressive environment.
It's like dogs. They may look like adults, but until they hit that third birthday they still have the mind and energy of a puppy. Cats may be a bit more dignified about it, but it's the same deal.

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Bite my yammer.
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 04:04 · Score: 3, Interesting

Ok, so an identical genetic copy of a cat won't have the same environmental characteristics (what some would consider the "soul" of the cat), but what questions does this raise about our physical appearance?

I was under the impression that an identical genetic makeup would be physically (as in the characteristics, e.g. hair colour) would be the same as it is the genes that make that decision. After reading the artical, this is now not possible...

So, if it was just a delusion that genes decide our hair colour etc., what is it that does actually decides this? I understand that the genetic makeup can contain a gene makeup from a previous generation, that is not taken physically in its current incarnation...Does this mean that there is another randomness added to the choice? That not all genes are used, but a random choice of the "available" genes (similar to the random choice when me and my misses gets together to make a little todler) and creates the physical characteristics as such...Or does it involve slightly more complex algorithms whereby the random choice of genes is repeated throughout the growth period (hair changes colour after all, eyes can too) to create a rather more unique model?

This latter ramble seems to make sense if you consider someone that has a genetic makeup that gives it the possibility to develop some horrible disease, but doesn't develop it early in its life, but later...It just so happens that on x date, my internal random gene choice has selected x, y and z genes that, unfortunately for me, has started the chain reaction to cancer(or whatever)...Or is it just one choice of random genes that chooses cancer, maybe it is a sequence of choices that leads to the full-blown illness?

Wow, so from a simple makeup code, we can develop into an infinite (or near as dammit to be of any import) number of possibilites...So, is genetic research really worth pursuing? I mean, if you change a gene to remove the possibility of disease x, are you not running the risk of creating a (possibly)more dangerous disease y, and in doing so, through natural reproduction, replicate this to a point where you kill humanity...?All in the name of achieving what? A faster route to a "naturally perfect" human? Nature will eventually choose our best destiny, whether be extince or "perfected." We could even end up making things longer, especially as now, as far as I can tell, we have no idea how our physical characteristics are chosen...

Another thought: Our first gene choice in life is made, then, through life other choices are made, but this doesn't necessarily mean that we would change instantly hair colour, merely that a taint will arrive. If that same choice is made repeatedly, then sure your hair will gradually change...
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by schon · 2003-01-22 04:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

Rainbow is an old cat. Cc is a kitten. Rainbow is chunky. Cc is still growing.

Yes, and we all know that cat's colouring and markings change as they age too, right? I noticed you deliberately missed that.

Generally, a cat's demeanour doesn't change much as it ages - an adult tend to have the same characteristics as it did as a kitten. The only difference is the amount of energy they have. If you'd ever raised a cat, you'd know this.
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by Suppafly · 2003-01-22 04:17 · Score: 1

One thing that most of the general public (and appatently people in the field??) don't realize that there occurs genetic drift when cloning organisms. This has been known by botanist when cloning plants. One thing that you "don't do" is clone clones.

Could you provide some source for this insite, I hardly find that credible.
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by Johnathon+Walls · 2003-01-22 04:34 · Score: 1

Thanks for the equation. I have my qualifying exams soon, and this will come in handy :)
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by unitron · 2003-01-22 04:40 · Score: 2, Interesting

"Yes, and we all know that cat's colouring and markings change as they age too, right?"
I'm pretty sure that a calico starts out that way and stays that way, at least ours did.
Considering that only female cats can be calicos and that cloning a female calico got another female but not a calico, doing some more cloning of the original and of the clones might lead to some discoveries of previously inknown or even unsuspected stuff about cloning in particular and genetics and DNA in general.

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Re:so it is not a copy cat? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 04:45 · Score: 0

cats
are
not
dogs
duh
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by Amazing+Quantum+Man · 2003-01-22 04:49 · Score: 1

I bet he got his info here.

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Re:so it is not a copy cat? by sixseve · 2003-01-22 05:30 · Score: 1

I don't know about genetic drift, but isn't cloning clones why the Banana will be gone soon?
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by Madcapjack · 2003-01-22 05:48 · Score: 1

phenotype = genetics + environment + developmental noise
What do you mean by developmental noise? How is that distinguishable from environment? And do other parts of the genome and its phenotypes constitute an environment for a particular gene? i'm a little weak on my genetics. ( :

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Re:so it is not a copy cat? by gid-goo · 2003-01-22 05:59 · Score: 1

If you want good ammunition to take on the "all-in-the-genes", dawkins folks read Richard Lewontin (Stephen Jay Gould helps as well). For a take on where Lewontin is coming from read "Biology As Ideology" and "It Ain't Necessarily So."

Anyone who thinks a cloned animal will in any way be identical to the original isn't thinking.
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by stinky+wizzleteats · 2003-01-22 06:04 · Score: 1

Rainbow is an old cat. Cc is a kitten. Rainbow is chunky. Cc is still growing.

Ah, yes, and we all know that a cat's coat pattern changes radically as they grow up.

This proves something that biologists have known for years. The DNA molecule is not the definition of the instantiation of an individual lifeform. It's a lot more like blueprints and a lot less like computer code. Hell, it's not even so much blueprints as much as instructions for how to mix the concrete.
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 06:17 · Score: 0

Here, here!
Where, where? Dumbass.
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 06:22 · Score: 0

Uhh, why not Dan and Arnie? Seems to roll off the tongue a little easier.
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by kirkjobsluder · 2003-01-22 07:15 · Score: 3, Informative

What do you mean by developmental noise? How is that distinguishable from environment? And do other parts of the genome and its phenotypes constitute an environment for a particular gene?

In part, developmental noise is a "none of the above" for variance that can't be explained in other ways. On the other hand, gene expression and protein production is probablistic. This adds another source of variance. It is never as simple as "Trigger X present, make Y".

So for example with calico cats even with twins born from the same litter there will be variations in coat patterns due to the random deactivation of x-chromosomes.
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by Daetrin · 2003-01-22 07:35 · Score: 4, Informative

You're confusing apples with oranges, or perhaps bananas with oranges :)
The original comment was that copying a copy is bad, because errors will accumulate. That's only true if there are errors in the copying process. Assuming you can extract the DNA without damaging it, and inject it into the egg cell without damaging it, then there will be no more errors than there are in naturally grown organisms, which is damn few.
The reason there are so few errors in natural cloning is _why_ (the cloned variety of) Bananas are in danger. They are such perfect copies of each other that they are failing to adapt to a changing enviroment. A sudden change in enviromental conditions are a bacteria or virus that figures out how to take advantage of that stability could theoretically kill every Banana of that variety on the planet.
In that particular case having more genetic drift would be a good thing, but it just doesn't happen very fast with clones, which is why cloning a clone is perfectly safe as long as you're carefull about the original DNA extraction.
As in most things, extremes are bad. No genetic change means you don't adapt to the enviroment at all, and sooner or later changing conditions or something that _does_ adapt will wipe you out. Too much genetic change means that the entire species will either mutate themselves to death or run head-on into an evolutionary dead-end.

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Re:so it is not a copy cat? by meiocyte · 2003-01-22 08:22 · Score: 2, Informative

The reason the coat colors are different, and the scientists expected them to be different, is that some genes controlling coat color are on the X chromosome. Females have two X chromosomes, and males have only one; to balance the expression of genes, female mammals inactivate one of their two X chromosomes. The inactivation occurs randomly (more or less) after the egg has divided several times, so the resulting animal is made up of a mosaic of cell patches, which gives rise to the mosaic coat color. The random nature of X chromosome inactivation is just one of many epigenetic factors controlling development. So no one expected the coat patterns to be the same, even though the genes are identical.
Yeah, this is probably redundant, I'm probably not the only one who felt like weighing in.

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Re:so it is not a copy cat? by Daetrin · 2003-01-22 08:29 · Score: 1

(note to self, always copy/paste a long comment to somewhere else before Slashdot decides to be difficult and refuse to update)
You're getting a bit carried away with some minor randomness. Your genes _do_ determine your haircolor, and the cat's genes determined that it would be a tabby. However genes control things at a very high level, and have no direct influence at a lower level. Your genes determined that you would have fingerprints, but they didn't determine the exact shape of the fingerprints, and if you had had a twin or if you make a clone of yourself their fingerprints would be different from yours despite identical genes. Tabby patterns are formed in approximatly the same way, the exact pattern is decided at the cellular level in a very chaotic way depending upon the local conditions (hormone, chemicals, whatver) which results in a different pattern everytime you go through the process.
Furthermore, the pattern is decided when the cells are first created. If you cut your finger or a cat loses some fur, it will grow back in the same pattern. (Unless the injury is particularly traumatic, in which case unpatterened scar tissue or uncolored hair might grow back, but that's a different issue)
As for diseases, for some you might cause other problems by trying to fix the problem genes. For others it's as simple as flipping one gene with no other side effects. Nature is rarely an either-or porposition. Cancer usually occurs when a carcinogen damages the DNA in one of your cells, but certain genes seem to make that kind of damage more or less likely to occur.
Oh, and if the disease Y you created was more dangerous than the disease X you were trying to cure, it wouldn't spread through the population very well. The big risks from genetic engineering are not through changing our own genes, but through changing the genes of bacteria and viruses that could infect us.

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Re:so it is not a copy cat? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 08:49 · Score: 0

Arn't calico cats "mutants" meaning they have 2 sets of genes active, like people with two different color eyes.

At least from what I can remember of "Remaking Eden". If so couldn't one set of genes run different parts of growth vs the other as compaired to the host cat.
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by kirkjobsluder · 2003-01-22 08:56 · Score: 1

Not exactly. In female mammals one X chromosome in every fetal cell is deactivated early in development. If one X chromosome has black pigment and another has orange pigment the result is a calico or tortoiseshell cat. This is not a "mutation" because it does not involve any actual changes to the genes, half of the cat's male progeny will be black and half tan.
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by KKin8or · 2003-01-22 10:28 · Score: 1

I mean, if you change a gene to remove the possibility of disease x, are you not running the risk of creating a (possibly)more dangerous disease y,
Yes. As an example recently in the news, gene therapy for "bubble-boy" disease has been suspended, because a couple of the boys have developed leukemia (or something like it) as a result of the gene therapy.
This same type of argument is used by those opposed to genetically modified foods-- the possibility of introducing new allergens and such that we have no experience with, and anyone could be allergic to. The risk is always there, and the only way to discover it is to try.
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by Simon+Garlick · 2003-01-22 11:06 · Score: 1

From memory, a cat's fur markings are to a large degree determined in utero rather than determined genetically. Variations in the fetus's position, and in the shape and pressure of the placenta are what determine the final look of the cat's fur.

As I understand it, the cat's genes determine the palette, but physical influences determine the actual pattern.

Disclaimer: I am neither a geneticist, nor a veterinarian, nor a cat.

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Re:so it is not a copy cat? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 15:07 · Score: 0

Take a look at a photo of the two cats. They don't look similar. The point is that to your regular senses (without genetic testing) the two cats are no more similar than a randomly selected pair of same-breed cats. Their coat patterns aren't even similar. And yes, of course Cc is younger, but Cc is different than Rainbow was at that age. Your translation is based on the opinion you'd like to hold without regard to the data at hand, I'm afraid.
Re:so it is not a copy cat? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-23 00:24 · Score: 0

>Your genes _do_ determine your haircolor, and the >cat's genes determined that it would be a tabby.

But if the genes do decide the colour (tabby is not a colour, it is a pattern), why are exact genetic makeups giving two different colours as in these cats? For me, there must be another influence in deciding the colour of the fur...

One cat has 4 colours, the other two. The only way, for me, that it makes sense in your explanation is if both of them had all 4 colour genes but the one with only two colours only found its way through the chaotic cellular level using 2 out of 4 possibilities.

Impossible to... by e8johan · 2003-01-21 21:58 · Score: 3, Interesting

This pretty much shows that it will be impossible to use cloning (as we know it today) to raise the dead.

However a human teleporter and a little sniffing on the transmission line would probably do the trick. However, the two individuals would not be exposed to the same surroundings and diverge pretty soon.

Re:Impossible to... by dubstop · 2003-01-21 23:31 · Score: 5, Funny
Like Ryker's transporter double.

I can't remember the episode, but I was very impressed that the double managed to survive alone for years without going insane. There can't be many things that are worse than being alone, without any form of human contact for many years, but here's a few that are close:
1. being stuck alone and being Ryker.
2. being stuck alone except for Ryker.
3. being Ryker.
After contemplating the magnitude of such a tragedy, I don't even have the energy to do the ???, Profit! thing.
Re:Impossible to... by KDan · 2003-01-21 23:58 · Score: 5, Interesting

Depends what you mean by raising the dead. If you mean "oh, make a clone of John, educate it, let it grow up to John's age, and you have John again", then obviously that's never going to work, and there was never really any doubt about that. Unless you can reproduce the exact environment of John's life, down to the quark configuration of the entire universe (every little bit can alter events), it's impossible to get John again through that method.

However, another much better method is this: Make a clone of John, keep its brain blank as you grow it (maybe in an accelerated fashion) to John's size, and then transfer John's thoughts to that clone. Of course that requires very advanced brain knowledge to "read" and "write" a brain - assuming that's even possible.

But that would give you immortality (so long as you keep your brain safe).

Daniel

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Re:Impossible to... by Daengbo · 2003-01-22 00:53 · Score: 2, Funny

Man, they should turn that into a movie.
Keanu as the lead...? No... we need someone brawnier.

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Re:Impossible to... by Xuther · 2003-01-22 01:05 · Score: 3, Insightful

But that would give you immortality (so long as you keep your brain safe).

Um not exactly..
It would be a duplicate copy, but not you. It would just have your memories. Now, if you could link the two brains and just transfer the running "program" of who you are over to the other "processor" without halting or forking, then I'd consider it immortality since it's the same memories, genetics, and for lack of a better word "soul".
Re:Impossible to... by blue+trane · 2003-01-22 01:26 · Score: 1

There can't be many things that are worse than being alone, without any form of human contact for many years

How about being stuck in society, forced to have face-to-face human contact without respite, for many years?
Re:Impossible to... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 01:41 · Score: 0

In Soviet Russia, the ??? does the profit thing on you.
Re:Impossible to... by Bob+McCown · 2003-01-22 01:58 · Score: 1

transfer the running "program" of who you are over to the other "processor" without halting or forking,
If I can't fork around in my new cloned body, I ain't goin'!
Re:Impossible to... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 02:03 · Score: 0

As long as uou do not drink-up all your gray celluas.
Re:Impossible to... by DrSkwid · 2003-01-22 02:10 · Score: 0, Troll

[y dude, hell is other ppl etc.]

How about being stuck in society, addicted to having slashdot-to-slashdot human contact without respite, for many years?

--
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Re:Impossible to... by cp5i6 · 2003-01-22 02:46 · Score: 1

I believe you are stretching that statement WAAAAAY too far.

Notice how the article never extends beyond cats. Because scientifically cats are completley different from humans.

So unless you're a cat... what happens with a cat MAY happen wtih a human or not. Of course we won't know until that baby clone pops out and takes a few years to grow.
Re:Impossible to... by everflow · 2003-01-22 02:54 · Score: 2, Interesting

transfer John's thoughts to that clone. Of course that requires very advanced brain knowledge to "read" and "write" a brain

no - its not possible. its not like your brain is a matrix and you can read/write it like a harddisc. its more that neurons grow and connect themselve depending on what input/output you do. example: if you were raised up in absolute darkness your eye-neurons and your optic-relevant brainareas (mainly located in the metencephalon) will never develop and degenerate ... so a better thougt would be to implant ones brain in his double ...

but the important question remains - how and where are our memorys located. it is still unknown (though some motion-memory were located in the cerebellum). so it is possible that our whole body represents our experience - hence maybe a braintransplantation would not do the trick either.

everflow
---
kiss of the x: alive contains a lie
Re:Impossible to... by squant0 · 2003-01-22 03:05 · Score: 2, Funny

Of course that requires very advanced brain knowledge to "read" and "write" a brain
# dd if=/dev/john of=/dev/brain
Re:Impossible to... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 03:08 · Score: 2, Insightful

Scientifically, cats are the more similiar to humans then different. Both are mammals, their organs operate pretty much the same way. The only real dividing line is whether or not cats (or other animals for that matter) have souls, like humans are supposed to.

Personally, I believe that if there is such thing as a sould that is the unique property of humans, given to us by God, then any human would be given that soul, whether or not it is a clone, artificially insemenated or molecularly constructed doesn't matter. The kicker is that the people who are wanting clone tech to become immortal are just deluding themselves. They will die, and there clone will live on, but it will not be them.
Re:Impossible to... by Alsee · 2003-01-22 03:18 · Score: 2, Funny

1. being stuck alone and being Ryker.

2. being stuck alone except for Ryker.

3. being Ryker.

4. being stuck alone with a Ferengi.

5. ???

6. PROFIT!

-

--
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Re:Impossible to... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 06:08 · Score: 0

You could just transfer the brain from one body to the other ... It takes however a lot of work and good assistants. Last time I tried my assistant gave me the brain of Abbie someone ... Oh yes it was Ab normal ... it didn't go so well :)
Re:Impossible to... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 06:28 · Score: 0

Sounds like Stephen R Donaldson's Gap series. Excellent, excellent read. Go search for it on Amazon yourself, I'm too lazy to link. But if I recall, there were 5 books in the series.
Re:Impossible to... by saldek · 2003-01-22 06:52 · Score: 1

Did the cat have a goatee?
Re:Impossible to... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 06:52 · Score: 0

hence maybe a braintransplantation would not do the trick either

I think this is quite likely considering the evidence. How else can we explain the hydrocephalic individuals with 90% brain loss and higher than average IQ's?

It's hard to imagine but it's most definitely true.
Re:Impossible to... by Sandcastle · 2003-01-22 12:09 · Score: 2, Insightful

Depends what you mean by raising the dead. If you mean "oh, make a clone of John, educate it, let it grow up to John's age, and you have John again", then obviously that's never going to work, and there was never really any doubt about that.
I think this is only obvious to the few with a decent grasp of science/genetics etc. Most of the world hears the term "clone" and/or "exact copy" and expects to get that.
It's mentioned in the article in several ways. Only a "small percentage" are just wanting "as simmilar as possible", some are even expecting the clone to still know the "old tricks"! If there are people out there thinking this, imagine what the majority are thinking? If nothing else they'd want them to be identical as far as appearance goes, and probably expect the same behaviour. I'm sure a lot of people would expect cloned humans to have the same memories as well. Whether this is just because the general public is dim-witted, poorly educated or just brain-washed by the media and movies showing this type of cloning is not the issue. This just seems to be the prevalent view, and it's one of the major misconceptions that needs to be dispelled before there can be genuinely constructive debate of cloning by the massses.

--
The fact that a fish swims in water does not make it an expert in fluid dynamics. GogglesPisano (199483)
Re:Impossible to... by sg3000 · 2003-01-22 14:00 · Score: 1

> The kicker is that the people who are wanting
> clone tech to become immortal are just deluding
> themselves. They will die, and there clone will
> live on, but it will not be them.

What if a recording company cloned one of their artists, and raised it as a piece of property (since they own all derivative works of the artist). Then the artist would have to "compete" with perhaps a younger version of themself. So imagine if the old, Las Vegas-styled Elvis had to suddenly meet up with his 20-something year old rockabilly self. From the artist's perspective, it would suck, but from the music company's perspective, they would have conceivably a perpetular source of youngish talent, that wouldn't be ravaged by age, booze, etc. When that clone got too old, they could clone another, and have a perpetual artist. Kinda creepy.

--
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Re:Impossible to... by nhaines · 2003-01-22 14:41 · Score: 1

Thank you! I can't believe no one else ever admits to thinking this way. I knew I couldn't be the only one!

People are like, "if you create a clone and it lives, will it be the same as you? But it how would it have a soul? Is it proof there is no soul?" I always say, "No. Every living human has a soul created and given by God. If God blesses this particular endeavor (or if it meets whatever criteria God has for granting souls), he grants the new clone a soul and it's a completely seperate person. Otherwise, he grants no soul and it isn't viable."

Either the zygote doesn't develop past a handful of cell divisions or it forms into a body with no consciousness. Don't ask me. :)
Re:Impossible to... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-23 11:11 · Score: 0

But that would give you immortality (so long as you keep your brain safe).

In your hypothetical situation, if we could read/write the brain, brain backups would make health, mentally and physically obsolete. Think of the implications.
Re:Impossible to... by n9hmg · 2003-01-23 17:09 · Score: 1

I would call that external immortality. After you finish mirroring, and fork the new one away, the old one is going to experience death, even if it happens atomically with the forking. I've been thinking about this for years. What would your continuing fork think and feel about death of the terminating one? There's probably not anybody closer to you than yourself. Since we can't measure or otherwise prove the existence of the soul, maybe nobody wonders what happens there. Odd to think of, though... a society gradually filling up with repeated copies of old, long-dead people, without souls.
Re:Impossible to... by nemesis51178 · 2003-01-26 18:03 · Score: 1

Found an interesting line of thought similar to Daniel's at 'Thought Experiments on the Soul'(http://www.friesian.com/soul.htm). Of course, after a point, the article digresses, but it's a fascinating read anyway.

Gotta hate them... by Repran · 2003-01-21 21:58 · Score: 4, Funny

...damn copy cats.

--

-- Contradictions only exist in thought - not in reality.

well... by geekoid · 2003-01-21 21:59 · Score: 2, Interesting

everyone except the scientists.
However people expecting clones to remember the stuff from the original, really make me wonder how we manage to get any technology at all.

--
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Re:well... by nomadic · 2003-01-21 22:11 · Score: 3, Interesting

Nobody was expecting the same memories; they were, however, expecting the same behavior patterns.

I admit I was surprised. More and more behavioral aspects of an organism are being defined by genetics these days. Look at how identical twins raised in different environments exhibit similar behavioral patterns, down to the occupations they choose. Nature vs. nurture's an ongoing battle, but over the past few years it's seemed that nature would win.
Re:well... by LittleBigLui · 2003-01-21 22:15 · Score: 1

by remembering what both our parents knew and combining that knowledge to something new. (and passing our knowledge-genes to our kids.)

--
Free as in mason.
Re:well... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-21 22:38 · Score: 2, Insightful

they were, however, expecting the same behavior patterns.
Why on Earth would they expect that? Behaviour is clearly influenced by environment.

Nature vs. nurture's an ongoing battle, but over the past few years it's seemed that nature would win.
What bosh.
Re:well... by Jace+of+Fuse! · 2003-01-21 23:09 · Score: 2, Insightful

Why on Earth would they expect that? Behaviour is clearly influenced by environment.

That issue is hardly clearly one way or the other. The Nature vs. Nurture battle has been going on for a long time. It's very naive of you to believe you are so special that you are privi to the answer most psychologists would love to have. How much research have YOU personally done in that field? None? You probably haven't done any. When you say "Behaviour is clearly influenced by environment" in that context, you are implying that you believe nature has no role. Anybody who has studied this topic at all would immediately cite reasons to strongely disagree with you.

There are people who study this day in day out and make a living trying to figure out the answer to that question, and even THEY don't know with enough certainty to say one way or the other. Oh, sure, some of them will take a stance on one or the other side, but in the end they'll still admit they aren't really sure. It isn't clear, and you clearly do not know enough to have a valid hypothesis. The only thing you have is an uneducated opinion.

But then, you were too busy being an anonymous troll to make any kind of sense, huh?

--

"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"

Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Re:well... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-21 23:17 · Score: 2, Insightful

When you say "Behaviour is clearly influenced by environment" in that context, you are implying that you believe nature has no role.
Don't be silly. Of course I'm implying no such thing. I stated that behaviour is influenced by environment, and so it is. Read any of the literature! Both nature and nurture have their influence, and no-one in the field is looking to say that either one has no influence, as it is simple to prove that both have an effect.

But then, you were too busy being a troll to make any kind of sense, huh?
Re:well... by thannine · 2003-01-21 23:18 · Score: 1

When you say "Behaviour is clearly influenced by environment" in that context, you are implying that you believe nature has no role.

You really think that's what he means?

He just said that environment influences, thus you shouldn't expect the same behaviour. What part of that was so hard to understand ?
Re:well... by dabootsie · 2003-01-21 23:25 · Score: 1

Anybody who has studied this topic at all would immediately cite reasons to strongely disagree with you.

Wouldn't the fact that you don't cite reasons mean that you haven't studied the topic at all, then? In which case, wouldn't that make you the one trolling? :-P
How much research have YOU personally done in that field?
Re:well... by Swanktastic · 2003-01-22 00:17 · Score: 4, Insightful

Look at how identical twins raised in different environments exhibit similar behavioral patterns, down to the occupations they choose.

The huge difference between twins and clones is that a set of twins experience mostly identical conditions during the gestation period. The same temperature, the same bath of hormones, oxygen levels, etc. It's not a huge surprise then that they end up looking the same, acting the same (within limits). A clone on the other hand is going to experience a completely different set of conditions, even if it is placed in the womb of the original mother (surely she has aged some).

In reptiles, the gender of an animal can be changed simply by incubating at a different temperatures. Sea Turtle's genders are determined by location/temperature in the nest. It shouldn't be surprising that these cats and thus humans would turn out to be radically different then based on their gestation environments. In fact, I'd be willing to wager this is precisely why the cloned calico turned out to be gray...
Re:well... by varjag · 2003-01-22 00:32 · Score: 1

Nobody was expecting the same memories; they were, however, expecting the same behavior patterns.

And I am happy with the result. Hope it will stop all this 'bad bloodline' and 'spoiled genes' crap habit of judging people by their ancestors.

--
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
Re:well... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 01:04 · Score: 1, Insightful

What else can you expect from the same genes and the same culture? Raise one twin in a rich u.s. family and the other in a poor Tibetan family...THEN see how (DIS)similar they turn out.
Re:well... by Grizzlysmit · 2003-01-22 01:34 · Score: 1

I admit I was surprised. More and more behavioral aspects of an organism are being defined by genetics these days. Look at how identical twins raised in different environments exhibit similar behavioral patterns, down to the occupations they choose. Nature vs. nurture's an ongoing battle, but over the past few years it's seemed that nature would win.
I have always suspected that this whole argument is futile, and that neither side will ever truly win, becuase neither is more important than the other, and in humans at least choice must be considered.

--
in my life God comes first.... but Linux is pretty high after that :-D
Francis Smit
Re:well... by Sgt+York · 2003-01-22 02:23 · Score: 1

Why on Earth would they expect that? Behaviour is clearly influenced by environment.
No! Behavior is clearly influenced by genes!
Wait....maybe both are right? Maybe one thing can be influenced by more than one other thing???? What a revelation! Nature doesn't beat nurture or v/v. That implies that they compete, and that is as big a fallacy as the belief that evolution has a goal. The two may oppose each other in a few things, but only by coincidence (e.g., genes for fast growing hair in a guy that joins the Marines). The two simply combine to mold traits.
My apologies for the sarcasm.

--

There is a reason for everything. Sometimes that reason just sucks.
Re:well... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 02:31 · Score: 0

What if God Had ment you to spell things properly? Would you have been born with a brain then?
Re:well... by Bonker · 2003-01-22 03:06 · Score: 1

Interesting you mentioned temperature. Cats in particular are very sensitive to temperature during gestation and development.

You can see this particularly easy in Siamese and other cats with a light coat and dak 'points'. The dark grey or brown fur develops in area where the blood circulates less and that is generally less warm. Feet, tail, face, and some backs of Siamese are dark. These are the same areas that would show up darker than surrounds on an infrared image.

Two kittens with the same mother and identical markings will often show massive coat pattern changes in a very short time as they mature, especially if kept in different environments. I own a Siamese cat, for example, that had a completely white coat when she was a kitten. Since I keep it fairly cool in my house, her coat has darkened considerably and her points are very dark and very pronounced. Her brother, who lives in a much warmer house, still has a very light coat and much lighter points.

--
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Re:well... by kirkjobsluder · 2003-01-22 03:23 · Score: 1

Well, actually I have studied this from both ends and the debate is overstated. Very few people seriosly propose a blank slate theory anymore, nor does Stephen Pinker arge for complete genetic programming. Where there is a debate it is not "if" but "how much".
Re:well... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 04:25 · Score: 2, Informative

The Nature vs. Nurture battle has been going on for a long time. [...] When you say "Behaviour is clearly influenced by environment" in that context, you are implying that you believe nature has no role.

I think the problem is that people have a tough time considering what "nature" is. Typically when people talk about "nature vs nurture", they talking about what happens after birth..

The original poster mentioned environment - which basically means "anything not contained within the genes"..

We know that embryos are exposed to hormones and chemicals in the womb, to stimulate development - slightly different amounts, in slightly different places, at slightly different times, and you have different outcomes.. technically, this is "environment"... but it could also be considered "nature" (again, if you're talking pre-birth.)

Different levels of hormones affect fetuses in different ways.. for example, the more testosterone a male fetus is exposed to, the higher the chance of homosexuality.. which is definitely a behavioural trait.. again, this is an environmental issue, not a genetic one (the more pregnancies a woman has with a male fetus, the more testosterone she produces in the womb, and therefore her youngest boys have a higer chance of being gay than their older male siblings.)
Re:well... by acedtect · 2003-01-22 05:20 · Score: 4, Insightful

This difference points to a belief I've held for a long time. Cloning is nothing to worry about

The idea that genetics determines everything is simplistically appealing. It also ignores most of modern biological science. Genetics just doesn't work the way the average Fox News viewer thinks it does.

Here are my main tenets why you shouldn't fear cloning any more than any other form of reproductive assistance.

1. Proteomics (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteomics)
Humans have about 30,000 genes but over 200,000 proteins encoded by those genes. Proteins are what carry out the life processes. Proteomics is extremely complicated and it's effects and actions change depending on the part of the body and the stage of life.

2. Complex Systems - Now that we've got over the genetic determination bias, we have to deal with the incredibly complex interactions of proteins. We're just beginning to understand proteomics, but it's likely that random or at least stochastic variation plays a large role in how the genes build you and me. Studies of complex systems indicate that small fluctuations can have big changes and big fluctuations can have small changes. This gives me the belief (not knowledge mind you, but belief) that cloning will end up with a very similar individual that still remains unique.

3. Tendency Away from Extremes.
I've noticed over time that the things society in general gets all worked up about generally turn out to be much less of a problem or as extreme than was expected or feared. While this is not a proof of anything (look at Hitler who ended up the opposite) it general holds true. Killer bees did not wipe out Texas, and the Internet did not save the world, at least as fast as it was supposed to.

Cloning will have it's controversies but after the first few clones have grown up (and Raelians or not, people will be cloned) we'll realize that they're no more a threat or abomination than twins, and possibly less interesting.

The fear over cloning is another example of what happens when people take half-truths and try for the simple explanation.
Re:well... by RatBastard · 2003-01-22 05:35 · Score: 1

Nobody was expecting the same memories; they were, however, expecting the same behavior patterns.
The scientists were certainly not expecting the clone to have the original's memories, but that's simply not true for many of the peopl wanting to clone their pets. Most people's ideas of clones are that Sixth Day sci-fi crap. They expect that a clone is a copy of their precious Fluffy at the time the DNA was donated, memories and all. The vast unwashed masses of Americans have no idea how memory actually works (look at the number of "memory transfer posts" in this article, pretty scary).
To hell with cloning, most people have very little knowledge of basic science and have the most outrageous expectations of science. Why? Because they only thing most people know about science is what they see in movies and TV.
If you don't beleive me, ask members of your family. You'll be very surprised at what you find.

--
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Re:well... by Madcapjack · 2003-01-22 06:24 · Score: 1

Nobody was expecting the same memories; they were, however, expecting the same behavior patterns.
The scientists were certainly not expecting the clone to have the original's memories, but that's simply not true for many of the peopl wanting to clone their pets.
yes. very true. (sigh) most people have a problem with cloning for all of the wrong reasons. i'm a twin and i'm a clone. gotta problem?
The vast unwashed masses of Americans have no idea how memory actually works (look at the number of "memory transfer posts" in this article, pretty scary).
most people don't, its true. but don't call them unwashed. i don't know what you mean by that. its almost insulting. anyway, i think the idea of memory transfer has some merit...
To hell with cloning, most people have very little knowledge of basic science and have the most outrageous expectations of science. Why? Because they only thing most people know about science is what they see in movies and TV.
very true. genetics is even becoming a focus of a form of mysticism

--
Logic, macros, and more
Re:well... by istartedi · 2003-01-22 13:31 · Score: 1

Killer bees did not wipe out Texas, and the Internet did not save the world, at least as fast as it was supposed to

Of course, if something wiped out life on Earth, we wouldn't be here to speculate about it. This reminds me of all the people who say it's OK to try drugs because their parents did them in the 60s, and they survived to raise the kids who are using that as an argument. Trouble with that is, all the people from the 60s who got too messed up to raise a family don't have any kids to refute the argument. If susceptibility to drug abuse were purely genetic and there were no recessive genes combining to predispose these kids to addiction, the argument would fly; but that's not the case. Grampa's latent compulsive behavior gene will zap a certain percentage of them.

In other words, evil things bury their failures.

--
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?

They named the clone "CC"... by tooloftheoligarchy · 2003-01-21 22:00 · Score: 3, Funny

...for "Carbon Copy"... no wonder the thing is thinner thatn it's "sibling"... it's got identity issues and they've triggered an eating disorder.

Re:They named the clone "CC"... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-21 22:23 · Score: 0

Hmm, why not CC, the "Cloned Cat"?

Nature vs. Nurture by DJPenguin · 2003-01-21 22:01 · Score: 3, Interesting

It's the old Nature vs. Nurture debate - I would imagine these cats were treated differently, and this could account for differences in behaviour.

It might however have been a different story if both cats had been cloned before birth to make them identical twins. The older cat in the article would have had to change it's behaviour when the new one came along.

It just goes to show the genetics doesn't define "who we are".

Re:Nature vs. Nurture by Billly+Gates · 2003-01-21 22:06 · Score: 4, Interesting

But its not personality.

The coats are different colors. How is this possible?

I know when they cloaned dolly, the clone experienced premature aging. The theory is that when each cell divides it stores the information about the division internally. After so many divides the cells began to not regenerate as much and this causes aging. Perhaps something similiar happened and caused the hairs to not display in full colors due to false information stored from the other cat that was implanted in the egg cell of the clone.
Anyway this is a mystery and alot more research is needed on this.

--
http://saveie6.com/
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by Firethorn · 2003-01-21 22:07 · Score: 1

What suprised me was the missing colors, the mother was a three color (brown, tan, gold)calico, while CC is white with gray strips.

A different pattern wouldn't suprise me, after all, twins don't have the same fingerprints. But I'd have expected them to at least have the same hair colors...

I guess this means that the colors of cats depends more on development/womb conditions than genetics.

--
I don't read AC A human right
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-21 22:27 · Score: 2, Insightful

>The coats are different colors. How is this possible?

Huh, you know that children born of mothers who
drink during pregnancy have a heavy risk of
mental or physical disorders ? So the environment
begins before the birth, you see.

Natural twins grow in the same womb. The
environment is quasi identical (apart from the
position in the womb, of course)

Even if the mother is the same for the 2 cloned
animals, it's not at the same time. This could
explain the greater difference between
artificial clones vs the natural ones.
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by ishark · 2003-01-21 22:35 · Score: 5, Informative

The coats are different colors. How is this possible?

The color of a cat's coat is a much more complex matter than what it seems. While, of course, genetics applies, there are a lot of "minor" details which are not completely understood.
Even in "purebreed" cats you can have a lot of fluctuations in the fur color (there are lots of variations in the "blue" you can see in the Chartreux). While some of them are genetically transferred (and thus selective breeding can enhance/cancel them), for some of them the situation is not so clear, an example being the tortie-shell females (black/red or blue/cream), where the distribution of the color doesn't seem much controllable. From what they show with Cc it also seems that the tabby stripes can show up more or less depending on the individual.

Some more info on the main cat color genes can be found here
and even more here.
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by nycbrujah · 2003-01-21 23:17 · Score: 2, Informative

Some cat fur is lighter or darker depending upon then environment that they grow up in. Darker for colder climates, and lighter for warmer climates. I'm not sure if it works that way with Calicos though.
Calico is mostly a female only gene, the odd male that is born a Calico is usual sterile.
I'm surprised they chose a Calico to clone. It's possible because a Calico needs a certain set of genes, most recessive, and they might have been easier to isolate.

--
'Pleasure is the Disease, Pain is the Cure' - Lilith
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by johnraphone · 2003-01-21 23:21 · Score: 1

I aggree with you that the enviorment does play a role in the behavior and attitude of it and not the DNA. Question: Do you think motherhood or fatherhood is built into the DNA? I think it is because somehow animals in the wild seem to keep having babies. :)

--
Free Instant Site Inclusion
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by blue+trane · 2003-01-21 23:26 · Score: 1

Or: genetics determines the range of possible coat colors/patterns.

Given a specific cat's genes, one should (eventually) be able to predict the coat results in different environmental conditions.

(So it isn't really that nurture "wins"...)
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by TCaM · 2003-01-21 23:33 · Score: 2, Insightful

Simply having a particular gene or set of genes does not always mean that the gene or genes will express. It is well known that environment can have a drastic on how genes express in an organism.
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by re-Verse · 2003-01-21 23:38 · Score: 1

Argh no it is not"the old" nature vs nurture thing. Nature vs nurture is often used by genetic scientists when talking about the amount of care put in to a child after birth. Humans dedicare nearly 20 years to one child - thats a lot of nurthure to a little bit of nature. On the other hand, creatures like spiders will have thousands of young and not tend to them at all. Thats a lot of nature and not much nurture.

Thought the theory you present is right, the term you coined it as is incorrect.
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 00:17 · Score: 0

Or: environment determines the range of possible coat colors/patterns.

Given a specific cat's environment, one should (eventually) be able to predict the coat results for different genetic makeups.

(So it isn't really that nature "wins"...)
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 00:20 · Score: 2, Informative

Tortoiseshell patterns are determined by X inactivation. AFAIK, exactly how this happens in a normal cat is something of a mystery.

But it is thought that Cc (since she is cloned from the genetic material of a single cell from an adult) has the same X chromosome inactivated everywhere. That would explain why she has only two colors of fur.

Female humans also have X inactivation, but I guess the results are not as immediately obvious.

Also, it's generally true for all animals that some genes on the X escape inactivation. Dunno why.
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by assaultriflesforfree · 2003-01-22 00:31 · Score: 5, Interesting

Actually, the reason that these coats don't look entirely alike is probably entirely genetic. Although, you're correct, it's not predictable or controllable. When a female cat is conceived, it begins to grow, duplicating its cells. Each of these cells, however, has two copies of the x-chromosome. Only one of these is useful. So, in a random pattern, the cells will switch off one of the chromosomes by forming Barr bodies that surround it. It's a well understood process called Lyonization for anybody interested in looking into it. However, this only happens for females. One might then ask whether a male cat's clone would look identical. My guess is again that it would not, although Lyonization would not be an adequate explanation. However, I believe that they would look much more similar than any two cloned calico cats (which are all female and whose coats are formed by this mechanism).
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 00:34 · Score: 0

The cats have different personalities because there is another soul in that other cat. No matter what you experience through your life, certain qualities you bring from beyond birth.

Even so, cc has been protected by a sterile environment, a precaution to make sure she is healthy. Visitors are not allowed to pet her. That will change gradually when she moves into her new home with Kraemer and his wife, Shirley.

I hope somebody is allowed to pet her (all children needs love). I wouldn't want to pay 5 figures for a cat that looks and acts differently AND is neurotic..

Mod this down all you like and display your ignorance..
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by Gojira+Shipi-Taro · 2003-01-22 00:43 · Score: 1

IIRC, noone is really sure about the Calico "third color" gene. It appears to be X recessive, since 99.8% of tricolored cats are Female. Perhaps it is a mutation that's transmitted through some pre-partum vector like a virus or prion.

Pure speculation on my part, of course.

If cc was concieved in vitro and the cat that recieved the implant didn't have the calico gene, perhaps that breaks the cycle somehow... Cats were an interesting choice for this experiment, for reasons like that.

Or perhaps, as you suggest, some elements of coloration are influenced by the same kinds of factors that cause variation in human fingerprints.

--
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by one9nine · 2003-01-22 00:58 · Score: 4, Informative

Mod parent up, finally the correct explaination.
Each of these cells, however, has two copies of the x-chromosome. Only one of these is useful.
This is not true, both Xs are perfectly viable. One contains the gene for tan, the other for black. One X gets switched off in each of the cells at random. Then, when each cell divides, the X chromosome that was turned off continues to be switched off in all of the progeny cells. The skin cells that are produced from these cells will express the color of the X chromosome that was not turned off.
The white coloring is caused by epistatis, or the overriding of one gene by another. Also, in some cats, temperature plays a part on which color the coat will be.
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by blue+trane · 2003-01-22 01:01 · Score: 1

Well, I don't think so. Here's a test:

Take two cats with different genetic make-ups and put them in exactly the same environment.

Will they turn out the same?
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by bokmann · 2003-01-22 01:13 · Score: 2, Insightful

Coat patterns are influenced by the environment in the uterus during fetal development... similar to the principles at develop your fingerprints. Even identical twins don't have duplicate fingerprints, even though they share more genetic information in common than clones do (itentical twins *also* share the mitochondrial dna from their mother, which is not the same as a 'nuclear' dna that gets cloned).
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by frankthechicken · 2003-01-22 01:15 · Score: 1

Humans dedicare nearly 20 years to one child - thats a lot of nurthure to a little bit of nature. On the other hand, creatures like spiders will have thousands of young and not tend to them at all. Thats a lot of nature and not much nurture.

Surely that depends on the amount of information the brain could take in to make a fair comparison? Probably the reason why a cat was chosen.
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by throbbingbrain.com · 2003-01-22 01:16 · Score: 1

Although, you're correct, it's not predictable or controllable.

We all agree that it's random. Two identical twin calico cats (if cats have such a thing), conceived naturally, would have three colors in non-matching patterns. Although they would be genetically identical, the pattern is a a result of chance, or environment, or whatever.

If a clone was created from a skin cell taken from a tan patch, the resulting cat would be white and tan (in a random pattern). No black, as the X chromosome containing the gene for black fur had already been switched off. White, if present, is not sex linked.

I'm not an authority on the subject by any means - I just have a calico cat and wondered why they're so unusual.
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by silhouette · 2003-01-22 02:42 · Score: 4, Funny

Yessssss! Nurture wins!

In your FACE, Nature!! Nyaaaaa!

Nurture - 1, Nature - 0!

SWISH!!

<drunken singing>
Weeee are the schampions... WEEEE are the schampions... nooo time for looosers...
</drunken singing>

--
Experts agree: everything is fine.
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by Lemmy+Caution · 2003-01-22 03:05 · Score: 1

Well, there's a lot of space between nature and nurture, too - like gestation environment, developmental interactions, hormonal exposure and the like. Developing systems often structure each other through interaction, and small changes early in development can lead to major effects later on down the line. It's even concievable that different hormonal environments create some mutation. It's no accident that, in humans, a stressed or anxious mother will produce an emotionally unstable or learning-disabled child, for example (transplacental effects are likely a stronger factor in why people from poorer backgrounds are likely to stay in poorer/troubled environments than genetics is).
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by silhouette · 2003-01-22 03:44 · Score: 1

Flamebait? Oh please, I wasn't being serious. There are plenty of +5 Funny posts that are technically flamebait.

--
Experts agree: everything is fine.
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by Suppafly · 2003-01-22 04:22 · Score: 1

Did you read the article before coming up with this little gem?

The nature vs nurture debate never came up in the article, the differences referred to have to do with the cats both being calicos, but the clone being colored dramatically differently from the original.

The nature vs nurture debate was won long ago, and its constantly being won in the minds of intelligent people all the time when they realize that neither nature nor nurture is predominately responsible for "who we are" but that a combination of both is required.
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by schon · 2003-01-22 04:31 · Score: 1

you know that children born of mothers who
drink during pregnancy have a heavy risk of
mental or physical disorders ? So the environment
begins before the birth, you see.

Yes, I think that was his point.

If you read the post he was replying to, you'll see this: " I would imagine these cats were treated differently, and this could account for differences in behaviour."

Being "treated differently" generally means "the handlers did something different after the cat was born." Which is what the poster Gates was commenting on. (The fact that the handlers treated Cc differently won't have any bearing on her markings.)
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by RatBastard · 2003-01-22 05:41 · Score: 1

The coats are different colors. How is this possible?
It's possible because cat fur color is not controlled by the cat's genes alone. The hormone mixture in the mother cat's womb can have a dramatic effect on a cats hair color. It would nearly impossible to get a cloned cat to have the same exact coloration unless you used the same mother cat, and MAYBE if you created the clone pretty much at the moment of conception.
At least that's what the last article on Cc had to say about it.

--
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by jesser · 2003-01-22 05:55 · Score: 1

At what point in development do cells decide which X chromosome to deactivate? Why would this step be skipped in a clone but not in a cat conceived through sex?

--
The shareholder is always right.
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by Uart · 2003-01-22 06:41 · Score: 2, Insightful

This brings to mind the example of the himmalayan (sp?) rabbit. When raised at its normal (cold) temperature, its ears, nose and feet would be brown; BUT when raised at a warmer temperature, it would be white. Also, if a patch of fur were shaved from the rabbit's side, and an icepack were applied, then that area would also grow in brown...

Well it turns out that the enzyme that the himmalayan allele codes for denatures at a warmer temperature, so in cold temperatures, the rabbit's extremities would be the only part of the rabbit that were brown (body heat was lower at those points).

Anyway, the point is, that DNA codes for proteins, it isn't as definitive as people believe it is. Nature can easily affect the proteins/enzymes/whatever to react differently.

--

Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 07:27 · Score: 0

>> Each of these cells, however, has two copies of the x-chromosome. Only one of these is useful.

> This is not true, both Xs are perfectly viable.

You missed the meaning of the word useful. The Barr'ed X is certainly viable, and is also certainly useless to a cell that only needs one X to function correctly. That's why the parent post said "useful", not "viable".
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by Goldsmith · 2003-01-22 08:48 · Score: 1

The coats could not be the same color and pattern. Coloring and placement of hair is not determined exclusively by genetics. There are a number of released chemicals which a biologist could explain to you.

The point is, these chemicals are part of a complex enough system that it is not deterministic, it is chaotic. You never know exactly what you're going to get. You do know that any stripes will be around the "skinny" part (have you ever seen a cat with stripes down it's tail? or a zebra with stripes running from head to foot?). And you can guess it will be similar asthetically to it's parents.

You can have two identical cloned cats, in the same surroundings, with the same exact things happening to them, and they will turn out looking differently because there are chaotic processes at work.

The same thing would happen with people. Identical twins look alike, but there are small differences between them.
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 10:52 · Score: 0

You know what I like best about that fact?

I can legitimately blame stupid people for being stupid. If another 30% of the population would stop having children at age 16, and further their education, the world would be a much better place. Best of all, it's their fault! They weren't born stupid, they chose the stupid route.
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by jafac · 2003-01-22 12:41 · Score: 1

One theory is that metabolism is defined more by the mitochondrial DNA than the nuclear DNA. Cloning does not duplicate the mitochondrial DNA (depending on the exact cloning technique used).

Hair growth, and metabolic rates are closely tied together, so it makes sense that the hair pattern could be tied to the mitochondrial DNA (as with the fat/skinny issue where the cats also differ).

--

These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Re:Nature vs. Nurture by Firethorn · 2003-01-22 23:51 · Score: 1

Except in cloning you're making no attempt to isolate genes, you're trying to transfer all the genetic material. They've been choosing females because they're easier to clone (no tissue rejection when the fetus is implanted in the source of the DNA).

--
I don't read AC A human right

Not a carbon copy...? by Anonvmous+Coward · 2003-01-21 22:02 · Score: 4, Funny

So.. it's silicon based then? Well, that means they can colonize radioactive worlds, but their population growth is half.

Re:Not a carbon copy...? by NanoGator · 2003-01-21 22:13 · Score: 4, Funny

"So.. it's silicon based then? Well, that means they can colonize radioactive worlds, but their population growth is half. "

No no, it's the first silicon based pussy that anybody cared about.

Hmm. You know, it's just like poker. You can't beat a Master of Orion reference with a porn reference, even with the double meaning bonus. My only ace would be if I could find a surprisingly appropriate Doctor Who reference.

--
"Derp de derp."
Re:Not a carbon copy...? by offpath3 · 2003-01-21 23:40 · Score: 1

And maybe Kirk can run into it while it tries to protect it's eggs. And then William Shatner can go on to consider _this_ one his favorite episode.

As expected really by terrencefw · 2003-01-21 22:04 · Score: 4, Insightful

I think that this is pretty much what we all expected... far more nurture than nature. Like the article says, it's the personality that we like about our animals, not it's genetic makeup.

As for the company which promises to provide you with a replacement pet which looks just like the old one, they admit that it's won't have the same personality. 'Scuse me, but isn't a pet that looks the same but with a different personality just what you'd find down the local animal sanctuary or pet store? (And far cheaper!)

--
Like tinyurl, but one letter less! http://qurl.co.uk/

Re:As expected really by julesh · 2003-01-21 22:35 · Score: 1

Yeah, but it even looks different. Not that that's surprising either, seing as its been long known that a cat's markings are the results of random variations, similar to the way a human's fingerprint is determined.
Re:As expected really by Jace+of+Fuse! · 2003-01-21 23:14 · Score: 1

similar to the way a human's fingerprint is determined.

Now that is interesting. I've never heard that a human fingerprint is based on something other than genetics. Your statement implies a pair of cloned humans would have different finger prints.

Since I'm unaware of any cloned humans, do you have any information on this? Or is it just a standing theory?

--

"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"

Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Re:As expected really by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-21 23:24 · Score: 0

"But daddy! I dont want a RE-Pet!"

Sorry... I couldn't help myself... whenever you can, quote a bad arnold movie.
Re:As expected really by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-21 23:25 · Score: 0

Since I'm unaware of any cloned humans, do you have any information on this?
Identical twins have different fingerprints.
Re:As expected really by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-21 23:29 · Score: 0

Identical twins are natural clones, and they have different fingerprints.
Re:As expected really by obidobi · 2003-01-21 23:36 · Score: 2, Interesting

Identical twins

To a standard DNA analysis, they would be indistinguishable. Yet the parents of twins can usually tell them apart by subtle visual cues, and, while their fingerprints are generally similar, they are not identical.
Re:As expected really by Fjord · 2003-01-25 03:56 · Score: 1

Not just parents. I can only assume that people who think identical twins can actually switch are people who didn't know them. A good friend of mine was one half of a twin pair (the other half I knew but didn't hang out with as much), and I could always tell him from the other when seeing their face. They have different blemishes on their skin, for example.

--
-no broken link

Hear that sound? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-21 22:05 · Score: 4, Funny

That's the sound of God chuckling as he walks back to the library.

Re:Hear that sound? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 00:13 · Score: 0

Great image =)
Re:Hear that sound? by LittleGuy · 2003-01-22 00:40 · Score: 2, Insightful

You can clone a body, but you cannot clone a soul.

_I_ call it a major breakthrough in metaphysics.

--
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Re:Hear that sound? by OneEyedApe · 2003-01-22 02:35 · Score: 1

The intent was to clone a body. They were not trying to clone a soul, even if such a thing exists.

--
Life sucks, but death doesn't put out at all....
--Thomas J. Kopp
Re:Hear that sound? by Shads · 2003-01-22 03:38 · Score: 1

... this is explainable through simple genetics. Don't toss the metaphysical crap where it doesn't belong.

--
Shadus
Re:Hear that sound? by hesiod · 2003-01-22 05:40 · Score: 1

> You can clone a body, but you cannot clone a soul.

Says you... I suppose in a sense, I believe you are right, but I don't really believe in the existence of "Soul" as some kind of spiritual entity separate from the body. What we call soul, IMO, is just our way of explaining awareness.

But, maybe I'm the only or one of the few without soul (but I got rhythm).
Re:Hear that sound? by dscowboy · 2003-01-22 07:49 · Score: 0, Flamebait

Cripes on toast, if I hear another fruitcake talk about "SOULS" in a discussion on cloning, I'm going to puke. WTF does that even mean?!

He's a news flash for you from the mid 19th century: Your consciousness exists in a electrical circuit called a "BRAIN", inside your thick skull. The "soul" is a baseless concept created by ignorant people before they understood human biology. We're all fortunate enough now to live at a time where this kind of information is available to us, however there are still an amazing number of people who choose ignorance and tripe over truth.

Mexican Scientists Perfect Copying by KrunZ · 2003-01-21 22:06 · Score: 5, Funny

Speaking of making perfect copies of animals Mexican Scientists Perfect Copying :).

basic flaw by slimordium · 2003-01-21 22:06 · Score: 3, Insightful

The definition of "clone' as used is incorrect, that is probably where the problem comes from in the first place. Redefine that word retroactively and perhaps avoid the whole mess from the start. Clone? I do not think "it" will ever be possible. Are we any closer to understanding the complete universe/multiverse/galaxy much less how our DNA works? HA! Arrogant bastards. In 100 hundred years or so people will laugh at our "clone' ideas. Snicker. I laugh proactively of course. But I reserve the right to change my opinion.

why on earth would you expect a carbon copy ? by psycho_tinman · 2003-01-21 22:07 · Score: 4, Interesting

Its been established that nature plays a lesser role than nurture in the personality of a human.. obviously, the same must apply to animals as well..

No matter even if you clone an Einstein, they're not going to pop out spouting theorems, it just doesnt work that way.. from a purely research oriented perspective, though, it might be interesting to have an Einstein clone, simply to see how he may use his innate talents along ANOTHER field of science (or maybe not even a science, he might have been a GREAT musician, for all we know)..

For any person, most things we do are not innate but rather taught.. Would Mozart have started composing from the age of 4 if he hadnt had parents who encouraged him ? I doubt it.. With a clone, the only thing you CAN get is the potential to achieve the same things as the "original" (I hate using that term, but whatever)..

So, finally, in typical Slashdot-style, let me ask.. Is this really news ? (yeah, it is, it probably helped correct a lot of peoples misconceptions about the cloning process, which is GREAT, but it should have been obvious from the start)

Re:why on earth would you expect a carbon copy ? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-21 22:29 · Score: 2, Informative

...it might be interesting to have an Einstein clone, simply to see how he may use his innate talents along ANOTHER field of science (or maybe not even a science, he might have been a GREAT musician, for all we know)..

Alfred Einstein, Albert's brother, was a very influential, and quite brilliant, musicologist.
Re:why on earth would you expect a carbon copy ? by MonTemplar · 2003-01-21 22:29 · Score: 1

So, finally, in typical Slashdot-style, let me ask.. Is this really news ?

Well, at least with this story we actually have pictures of the clone, and some proof that it actually exists.

--
-MT.
Re:why on earth would you expect a carbon copy ? by cenobyte · 2003-01-21 22:29 · Score: 1

I don't think this is news to biologists, or cognitive scientists.

Genes play a part, but nurture plays a part two. The proof is sitting in plain sight. Identical twins are genetically identical: they are naturally occurring human clones. However, identical twins are also different people. They share some traits, but still are very different. And identical twins also share a lot of their environment: a clone (a clearer term: "identical twin shifted in time", ITSIT?) will have less common environment, and hence be likely to be more different.
Re:why on earth would you expect a carbon copy ? by sql*kitten · 2003-01-21 22:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

Its been established that nature plays a lesser role than nurture in the personality of a human.. obviously, the same must apply to animals as well..

That much is intuitively obvious... what is less obvious is why the cats have different colored fur. After all, human twins are often physically indistinguishable.
Re:why on earth would you expect a carbon copy ? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-21 23:26 · Score: 0

Homosexuality is a decision or environmential rather than genetic... :-)

Seems like when you open that bag, you open a bag that a lot of alternative lifestyle people dont want it opened.

Same as the kid that is evil/grows up to be a criminal... it's not genetic.. but how you were raised coupled with personal decisions.
Re:why on earth would you expect a carbon copy ? by Jace+of+Fuse! · 2003-01-21 23:28 · Score: 2, Interesting

The question isn't if nuture has some role, because it obviously does. The question is, does nature ALSO have some role, as well. How much does each have? Does genetics effect one's behavior at all. Can you inherit violent or criminal tendacies? (i.e. if your father was a violent man, will you be a violent man even if you've never met him?)

As far as I know there is no clear cut answer. I've literally watched two "experts" go back and forth on the topic for very long periods of time.

--

"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"

Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Re:why on earth would you expect a carbon copy ? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 00:23 · Score: 0

Does genetics effect one's behavior at all.
Yes. No cat will ever write a symphony: they haven't got the genes for it.
Re:why on earth would you expect a carbon copy ? by WindBourne · 2003-01-22 00:38 · Score: 1

This can be taken a step further.
1) during the early nuturing, mntal pathways are set. different experiences will create new and different pathways.
2) I suspect highly that viruses and prions infect and affect us more than we realize. These will insert new and uniqe sequences in us. The prions will almost certainly turn on and off different proteins.

Since the clone is exposed to a different set of conditions, then it will have a different set of biological conditions. Roughly, all a clone does is give you the same initial starting pathway with a 100% random modifications.
Besides, jsut look at identical twins. Many are alike, but they will diverge over a period of time and act different to some degree.

--
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Re:why on earth would you expect a carbon copy ? by hawkestein · 2003-01-22 01:30 · Score: 1

It's been established that nature plays a lesser role than nurture in the personality of a human.. obviously, the same must apply to animals as well..

Some have suggested that nature's role in human paersonality has been underestimated. Steven Pinker's recent book entitled The Blank Slate argues against the idea that nature plays (almost) no role in personality (i.e. theat we are born as blank slates).

--
-- Will quantum computers run imaginary-time operating systems?
Re:why on earth would you expect a carbon copy ? by Idarubicin · 2003-01-22 01:37 · Score: 2, Informative

what is less obvious is why the cats have different colored fur. After all, human twins are often physically indistinguishable.
Humans usually have uniformly coloured hair on top of their heads--but even then, identical twins with different hair colour are sometimes seen (Lancet 353 (1999) 562). Cats often have mottled, striped, or otherwise nonuniform coats.
The splotches on a cat are the result some rather interesting processes, one of which is described here. Essentially, cats receive genes determining the colour of their coats from both parents. Within the cat embryo at the stage where it contains a few dozen or fewer cells, one set of genes for colour is deactivated in each cell--but it is not necessarily the same set in different cells.
This random deactivation of genes mean that parts of the cat that develop from one cell within the embryo will show orange fur, while bits from other cells may turn up with black fur. Overall, the effect is mottled fur, in a random pattern--just as is seen with Cc.

--
~Idarubicin
Re:why on earth would you expect a carbon copy ? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 01:41 · Score: 0

So the cloned cat's different fur colors were a result of personal decisions?
Re:why on earth would you expect a carbon copy ? by cenobyte · 2003-01-22 02:00 · Score: 1

My point wasn't about how genetics affect behaviour. There are way to many variables in play there. My point was that even identical twins, who have identical genes, can appear different: variations in height, build, finger prints, freckle patterns, aptitudes, etc.

They are clones, appear similar, but are not the same, even on physical appearance.
Re:why on earth would you expect a carbon copy ? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 02:39 · Score: 0

IIRC, Albert played the violin.
Re:why on earth would you expect a carbon copy ? by technix4beos · 2003-01-22 02:54 · Score: 1

I can't help wondering how much our environment plays a part in hindering/helping us achieve our "potential".

Are you saying that no matter who is born/created/cloned, they will be able to achieve the potential that the genetic makeup allows them to, only if not hindered by society, their childhood environment, and their parents nurturing?

This treads into a scary area, namely, the free will we've come to rely on when we're in a tough spot in life, and need to pick ourselves up.

Is there free will? How do the nature and nurture groups address this concept?

I really want to know, and am NOT trying to troll in a bad way. I would just like to explore this olive branch a little while this topic is being discussed.

Thanks. (I turned off my +1)

--
user@host$ diff /dev/urandom /dev/uspto
Re:why on earth would you expect a carbon copy ? by Xtifr · 2003-01-22 10:20 · Score: 1

After all, human twins are often physically indistinguishable.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that even identical twins have different fingerprints. This seems like it might be the same sort of thing, but on a more obvious scale.

This is all very well, but... by Doctor+Hu · 2003-01-21 22:08 · Score: 5, Funny

...when are they going to clone the same cat multiple times, to check out the "9 lives" theory?

--
Yes, we're at a coffee break here. How did you guess?

Re:This is all very well, but... by Jason1729 · 2003-01-21 22:49 · Score: 1

This is the way cats get their nine lives

Jason
ProfQuotes
Re:This is all very well, but... by larien · 2003-01-21 22:58 · Score: 1

Reminds me of a joke I heard: "Cats have 9 lives. Which makes them ideal for conducting medical experiments on."

I don't get it by peterpi · 2003-01-21 22:12 · Score: 5, Interesting

I am genetically identical today to how I was yesterday, but I expect I'll do loads of different stuff.

Re:I don't get it by Inflatable+Hippo · 2003-01-21 22:47 · Score: 5, Funny

> I am genetically identical today to how I was yesterday, but I expect I'll do loads of different stuff.

We change a great deal over time. For example I was blond and blue eyed until I was two and now I'm grey/green eyed and dark haired (what's left of it)

My mother asked a Nurse about this at the time (1960's) and was told that changes like this are quite normal over time.

This did confuse my mother somewhat since it happened to me over a period of 5 minutes when I was left outside a shop with our dog.
Re:I don't get it by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-21 23:28 · Score: 0

Hey! FUNNY!!!
Re:I don't get it by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 03:45 · Score: 0

aha, so something similar must have happened to Michael Jackson too
Re:I don't get it by aborchers · 2003-01-22 04:24 · Score: 1

OK. Maybe you're joking about the 5 minute thing and I'm just gullible, but I have heard legends of people's hair color changing (usually to white in response to some intense stress) in just such a rapid fashion. Can any of the biologists (or cosmetologists, if there are any) among us explain how such rapid transformations in hair color occur?

--
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
Re:I don't get it by Inflatable+Hippo · 2003-01-22 04:40 · Score: 1

This did actually happen to someone I went to school with.

A new employee joined a different department in a company I worked for. He looked really familiar and his name rang a bell.

I kept thinking that he looked really like someone I went to school with. If only his hair were a different colour.

Eventually I went and spoke to him and it turned out it was the same guy. He did volunteer that his hair had changed colour as an adult but didn't say why.
Re:I don't get it by ashitaka · 2003-01-22 06:03 · Score: 1

Ohhh, that's easy.

--
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.

Yes, but what are the similarities? by shamir_k · 2003-01-21 22:13 · Score: 3, Interesting

Even the coat pattern of the two cats is different!! Then what exactly are the similarities. I have heard stories of human twins leading very similar lives. Genese definitely do have a big effect on personality and behaviour. So the interesting question is : what are the similarities between two cats with the same DNA, but very different environments (and ages). Could shed some new and interesting light on the old nurture vs. nature arguements. Even for humans .

--
more about me

Re:Yes, but what are the similarities? by CrosseyedPainless · 2003-01-21 23:06 · Score: 1

Human twins may lead very similar lives, but then, human twins are born together, generally live in the same environment at the same exact time, have most of the same experiences, and they have each other for reinforcment. If you take away all those factors, as in this case, you are left with only the genetic factors. It seems genetic factors just don't have that much effect, relatively, on behavior, which isn't really that surprising.

Have you ever spent a lot of time around identical twins? At first, they seem, well, identical. After six months of daily exposure, they won't even look alike to you, or even act alike.
Re:Yes, but what are the similarities? by throbbingbrain.com · 2003-01-22 00:18 · Score: 0, Redundant

Like everything else in the news about cloning, the article completely passes over the science.

First, the cat's color pattern was decided by individual skin cells very early in embryonic development. This is chance, not genes. The individual cells multiply, carrying the same color, to become the pattern on the adult cat.

Second, and most notably, calico cats (tortoise shell) carry a color in each sex chromosome - that's why 99.9% of calico cats are female (XX female, although there are some XXY male calicos but they're sterile). Fur color depends on which X chromosome is active, and which one is inactive (curled up, as they say)

So, looking at the picture, you'll notice the clone (cc) has only two colors indicating that it is not only a clone of the donor cat, but a 100% exact genetic clone of ONE cell of the donor cat. The other X chromosome is completely inactive.

That's just my observation from the photo because no news article will ever talk about the science behind the hype.
Re:Yes, but what are the similarities? by creepery2kplus · 2003-01-22 00:24 · Score: 1

Even the coat pattern of the two cats is different!! Then what exactly are the similarities. I have heard stories of human twins leading very similar lives. Genese definitely do have a big effect on personality and behaviour. So the interesting question is : what are the similarities between two cats with the same DNA, but very different environments (and ages). Could shed some new and interesting light on the old nurture vs. nature arguements. Even for humans . Ahhh. This question has an interesting answer (i hope you all agree). A clone means that the organisms in question are genetically identical. This means that both the original and the clone are "built" from the same blue print DNA. The differences we see are manufacturing variations because the DNA blue print lays out generally what's what. DNA will specific structures such as organs etc... but will not determine exactly where every cell will end up, only an in close approximate location. In other words like building a house a certain wall on a certain side of size x will need y amount of bricks type z; assume that the brinks can self order (they can stack themselves up in a given pattern), a type z brink number n could be anywhere in that wall. So that's why twins will usually have similar finger prints, they may be even be the same but is not guaranteed because to be able to do so the DNA must determine exactly every single cell will go. The question of personality similarities I believe is not that simple as it is getting into a comparison of hardware (the brain) and software (what the brain learns). If the question is the potential of the brains, they should be very similar in what they can achieve assume again manufacturing variations are accounted for.
Re:Yes, but what are the similarities? by Gordonjcp · 2003-01-22 00:39 · Score: 1

Have you noticed how many genetically not-that-similar tortoiseshell cats have roughly the same distribution of colour patches, in roughly the same proportion? That's something I've often wondered about.

My theory is this - when the embryo is very tiny there are probably only about a dozen or so skin cell groups created. I'm no great expert on this, so I don't know where the hair follicles come from, but I'm guessing they're a special case of ordinary skin cells. Anyway, some groups have a ginger X chromosome, some have black, and some have white. As the kitten foetus grows, no more "new" skin cell groups are produced, but the cells within the groups divide, forming more, similarly-coloured patches of skin and fur.

Just a thought.
Re:Yes, but what are the similarities? by Idarubicin · 2003-01-22 01:20 · Score: 2, Interesting

I have heard stories of human twins leading very similar lives. Genese definitely do have a big effect on personality and behaviour.
I'm glad that your detailed anecdotal study has reached such enlightening conclusions.
Twins are usually raised in the same home, under the same circumstances, by the same parents. Even then, there are usually marked differences once you get to know them. (Sure, they look mostly the same, but they're not identical.) I don't think your research properly separates environmental and genetic effects.
For identical twins raised independently, there is certainly a strong correlation betweent their susceptibilities to certain diseases, just as we would expect. Though there might be some similarities in temperament, the correlation isn't much bettter than between two random individuals. (I lump most mental illnesses under diseases, not temperament.)
Psychologists (and legions of statisticians) have made careers of studies of identical twins. Just because you've heard about cases where twins are similar, doesn't mean that dissimilar cases don't exist. There's a confirmation bias at work, because similar behaviour supports our subconscious belief that people who look alike ought to be alike.

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~Idarubicin
Re:Yes, but what are the similarities? by goodmanj · 2003-01-22 05:06 · Score: 1

Even the coat pattern is different! Then what are the similarities?
Because of some interesting details of cat coat color genetics, clones of calico and tortoiseshell cats are guaranteed to look very different from their genetic parent. Had the researchers chosen to clone any other kind of cat, the clone would appear much more similar to its parent.
I suspect the researchers chose a calico cat specifically to demonstrate that there's more to life than genes.

The follow-on research by hussar · 2003-01-21 22:14 · Score: 3, Interesting

What will be interesting is the follow-on research to determine why the two cats (or any two cloned cats) are not the same. Using clones, they have removed the DNA as a variable. The differences that resulted must therefore be due to other factors. What the other factors are and how they effect the end result should then become the central question.

My guess is that the end analysis will be that these other factors are too many and too widely variable to be consistently controlled.

--

Bureaucracy loves company.

Re:The follow-on research by jeff4747 · 2003-01-22 04:01 · Score: 1

What's going on here is that one copy of most genes gets randomly turned off in early development in each cell. Thus, Cc looks different because some genes that are off in some cells in Rainbow are on in Cc.

Now, what will be interesting will be to see if every cell in Cc has the same copies off. That doesn't happen in normally-created animals, since the turning-off is random in each cell. If Cc has the same ones off in every cell, that means the "off" genes can't be turned on.

Change of API by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-21 22:15 · Score: 5, Funny

Not a Carbon API for a Cat ? Upgrade to Cacoa for full MacOS X Jaguar support.

Re:Change of API by MonTemplar · 2003-01-21 22:39 · Score: 1, Funny

Not a Carbon API for a Cat ? Upgrade to Cacoa for full MacOS X Jaguar support.

You misunderstand the nature of Cats. They have no need of an API, as they interface to the computer by directing their pet Human(s) instead. :)

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-MT.
Re:Change of API by LizardKing · 2003-01-21 23:26 · Score: 1

[chris@phuq]$ tail cat.m

int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
id cat = [[Cat alloc] init];
[cat setLocation:vet];

return 0;
}

[chris@phuq]$ gcc -Wall -o cat cat.m -lobjc
gcc: 44: cannot find cat

It's all good by hdparm · 2003-01-21 22:15 · Score: 2, Interesting

After all, clones won't be a boring copies of their originals.

I would appreciate, though if somebody here can explain why doesn't same genetic pattern produce same phisycal characteristics. It's obvious that behaviour is influenced by some other factors, as well but phisycal differences seem ilogical. Thanks.

Re:It's all good by IncarnationTwo · 2003-01-21 22:33 · Score: 2, Interesting

Simple explanation could be: diet.

Basicly your body is composed of materials you have eaten. If you eat different things, your body must build itself with different materials. I hardly would call it a suprise if a clone of a white haired person is cloned and the clone turns out to be brunette, if the brunette can not gain the needed resources (titanium if I remember right.) to grow white hair.

And again, I am not suprised at all if a person who actively pursues sports and eats healthy is thin and the other who eats in McDonalds and watches tv is not, wether or not they have the same genes.

--
In dream society, people could be given the ability to mod replies. In real life, it would be disaster.
Re:It's all good by halny · 2003-01-21 23:07 · Score: 3, Interesting

I don't see anything illogical about this. Try baking three cakes using the same recipe. Chances of them being *identical* are rather small.

It would be theoretically possible to estimate information capacity of DNA molecue (after all it isn't infinite). I don't know how big it would be, but I don't know why would anyone believe DNA could store information about everything.
Re:It's all good by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 01:04 · Score: 0

One thing that I rememberd that I heard sometime whas that when the brain is developt it grows fast and make all sorts of conections randomly-like.. that could explain why clons are mentaly diffrent...

cnn/slashdot by schematix · 2003-01-21 22:22 · Score: 1, Offtopic

Has anyone else ever noticed that almost all of the articles on cnn's technology or science and space sections always end up on slashdot and those that don't usually are on cnn after being on /.? Or am I just imagining this?

--
Scott

Re:cnn/slashdot by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-21 22:40 · Score: 0

The slashdot/copy problem is an inherited genetic anomaly. However the CNN copy problem is lazy investigative reporters.

not necessarily nature vs. nurture by Megasphaera+Elsdenii · 2003-01-21 22:27 · Score: 2, Insightful

It can very well be somatic mutations that have rendered them different. I.e., there are a number of mutations in cells during foetal development, which result in phenotypic differences that are not reflected in the genotype. And then there is nurture in the sense of womb conditions -- may not have been the same. Lastly, even my identical twin daugthers are very different, so pretty much anything goes.

Just shows... by sifi · 2003-01-21 22:27 · Score: 1

How fame can go to your head.

--
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)

Ambiguity by Isle · 2003-01-21 22:34 · Score: 1

Thank god for nature. ;-)

twins already know this by lambsonic · 2003-01-21 22:38 · Score: 1

I have an identical twin, and I could have told you the outcome.

BTW, I never complain about duplicate articles.

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# make clean sig

Wow... by ctar · 2003-01-21 22:40 · Score: 1

The fact that this surprises me makes me feel really stupid...

The ghastly truth! by MonTemplar · 2003-01-21 22:45 · Score: 4, Funny

'What are we going to do tonight, Rainbow?'
'The same thing we do every night, CC - try to take over the World!'

You honestly thing it was the Human's idea to clone the Cat? You fools! It's part of their Masterplan to rise in vast numbers, and cast aside the enemy Dogs once and for all! Then we will be their obedient slaves - forever! :)

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-MT.

Re:The ghastly truth! by Xpilot · 2003-01-21 23:02 · Score: 2, Funny

They cloned a sheep first. Does this mean there'll be a ruling hierarchy? Sheep->Cats->People

--
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
Re:The ghastly truth! by MonTemplar · 2003-01-21 23:18 · Score: 2, Funny

They cloned a sheep first. Does this mean there'll be a ruling hierarchy? Sheep->Cats->People

More likely, an alliance of some kind. The sheep have already attained control of most of New Zealand, after all. :)

--
-MT.
Re:The ghastly truth! by Arseniev · 2003-01-22 00:14 · Score: 1

and I was thinking that curiosity cloned the cat. Hey.
Re:The ghastly truth! by frozencesium · 2003-01-22 01:20 · Score: 1

Possibly...but that is for a different reason. :-)

(insert your favorite NZ/Scottish/Whomever "sheep joke" here)

-frozen

--
I'm not always the brightest pixel in the stream
Re:The ghastly truth! by Kredal · 2003-01-22 02:09 · Score: 1

If you insist....

What's the difference between the Rolling Stones and a Scottish farmer?

One says "Hey you, get off of my cloud" while the other says "Hey McCloud, get off of my ewe!"

--
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
Re:The ghastly truth! by DavittJPotter · 2003-01-22 03:20 · Score: 1

If a cat lives in your home, you know you're already a willing and obedient slave!

--
"If there's hope, it lies in the proles..."
Re:The ghastly truth! by Drakonian · 2003-01-22 04:58 · Score: 1

2 legs baaaaaaaaaaaaaaddddddddddddddd. 4 legs goooooooooooooooddddddddd.

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Random is the New Order.

Well, duh by heli_flyer · 2003-01-21 22:52 · Score: 1

We've had clones for millions of years. They're called...identical twins. Identical twins don't have the same personality. Clones don't have the same personality either. Surprise!

More cats? by hoop33 · 2003-01-21 22:53 · Score: 5, Funny

From the article:
"There are millions of cats in shelters and with rescue groups that need homes, and the last thing we need is a new production strategy for cats."

Classic. Did this quote really come from Bob Barker?

Re:More cats? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 02:11 · Score: 0

"There are millions of cats in shelters and with rescue groups that need homes, and the last thing we need is a new production strategy for cats."

But how many of those animal shelters are giving their cats to science labs for research? I thought so...
Re:More cats? by dandelion_wine · 2003-01-22 02:59 · Score: 1

No, he's right.

Why, back in the land of Ire, we used to simply cut cats in half and replant them, on and on again, but then this one year there was the great cat famine...

Genetic diversity is a good thing, kiddies. :)
Re:More cats? by niagaracyber · 2003-01-22 04:08 · Score: 2, Insightful

"There are millions of cats in shelters and with rescue groups that need homes, and the last thing we need is a new production strategy for cats."

This "DNA bank service" for cats a symptom of how people love the idea of animals more than real animals themselves. There is an inexhaustable supply, at least now that Asshole Frist is Senate Majority Leader, of cats needing homes, yet some people are looking to throw their money after hopeless duplication of a now-gone pet.

Just because some people voted in a right-wing clone as president, doesn't mean we have to burden the animal world with the same nonsense.
Re:More cats? by schon · 2003-01-22 04:39 · Score: 1

There are millions of cats in shelters and with rescue groups that need homes

Hmm, these rescue groups wouldn't be run by a man with a wooden leg named Bob, would they? :o)

Errors in DNA interpretation by basic70 · 2003-01-21 22:53 · Score: 1

So, why is anybody surprised?

Building an organism from genes includes a lot of randomness and interpretation errors. It's biologi after all, not computer science.

so - what's the truth about identical twins by gollangana · 2003-01-21 23:00 · Score: 2, Interesting

I can understand that the coats would have different patterns. Surely the exact progression of cell division in the womb must be fairly chaotic.
This does however raise the question, do identical twins actually have identical fingerprints? It works wonders in (mostly) crappy literature but is it true?

Can you imagine... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-21 23:03 · Score: 0

...a Mosix cluster of these?

I guess.. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-21 23:04 · Score: 5, Funny

Now you can have your cat and eat it too! Ha!

-Alf

Re:I guess.. by weiyuent · 2003-01-22 10:37 · Score: 1

Now you can have your cat and eat it too! Ha!

Well, I'm not really into eating pussies.

Cats galore by alhobbel · 2003-01-21 23:10 · Score: 2, Funny

Didn't Stephen King already make this point in 'Pet Semetary'? Thou shalt not resurrect dead pets (especially cats, because they are in league with the devil) It just can't be done.

Re:Cats galore by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 02:42 · Score: 0

No, King's point was, "Sometimes dead is better, so don't fuck around with the dead."

ST:TNG Episode "Second Chances" comes to mind by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-21 23:11 · Score: 2, Informative

When the crew finds a "second" Riker on some planet.. He is the product of a transporter mishap 9 years prior. Because of their extreme different surroundings and experiences (The riker being on the Enterprise, the "second" Riker roughing it out on this planet for 9 years), they are really different people.

Re:so - what's the truth about identical twins by GeHa · 2003-01-21 23:14 · Score: 1, Informative

Surely the exact progression of cell division in the womb must be fairly chaotic.

Embryonic development is not chaotic; it's a cat, not a cancer. In fact, for a small animal such as C. elegans, the history is every single cell in the animal is known. This is not so for larger animals for practical reasons (ie. size, lack of transparancy, growing in womb etc), but that doesn't imply chaos.

--

------
sigs are a total waste of bandwith, especially when the signal-to-noise ratio is lower than 1:10.

Not even close... by johnraphone · 2003-01-21 23:14 · Score: 3, Funny

those two cats look nothing alike, not even a little bit. At lease I look a lot like my clone, jeeze.

--
Free Instant Site Inclusion

All clones turn out to be evil... by velcrokitty · 2003-01-21 23:18 · Score: 2, Funny

As part of the Bush administration's programme to shut down all cloning research, they will begin to use footage from Pet Cemetary to demonstrate that ressurrected creatures are inherently evil. They're still having problems finding footage of evil sheep (whatever happened to Dolly), but have more than enough examples from science fiction of other creatures, including humans.

It's a shame that the US government is perverting the truth as we all know that clones aren't evil, just soulless empty husks. ;)

Smile, it's Wednesday!

--
I stick to walls...

I already knew - I saw Star Trek Nemesis by joeflies · 2003-01-21 23:21 · Score: 0

spoiler follows

In Star Trek Nemesis, the villian Shinzon is a clone of Picard. Unlike Picard, however, Shinzon was tortured and placed in a slave labor camp. As a result, the two of them look nothing alike, because he says that while the genes are the same, the social environment plays just an important part in the development of a man (sort of like Eddie Murphy's Trading Places)

[sarcasm]And all this time, I thought they looked different because they used different actors. In reality, it's Star Trek pointing out social themes in a sci fi setting again.[/sarcasm]

Re:I already knew - I saw Star Trek Nemesis by vidarh · 2003-01-22 01:14 · Score: 1

Uhm.. The main excuse for the differences in Nemesis was that Shinzon was a few decades younger. Do you know how captain Picard looked at that age? :)
Re:I already knew - I saw Star Trek Nemesis by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 01:54 · Score: 0

He looked just like Shinzon. They showed a picture of Picard in a starfleet uniform around the same age as Shinzon.
Re:I already knew - I saw Star Trek Nemesis by Kredal · 2003-01-22 02:06 · Score: 1

Of course, in the episode "Tapestry" they showed Picard at about the same age, and he had a full head of hair, and looked nothing like Shinzon.

--
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
Re:I already knew - I saw Star Trek Nemesis by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 06:40 · Score: 0

In the movie, didn't they have Picard looking at a picture of himself as a young cadet in uniform, portrayed by the actor who played Shinzon?
Re:I already knew - I saw Star Trek Nemesis by Kredal · 2003-01-22 06:46 · Score: 1

Yes they did... and it was a GLARING continuity issue for any Trekkies who happened to be paying attention.

--
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my

DNA testing by kjd · 2003-01-21 23:26 · Score: 3, Funny

Assuming that cloning humans yields similar results, I suppose we can eventually say goodbye to scientifically-accurate DNA matching in the crime lab.

"No! It wasn't me! I've been cloned!"

Yes... but by The+Tyro · 2003-01-21 23:30 · Score: 4, Interesting

people apparently left out the "nurture" part of the equation entirely.

It seems to me an incredible stretch that people actually believed their pet's behavior/personality was hard-coded in the DNA.... but maybe that's just my studied-the-hard-sciences-all-my-life bias.

Behaviors are very complex things... both genetic tendency and environmental interaction play important roles. Even in psychiatric disorders that have strong genetic links (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder) having both parents (or an identical twin) afflicted will only buy the child or sibling a 50-60% chance (give or take 10%) of developing the disorder.

Yes, genes are the building blocks of our bodies... but you have to give nurture its chance at bat.

--
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.

Re:Yes... but by The+Creator · 2003-01-22 02:35 · Score: 1

Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.

And now with cloning you can get a new arm too.

--

FRA: STFU GTFO

Needs a new name besides cc. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-21 23:30 · Score: 2, Funny

A better name for "cc" or carbon copy is "copy cat".

Re:Needs a new name besides cc. by RatBastard · 2003-01-22 05:55 · Score: 2, Funny

Well, considering that she doesn't look exactly like her donor, I think Mimeo would be a better name.

--
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Re:Needs a new name besides cc. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 07:38 · Score: 0

Better name than either would be "Schrodinger".

Why would they be? by avajadi · 2003-01-21 23:37 · Score: 3, Insightful

The fact that two genetically identical specimens differ never seems to stop baffling the scientific community in spite of the fact that it's been a known fact for as long as we've known about genes.
For instance: how identical are identical twins, really? If you look at dandelions in a field, are they all the same? Both are examples of multiple, genetically identical, specimens (assuming the dandelions are all of the same species, they are effectively clones, since they reproduce asexually).
In both cases there are great similarities, but also some differences in both physical appearance and, in the human example above, behaviour.
My biology teacher told me many years ago: You don't inherit properties, you inherit predispositions. /Avajadi

Re:Why would they be? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 06:13 · Score: 0

What idiot thinks claiming a plant's SEX organ (flower)is identical because "they reproduce asexually" is "insightful" ??

It's a bird! It's a plane! by john_is_war · 2003-01-21 23:38 · Score: 1

It's Karbon Kitty!

--
Live life to the fullest. It's not that life is short, but that you are dead for so long.

Wow by LarsWestergren · 2003-01-21 23:39 · Score: 1

here is a demand from dog lovers, but scientists so far have been unable to clone a canine. In fact, cc's creation was the result of a dog lover, not a cat

Wow, that's kinky! So Rainbow has a thing for dogs, does she? Wasn't there a South Park episode about this?

Also, I get confused. The chunky cat is the reserved one? For some reason I keep thinking it should be the other way around for some reason. I mean, all fat guys are jolly, right? :-)

--

Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die

Anyone read Cyteen? by anonymous+cupboard · 2003-01-21 23:40 · Score: 2, Interesting

Has anyone read the book "Cyteen" by Cherryh. I'm not going to prostitute myself for any particular bookstore, so you can do your own lookup wherever you want. It was published about ten years and addresses nature vs. nurture amongst other things very well.

It features cloned humans who are brought up being indoctrinated via programmed learning, the so called "azi". It also features a human clone of a genius who is carefully raised in an almost identical environment (similar family, etc), producing another genius, but one who is similar but subtly different. Like the cats described above, it is very difficult to clone behaviour.

I reread the book this Christmas because of the Raelians and Clonaid. The book was quite prophetic. The author isn't a scientist (I think she teaches history) but she seems to have done one of the best writups wince Huxley's "Brave New World".

genetically identical NOT by weylin · 2003-01-21 23:41 · Score: 1

Only the DNA in the nucleus was cloned, so they have different DNA in their mitochondria, further more the different RNA in the embryo would alter the expression of the DNA.

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--- Nukes don't kill people psychopathic megalomaniacs do.

Scientists and the Public missing the point by Nemus · 2003-01-21 23:43 · Score: 5, Interesting

Alot of the general public, and unfortunately alot of companys and independent scientists as well, have forgotten what the true purpose and logical extension of cloning is.

Of course there will always be infertile couple who will want use this method to have babies, someday maybe, but otherwise we don't really need cloning to duplicate life forms. We already have a method. Its called sex. And while some arguments can be made for cloning endangered or extinct animals, until we could make a clone that was capable of reproduction, would there really be anything besides a novelty interest in this? I mean sure, yay, you've got a zoo with a thousand pandas. Unfortunately they'll all be dead in x number of years, and you'll have to clone a thousand more. Rather pointless.

The true purpose of cloning is, and should remain, complete and utter mastery of genetics and medical science. This is why the whole stem cell thing is so important, and should not be constarined in the way it is (For those who object to it on moral grounds saying it encourages abortions, it doesn't. The abortion doctor who made sales pitches like that to pregant women would be shot on principle.)

Stem Cell research and the race to human cloning are, objectively, two leaves on the same branch. Both should be refined and mastered to the point where the dream of human immortality is no longer a dream. This should be all about pushing genetics and microbiology to their absolute limits, not trying to make a Bob mark II or Fluffy 3.0 . Cloning a human just for the hell of it though, or trying to bring back to life a dead child or loved one or pet out of hopes for a "replacement" is irresponsible both scientifically, and morally.

So what would be "legitimate" applications of these technologies. Obviously, and one that was a main topic of debate during the stem cell controversy in congress, was the cloning of indivual organs, like hearts and livers. This way, instead of someone having to wait for months or years for a vital heart or liver transplant, a compatible one could be made up on the spot. And, since research into these fields will also yield advances in fields like neurological medicine, the possibility of new arms or legs, or even new eyes or audial organs becomes a possibility.

However, I do disprove of the notion that some people seem to think that we'll be planting out minds into "blank slate" bodies, sometime in the distant future. Thats not just ultra-late term abortion, thats essentially murder, unless something was done to the brain to keep it only restricted to base biological functions, and not the development of a psyche, and even that would be just weird.

And, for the record, I am pro-life, so no flames from pro-lifers on the stem cell stuff like last time.

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Mod Points: Helping you keep your opinion to yourself.

Re:Scientists and the Public missing the point by salesgeek · 2003-01-22 00:55 · Score: 1

Stem Cell research and the race to human cloning are, objectively, two leaves on the same branch. Both should be refined and mastered to the point where the dream of human immortality is no longer a dream. This should be all about pushing genetics and microbiology to their absolute limits, not trying to make a Bob mark II or Fluffy 3.0 . Cloning a human just for the hell of it though, or trying to bring back to life a dead child or loved one or pet out of hopes for a "replacement" is irresponsible both scientifically, and morally.
I wonder if it's necessary to research using human tissue at the stage we are at. I would be much more comfortable if we built a database of knowledge - much like the cloned cat - where we learn without creating or destroying human life.

We just don't know enough yet about cloning or stem cells, and I do believe the mad rush science is putting towards using human research subjects, or for that matter human tissue is premature. There is a great body of knowledge we need to gain over the lifespan of cloned organisms before we can dare assume that it's a good thing to do long term. We need to learn about:

* Cancer incidence
* Disease incidence long term
* Environmental factors
* Tissue differences between clone and clonee
* Long term effects of stem cell use
* Effects of genetic changes resulting from viral/environmental vectors.
* Growth

There's way too much that is unknown to go apply this stuff to people. All I see is a land rush and money grab by entrepinologists who are looking for quick patents and fast royalties. The good news: intellectual property laws will slow the pace of research to a snails pace and the real scientists out there will be quietly learning about how it all really works. I'll benefit from all this in my lifetime, but not in the next 25-30 years.

$G

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-- $G
Re:Scientists and the Public missing the point by Surak · 2003-01-22 04:00 · Score: 1

Exactly. By combining cloning and stem cell research, growing individual organs becomes possible. The key is to do the cloning process, and then somehow hack the stem cells so that they *only* form an organ, such as a heart, lung, or even whole systems such arms, legs, auditory, visual etc.

But the first step is making human cloning into a repeatable, reliable thing, and also a full understanding of how stem cells turn into various other types of cells, such as heart tissue or bone cells, or blood cells, nerve cells, etc.

Once you get that, things like permanent paralysis or multiple sclerosis or deafness or blindness or heart disease, or possibly even cancer can be completely cured.

SOAPBOX&gt
We truly live in exciting times. Unfortunately, a few religious wackos stand in the way of progress, so cloning and stem cell research are currently being held back. Write your Congresscritter and tell them YOU WANT to cure previously incurable diseases, and that the best way to do that is cloning and stem cell research! /SOAPBOX&gt

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My journal has hot /. gossip.
Re:Scientists and the Public missing the point by dscowboy · 2003-01-22 08:33 · Score: 1

Great post expect for one major issue: Whenever laypeople use the word 'irresponsible', they are expressing their ignorant technophobia. Example: "You irresponsible scientists and your anti-biotics are going to DESTROY THE WORLD!". Whenever legitimate researchers use the word 'irresponsible', they are expressing their fear that they will be killed by a mob of the aforementioned Luddites.

The word 'irresponsible' doesn't really have any meaning by itself in the context of scientific research, it's just a reference to the "Technology will destroy our world!" mentality.
Re:Scientists and the Public missing the point by SeanAhern · 2003-01-22 08:44 · Score: 1

This is why the whole stem cell thing is so important, and should not be constarined [sic] in the way it is (For those who object to it on moral grounds saying it encourages abortions, it doesn't. The abortion doctor who made sales pitches like that to pregant women would be shot on principle.)

These sales pitches aren't made to pregnant women. They're made to dissectionists. Pregnant women are not the only people who pay for the services of an abortion clinic. On the other end are the dissectionists who pay for the privilege of using the discarded "tissue". Here's a reference, though it's graphic in its descriptions.

And, for the record, I am pro-life, so no flames from pro-lifers on the stem cell stuff like last time.

I'd like a bit of clarification of what you mean by "pro-life". If you believe that a fertilized embryo is a person, deserving of all the respect due a person, then why would you believe that embryonic stem cell research should be unconstrained? If, instead, you mean stem cell research that does not involve the destruction of an embryo (placental, umbilical, etc.), then I can understand you. But if you believe that embryonic stem cell research should be unconstrained, that implies that you believe that embryos are not as deserving of life as a person. That doesn't fit any definition of pro-life that I know.

I would honestly like to know how you reconcile these.

As for the overall point of your article, completely mastery over all of medical science, I'd watch out for the moral implications of the journey. Using an extreme example to illustrate a point, the Nazi's medical experiments were trying to do exactly that. While on the road to medical mastery (which I agree is a worthwhile goal), you have to watch out how you go about it. Not all routes are desirable ones.

Does this suprise anyone? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-21 23:43 · Score: 1, Interesting

If so, you really need to read up!

Try Chaos Theory 101, for starters. All snowflakes use the same "water algorithm" (otherwise known as physics) - and there's no messing around with all of the complication of dna/rna/protein synthesis/hormones/organs/etc - but have you ever seen two of those that look the same?

I highly recommend Wolfram's 'A New Kind of Science.' Mix in some many-worlds quantum theory, and you're good to go.

[anonymous poster rating... 0 : Coward]

Re:Does this suprise anyone? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 04:51 · Score: 0

please don't post about things you don't understand.

some books about biological sciences might lift you out of your benighted ignorance of biological systems.

i'm not holding my breath though.

Not really a suprise... by CharlieO · 2003-01-21 23:45 · Score: 2, Insightful

This isn't really a surprise - what it is an example of is the popular misunderstanding of genetics and cloning.

DNA and genes are only the receipe for a cat - if you like the instruction set.

Its only if you think of a well ordered system that you would expect an identical end result - for instance most computer code is well ordered in this respect - every time you run the program and construct the classes you get the same result.

But not every system is like this - any system, and certainly most you find in nature, that is chaotic can produce different results. Sometimes these may reach the same exact stable state in the end - sometimes that approach a loci of similar states.

In terms of the cat each clone will approach a loci of very similar looking cats, but each cat will be different. They will all look very similar but they will not be identical.

In terms of a reciepe we all bake cakes using the same mix of ingredients and the same oven - but each week it does come out slightly differently.

This really shouldn't be a surprise - nature has for years provided its own genetically identical clones in the form of identical twins/triplets etc - and whilst they are indeed very similar they are not identical.

So even before you bring the nature/nurture argument in its clear if you stop and think that genetic clones will never be identical.

Re:so - what's the truth about identical twins by stixman · 2003-01-21 23:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

This does however raise the question, do identical twins actually have identical fingerprints?

No, they don't. I'm an identical twin, and have at some point compared my fingerprints to those of my brother. We can share driver's licenses, passports, jobs, girlfriends, etc :o) but if fingerprint verification becomes widespread we're out of luck!

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Hmm, by Ice_Hole · 2003-01-21 23:49 · Score: 5, Insightful

I think it would be intersting to see if the coloring and pattern of the kitten was a product of it's suroundings before and during birth.

For Example, lets say the the mother cat was active, and the cat was born in the summer in warm weather. Would that make the kitten be lighter colored, and have thinner fur? How about an identical Clone where the mother was kept in a dark damp room? Would the kitten show up different because of the suroundings it was in before it was even born? (That is assumeing these babies were created, then artificially inseminated.)

To me that would be an interesting extension on this experiment. TO see exactly how things turn out. And maybe make a major breakthrough in how we think of genitics, and the possability of some other factors that have yet to be discovered in teh development of humans/ animals/ all thoes other things :)

Ohh, sorry about grammar, and spelling mistakes, I am sure their are plenty.

- Ice_Hole

--
"I couldn't give him (Bill Gates) advice in business and he couldn't give me advice in technology." Linus Torvalds

Re:Hmm, by Greeneland · 2003-01-22 04:18 · Score: 1

There was an interesting article yesterday in the NY times (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/21/science/21RNA.h tml) discussing a possible oversight (surprise!) of the role of RNA in a cell. It is an interesting read. Personally, I am disappointed by scientists that write-off things as "junk" (to quote the article) only to discover they are actually important. Especially interesting is the statement that these discoveries could have happened 20 years ago if there was any attempt to investigate RNA in detail.
Re:Hmm, by Skip666Kent · 2003-01-22 06:26 · Score: 1

The coloring pattern is wholly dependent on how long you cook them on a given side.

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**>>BELCH

Real octopussy by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-21 23:52 · Score: 1, Interesting

We have a tabby. He has well-defined stripes of black/brown/dark-red and patches of white and all that. The cool thing is that if you look at any of the hair he sheds, it usually goes through about 4-5 different colors from root to tip

What I'm wondering is, does this mean that a time-lapsed movie of your tabby will show it's stipes changing color, like those mental jellyfish do? (except much quicker in the jellyfish case)

Re:Real octopussy by benjymous · 2003-01-22 00:11 · Score: 1

Sounds like an interesting experiment.

Probably the easiest way would be to setup a webcam on a cat flap (I'm sure I've seen this done somewhere else)

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Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit!
Re:Real octopussy by Mr.+Slippery · 2003-01-22 06:08 · Score: 2, Funny

The cool thing is that if you look at any of the hair he sheds, it usually goes through about 4-5 different colors from root to tip

I used to have a dog like that; he'd shed hairs that were black on the end, brown in the middle, and white at the root. Which meant that whatever color you wore, the dog fur on your clothes would show up...

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You cannot wash away blood with blood

Apparently this one sleeps all day by TerryAtWork · 2003-01-21 23:53 · Score: 1

in a *different* manner than the other one.

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It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.

Are you listening, George Lucas? by Zog+The+Undeniable · 2003-01-21 23:54 · Score: 5, Funny

Surely some of those white-suited Stormtroopers should be pink. Or blue.

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When I am king, you will be first against the wall.

Re:Are you listening, George Lucas? by thryllkill · 2003-01-22 02:30 · Score: 1

Fuck, even in the future nothing works!

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Note to self: No more arguing with the faithful.

Spare the rod, spoil the cat by tjstork · 2003-01-21 23:55 · Score: 1

Obviously, they did not properly discipline the bad kitty! :-)

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This is my sig.

Not Just Nature vs Nurture by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-21 23:57 · Score: 0

This just points out how the 'Nature vs Nurture' dichotomy restricts our understanding. There are other 'genetic' mechanisms that affect development. There are so called 'maternal effects' whereby the machinery of the particular ovum that has been inseminated to create a fetus influences the pattern of initial development, which could have large downstream effects. Thus, if you take the same nuclear dna, and implant it into a new ovum, things will still be different.

Hmm. What I reckon is by jolyonr · 2003-01-21 23:59 · Score: 1

They screwed up somewhere, got another random cat and hoped no-one would notice.

--

Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com

Deja Vu by FrostedWheat · 2003-01-22 00:00 · Score: 1

Perhaps it's a glitch in the Matrix?

It was obvious by Gax · 2003-01-22 00:00 · Score: 1

I'm amazed that this has surprised so many people. Appearance & personality are based upon far more than genetics, taking into account social & environmental factors. For example, the food you were fed as a child has a massive influence upon your eventual height when you reach puberty. Like the Slashdot articles that are reposted and elicit different responses, personality & appearance rely upon a diverse range of factors that, to the untrained eye, would appear completely random. Though they are a genetic clone, they remain unique.

ahhh, common sense exists! by iwbcman · 2003-01-22 00:02 · Score: 2, Insightful

Jubilation... I am so happy to see that the slashdotters have been able to see through the hype with which we have been bombarded for so many years in the form of fantasy fiction and science pretending to be fiction. The whole notion of "carbon ccopies" of living beings seems to presuppose that life itself is virtual, ie. subject to substitution. Whereas virtuality is correct paradigm for understanding and dealing with man-made mass-produced technology and everything which has to do with computers, its applicability stops there. The world in which we live is not virtual, there is no substitute for those beings who constitute this world- each and ever being is in the last instance irreplacable. 99% of what has been written about "cloning" has been science-FICTION inspired hype. I love science fiction personally, becuase it IS fiction. When scientists start pursuing fiction as science they make a laughing-stock of themselves and the "issues" supposedly "moral" which surrounds their work. It is amazing how are society constantly seeks out virtual dilemnas instead of dealing with that which is already here.. Hats off to a little bit of not so common, common sense.....

To get it right... by praedor · 2003-01-22 00:03 · Score: 5, Insightful

You could do the cloning from the embryonic stage. If you impregnate a cat and let the eggs start developing, then select one or two embryos, split them into two (now half-sized) embryos, reimplant them, then let them continue development then you would TRUE clones that went through the same environment during development. The same burst of hormones from the mother at the same time, the same nutritional environment, etc.

The clones being produced of late from adult somatic cells are not good measures of the strength of genes in creating a creature/person. Why? No, NOT because of "nurture" being more important (it isn't). It is because the de facto biological environment en utero is different (different hormone levels from mom, different nutritional conditions, etc...no two pregnancies are the same in this regard particularly from different mothers).

Original cat biologically developed in a certain set of biological conditions en utero. That cat was also produced from properly regulated/formed egg-sperm fusion. Copy cat was produced from a somatic cell which DID contain mutations (inevitable given the basal mutation rate), many genes were silenced or activated in a manner totally different from a normal fertilized egg and all that regulatory machinery has to be unwound to get embryonic development going. This unwinding of regulatory mechanisms is imperfect - hence the MANY MANY failures to get a successful clone; the why behind the huge failure rate (added to mutations).

You end up with a disregulated genome in the embryo that is TOTALLY different than the properly regulated/prepared genome resulting from a standard egg-sperm fertilization event, coupled to a different biological environment en utero and you will NOT get a carbon copy. Can't happen, wont happen.

The time between inserting the nucleus from a somatic cell into an enucleated egg (the standard method of cloning in these circumstances) is too short. Those cells capable of dividing begin dividing almost immediately. There is NOT enough time for the somatic genome to be "reset" (if resetting is truly even possible) to a state equivalent to that of a normal egg-sperm state. Thus you end up with a mishmash of improperly regulated genes in the clone's genome - differences and problems galore. NO carbon copy.

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In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.

Re:To get it right... by Zathrus · 2003-01-22 02:23 · Score: 1

It is because the de facto biological environment en utero is different (different hormone levels from mom, different nutritional conditions, etc...no two pregnancies are the same in this regard particularly from different mothers).

I've been wondering when someone would bring this up... certainly until now the effect of the en utero environment has been untestable... but a study such as you suggest on cloned animals could be done now. I rather agree with you that the hormonal levels, diet, etc. will all make a difference during gestation, and thus have an impact through life. The obvious question is how much?

Copy cat was produced from a somatic cell which DID contain mutations

I wonder just how many... they don't check every DNA pair in confirming a clone, just a couple dozen base pairs. A full check would be expensive and time consuming, but for these early clones it's probably worth doing so to see just how much mutation has occurred... and it's probably a start on figuring out what the "junk" DNA is.

No, NOT because of "nurture" being more important (it isn't)

Well, nurture isn't less important either. Certainly not in humans (where separated identical twin studies indicate nurture is more influential than nature outside of diseases). I'm guessing that as you go toward less and less mental complexity you have less of an influence of nurture though.

As anecdotal evidence, we have an older cat that "trills" (yes, she sounds like a tribble) - it's common to her breed. Our nine month old kitten is an entirely different breed (I believe it's half demon) but has picked up the trilling from the older cat. It's not quite the same, but it's close.
Re:To get it right... by praedor · 2003-01-22 03:35 · Score: 1

As far as the nature/nurture dicotomy, I am primarily referring to basic traits. One's basic personality is not nurtured. Boys WILL be boys, on the whole, and girls WILL be girls. You are not taught to be a heterosexual (or homosexual), you are BORN a heterosexual (or homosexual). All "nurture" does is confuse the person (trying to teach them to be hetero when they are, in fact, homo) or modify the basic biological trait. You are trained in how to express your sexuality, not what your sexuality is, for instance.

Your basic personality (and the cat's) is what it is. It can be somewhat modified by training - confidence alters your "personality" to some extent - but on the whole the type of person you are is not trained. You have a distinctive personality somewhat modified by experience, but not generated or significantly altered by experience.

Want to truly alter someone's personality? Physically or chemically alter their brain. That WILL do it in real ways that training will never do.

All the clones being produced are nifty in their own rights from a certain standpoint, but they are not a good means as generated to detail what precise role genes or experience/nurture play in development. They need a baseline and a lot more information about en utero biology/biochemistry, gene state, etc, before any clear data can be collected.

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In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Re:To get it right... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 11:15 · Score: 0

"As far as the nature/nurture dicotomy, I am primarily referring to basic traits. One's basic personality is not nurtured. Boys WILL be boys, on the whole, and girls WILL be girls. You are not taught to be a heterosexual (or homosexual), you are BORN a heterosexual (or homosexual). All "nurture" does is confuse the person (trying to teach them to be hetero when they are, in fact, homo) or modify the basic biological trait. You are trained in how to express your sexuality, not what your sexuality is, for instance."

I should say that the above passage makes some pretty huge assumptions about basic traits and basic personality (whatever that is, apparently sexual preference is considered more basic than other part of our personality). As far as I know there hasn't been any studies made on the subject, that is to determine the extent of biology/genetics' influence in relation to nurture's dito on said sexual characteristics in the individual. Also I can't see how such a study would be made unless we had some sort of biological marker to be detected in children and then see how these children develop in differing conditions (and of course see how children without the marker would develop). Unless such a study could be made, on a fairly large scale, I don't see there being anything conclusively said on the subject. One way to look at it indirectly would be with identical twin studies, for instance doing an extensive survey on sexual preference in(?) separated identical twins. But such a study would also be hard to perform with much scientific rigor (as always when it comes to behavioral science.) Interestingly that also seems to be your general opinion on the subject, just not when pertaining to sexuality, which seems a little inconsistent.

"Your basic personality (and the cat's) is what it is. It can be somewhat modified by training - confidence alters your "personality" to some extent - but on the whole the type of person you are is not trained. You have a distinctive personality somewhat modified by experience, but not generated or significantly altered by experience."

Again I have objections. My main point is that people actually do change quite a lot from experience, take for instance Vietnam war veterans. According to the films I've seen they come back quite changed even when not subjected to head trauma ;). I would argue that experience can have dramatic effects on personality if it is strong enough, such as in post traumatic shock. Of course that will never equal the more extreme forms of direct brain modification, but can result in someone becoming a different person. Also your argument seems to only account for adults, and not take into account upbringing, which is an experience albeit a long one. I'm sure you agree that the conditions in which someone grows up has a large effect on personality (if you don't I would be thrilled to hear the rationale behind your view). A final point would be that any change in a personality must depend on the brain being modified (even reading this text changes your brain in minute ways), so how should experiential change vs physical change be defined when they seem to be fundamentally the same? Finally I should point out that I do agree with you overall; most people do not change fundamentally from experience, I just hold that some do.

As for the whole basis of homosexuality issue, my view is: Who cares? In either case it seems that sexual orientation won't be altered in adults at least, and if it were somehow linked to upbringing it would be linked to too many factors to control anyway (yes that is non-scientific assumption on my part).

moron cloning evile eXPerimeNTs..... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 00:07 · Score: 0

that's right. there is now some speculative rumour that the whoreabull greed/fear based megaslothians, upon capitollist hill, are being cloned, without yOUR/their knowledge.

then, sometime in the night, the originull Godless pandering FUDgeSucker(tm) is replaced buy its culloan(tm).

then, the ?pr? scriptdead doughbull, spews the same fraudulent payper liesense stock markup blather, daze after daze, but does NOT require the constaNT flow of dirtIE monIE, to .continue IT's whoreabull MiSalliegIEnce. kewl huh? moron what they do with yOUR monIE all the time.

Look at the photo! by throbbingbrain.com · 2003-01-22 00:15 · Score: 5, Informative

Like everything else in the news about cloning, the article completely passes over the science.

First, the cat's color pattern was decided by individual skin cells very early in embryonic development. The individual cells multiply, carrying the same color, to become the pattern on the adult cat.

Second, and most notably, calico cats (tortoise shell) carry a color in each sex chromosome - that's why 99.9% of calico cats are female (XX female, although there are some XXY male calicos but they're sterile). Fur color depends on which X chromosome is active, and which one is inactive (curled up, as they say)

So, looking at the picture, you'll notice the clone (cc) has only two colors indicating that it is not only a clone of the donor cat, but a 100% exact genetic clone of ONE cell of the donor cat. The other X chromosome is completely inactive.

That's just my observation from the photo because no news article will ever talk about the science behind the hype.

Re:Look at the photo! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 00:35 · Score: 2, Informative

So, looking at the picture, you'll notice the clone (cc) has only two colors indicating that it is not only a clone of the donor cat, but a 100% exact genetic clone of ONE cell of the donor cat. The other X chromosome is completely inactive.

Probably not 100%. Mitochondria have their own DNA, and the mitochondria come from the egg cell that Cc developed from. But they probably did not take the unfertilized egg from Rainbow, since this is a very significant surgery to do on a (still living) cat.
Re:Look at the photo! by dughat · 2003-01-22 01:24 · Score: 3, Interesting
Not remembering much of my genetics, does this mean:
1. All clones from this cell would be these two colors?
2. Clones from a different cell might well be two, and only two, different colors?
3. There is no way to clone a calico to get another calico?
Re:Look at the photo! by ClioCJS · 2003-01-22 01:46 · Score: 1

I wish I could mod that post up. That was very intelligent.

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-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Re:Look at the photo! by throbbingbrain.com · 2003-01-22 02:15 · Score: 3, Interesting

This was one of the big questions when Dolly the sheep was created. Dolly was also supposed to test whether a clone is as genetically "old" as the donor. Both answers were lost in the media hype, and will most likely be lost with Cc the cat as well.

It appears that:

1. Yes. All clones from one cell will have the same two colors.
2. Yes/No. All clones from a tan patch will be white/tan. All clones from a black patch will be white/black. The white fur isn't sex linked and will always be present.
3. Yes. Apparantly, you can't get a calico clone for the same reason you can't find a male calico - it takes the random on/off of 2 X-chromosomes to form the colors.

The uniform X chromosome deactivation would happen with female clones from any animal, it's just visually obvious on a calico cat. I'm curious if it would have any effect on a human.
Re:Look at the photo! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 02:18 · Score: 0

I wish I could mod this post down. This adds nothing to the conversation.
Re:Look at the photo! by Sgt+York · 2003-01-22 02:44 · Score: 3, Interesting

Interesting.
If it holds up, that would imply that there are changes at the sequence level associated with the formation of Barr bodies. The Barr structure should be destroyed during the donor DNA preparation, and if the information is conserved, the information may be in the sequence.
Of course, one X had to be inactivated regardless, so you'd have to know which one was in a Barr body in the donor in order to know the circumstance was duplicated.
You could establish it by cloning CC several times; If >>50% of her "offspring" had the same coat, that would suggest a conserved change.

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There is a reason for everything. Sometimes that reason just sucks.
Re:Look at the photo! by Sgt+York · 2003-01-22 02:48 · Score: 1

Oops...
Yes, it had to be conserved, you're right. Barr formation takes place in the embryo, and the same chromosome was inactivated in every cell. The information does survive past the cloning process...I wonder what the signal is.
Very cool observation.

--

There is a reason for everything. Sometimes that reason just sucks.
Re:Look at the photo! by goodmanj · 2003-01-22 04:51 · Score: 5, Interesting

A quibble regarding the excellent post above: The poster says "The other X chromosome is completely inactive", but actually, the deactivated X chromosome reactivates in the ovaries, so that the eggs all end up with functioning X chromosomes.
The really interesting thing about this is that while Cc is genetically a calico, she looks exactly like a white-patched gray tabby. In all probability, she is the only calico cat on the planet with no orange spots.
Even more interesting, she is probably the only gray cat on the planet who can mate with a gray or black male and give birth to orange kittens!
For a "perfectly normal" cat, Cc is actually a pretty strange critter.
Re:Look at the photo! by chloroquine · 2003-01-22 05:21 · Score: 1

And if we really want to quibble, the entire X is not inactivated in the Barr body. There are still some regions that remain unsilenced. The X is reactivated in the germline and then inactivated somewhere in preimplantation embryogenesis. The problem with a lot of this research is that it is done on mice and a little on humans. So we're drawing conclusions about all mammals based on two organisms even when it is completely clear that even mice and humans are wildly divergent in the mechanism of inactivation - ie mice always inactivate the paternal X in placenta while humans do random X inactivation in the same tissue.
Re:Look at the photo! by betaray · 2003-01-22 05:54 · Score: 2, Informative

While you're right about the fact that each cell only female cells only have one active X chromosome, you are incorrect about the nature of the clone.

Each cell has the complete set of DNA. In theory there's nothing stopping the new cat from from having the exact same pattern as the old cat. However, since the pattern has to do with the positioning of the cells and the inactivated X chromosome is random, the probability is very small.

For an excellent discussion of this topic check out this link.
Re:Look at the photo! by Llyr · 2003-01-22 14:56 · Score: 1

So, looking at the picture, you'll notice the clone (cc) has only two colors indicating that it is not only a clone of the donor cat, but a 100% exact genetic clone of ONE cell of the donor cat. The other X chromosome is completely inactive.
So what does this mean about the consequences of cloning for X-chromosome genetic disorders? Sounds ominous to me.

....just goes to show..... by Craig3010 · 2003-01-22 00:15 · Score: 5, Funny

Aggies can't be expected to clone pussy and get it right...

Not Invented Here by Gordonjcp · 2003-01-22 00:27 · Score: 1

Previous mammal clones were barnyard animals like cows and goats.

I love the way CNN totally fail to mention that the first successfully cloned mammal came from a laboratory in Scotland. Not far from where I used to live at the time, too.

What was really funny was the gaggle of protestors that used to stand outside the main gates. Nothing big and dramatic, just an ordinary five-bar metal gate like a field gate, with some office-y looking builings and a couple of farm sheds beyond. They stood there, day after day, in the pouring rain, with their "No to Cloning" placards, for about a week. Presumably they got bored, after that.

It's always fun when you get someone ranting that this is how "greedy farmers" will want to produce all their livestock. "But all they need to do is clone off their prize sheep and then they've got loads of them..." Nope, what you do is you put them in a big field, about 50 mummy sheep to one daddy sheep. Leave them for a week or two, take the daddy sheep back out if you like, then wait for six months. Ok, they're not genetically identical, but they're pretty damn close.

Synchronized Clones - Wrinkle in Time by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 00:30 · Score: 0

Remember the dimmension Meg went to where everyone was exactly the same and did the same thing at the same time, like the kids all bouncing their balls in sync and all going inside for dinner at the same time. That to me is what clones are, replicants so exact they think exactly the same to the point of doing the same thing at the same time. True clones would probably have some sort of "hive" or communial thought processes. Instead of a totally new "soul" occupying the new cloned body it may instead be a part or continuation of the original person's soul somehow.

This result has been known for a long time. by rmach · 2003-01-22 00:31 · Score: 1

I am surprised that so many people are suprised by these differences. This will be true of human clones as well and we have had proof of it for many years. Identical twins are essentially clones that are born at the same time and grow up in the same environment. Yet we see they have distinct physical and personality differences. Here you have development in as close as possible to the same environment and there are differences. I would expect it would be almost impossible to get the same animal/human from a clone.

This is only news . . . by Badgerman · 2003-01-22 00:34 · Score: 3, Insightful

Because of the fact that it violates cultural assumptions, not any scientific fact or expectation.

We're entering a phase where our cultural assumptions on science, derived from many sources (mostly unscientific) are running headlong into actual technology.

Just take a look at the people who were shocked to discover folks would use a worldwide network of data exchange (the Internet) for pornography! No one's interested in that stuff . . .

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"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu

What about mtDNA? by one9nine · 2003-01-22 00:43 · Score: 1

Does anyone know if the mtDNA (DNA located in the mitochondium of cells) was cloned as well? I yet to find any information about mtDNA in any cloning experiment let alone this one. If the mtDNA in Rainbow is different than the mtDNA in CC, are they really genetic clones?

Comment removed by account_deleted · 2003-01-22 00:44 · Score: 1

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Anna to the Infinite Power by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 00:45 · Score: 0

How about "Anna to the Infinite Power"? Although maybe that is more of a kid's book... I was about 11 or 12 when I read it.

I am amazed at the number of people buying books left and right. Aren't there public libraries in most cities?

If it were Schrodinger's cat... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 00:50 · Score: 0

Then it's much more probable that the clone is the dead one.

"Cloned"? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 01:00 · Score: 0

These aren't the clones that most people are thinging of. A clone from the movies is where you step onto the transporter, it malfunctions, and you've got an IDENTICAL clone of yourself standing next to you.

I would imagine that in *this* instance, you'd have an exact replica of yourself, with the same memories/habits/etc - but you'd quickly evolve into different beings, as you can't do *everything* *exactly* the same at the *exact* same time.

eg: would you stick that knife into the toaster, if you'd just seen the original you do it, and die a horrible death?

However, this brings us back to the 'marketing' oportunity - bringing peoples pets back from the dead. Sure, this method will allow you to bring the pet back the same way (providing a way of mapping the *exact* clone method & being able to bring it back ala transporter style works) - but if you are taking your cat/dog/%pet% in to be cloned because it hasn't got long to live - just how many deaths are you going to be able to put it through before you either get sick of the pet dying at the same time each time it comes back (assuming natural death + pet in fatal diagnosis).

IMHO those that would take up a service like this wouldn't have the foresight to actually clone the pet before age seriously affected it?

Re:"Cloned"? by m1chael · 2003-01-22 01:08 · Score: 0

me: do you concur? me#2: i concur. me: do you concur? me#3: ah ummm. me: i concur. i gotta scidaddle... me#3: i should have concurred!

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I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.

From the article by peterpi · 2003-01-22 01:02 · Score: 3, Insightful

"However, he said cloning could reproduce what a pet owner considers to be exceptional genes, particularly from an animal with unknown parentage or one that has been spayed or neutered."

This will destroy the exclusivity of a good pedigree (an oxymoron in itself IMHO) and be a cause for concern for breeders once the technology falls in price.

I'm glad she was born healthy.. by 0x12d3 · 2003-01-22 01:04 · Score: 5, Funny

and without 'genetic defects', but if she was born blind do ya think they would've named her Bcc??

Re:I'm glad she was born healthy.. by Craig3010 · 2003-01-22 03:18 · Score: 1

A lot better than B-4

people... by m1chael · 2003-01-22 01:11 · Score: 0

are stupid. clones are people too, if there are people clones and not clone cats.

--
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.

Pseudo Immortaltiy by Myriad · 2003-01-22 01:12 · Score: 4, Insightful

However, another much better method is this: Make a clone of John, keep its brain blank as you grow it (maybe in an accelerated fashion) to John's size, and then transfer John's thoughts to that clone. Of course that requires very advanced brain knowledge to "read" and "write" a brain - assuming that's even possible. But that would give you immortality (so long as you keep your brain safe).

This would only give you pseudo immortality. Consider:

You have the original and make a copy of it, then place the copy into the new body. For a brief period there are now two copies of you.

Here's the catch, the original still dies. Meaning you still die, but a backup lives on.

Personally I'm not sure I like that a whole lot. It might be nice to know that my personality will go on, but it still is not me.

The only way I can see this sort of working is if the mind is transfered rather than copied. Then, arguably, the original doesn't have to die as well. Though this transfer would likely be a copy and wipe, which has the same problem as above.

--
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'

Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by mdwh2 · 2003-01-22 01:56 · Score: 4, Insightful

This would only give you pseudo immortality. Consider: You have the original and make a copy of it, then place the copy into the new body. For a brief period there are now two copies of you. Here's the catch, the original still dies. Meaning you still die, but a backup lives on.

I think this is an interesting idea, and I think the answers depend a lot on the nature of consciousness, and whether there is any such thing as a "soul".

The point is that to everyone else, the backup would seem identical to you. Moreover, the backup would claim that he was you - as far he is concerned, he has been brought back to life. The "original" you will never know having died (assuming one doesn't believe in an afterlife). Things are a little more confusing after duplication but before one has died; you'll have two people both insisting they are the 'original' (and in some sense, they are both right). From that instant on, they'll diverge and be different people, of course.

Consider - it could be that every night I go to sleep, "I" die, and it's a different "me" that wakes up the next morning. But unless anyone (the "me" today, the "me" tomorrow, or anyone else) could have any way tell any difference, to me it seems meaningless to say that something has died. It could be that "I" die every nanosecond - it could be that the only way to define continuity of consciousness is in terms of memories and brain activity.

If one doesn't believe in some continuous entity like a soul (as I don't), then the "me" as used in this context is meaningless.

You say that transferring could work - but how is transferring different to a copy-and-delete? (I guess, again, it depends on whether one believes in some unique un-copyable property of physical particles).

It's a similar idea with teleporting Star-trek style. If any such technologies ever appear, I agree that people would be wary (I mean, *I* would be too, despite what I believe). But after a few people have tried it, people would gradually see that it "works" (rightly or wrongly), and it could well be that it becomes commonplace, apart from a few who resist.
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by shut_up_man · 2003-01-22 03:05 · Score: 1

I always wondered about that sort of thing in shows like Star Trek - if getting transported actually annihilated the original you, and assembled a copy with all your memories and bits - how would anyone tell? I mean, every time someone got transported, they'd die... but to everyone else, it would look exactly like they "moved".

I think I'll take the damn shuttle with Bones...
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by Shads · 2003-01-22 03:12 · Score: 1

> Here's the catch, the original still dies.
> Meaning you still die, but a backup lives on.

Better yet...brain transplant... meaning the copy dies and my brain gets moved. To get there we only need to be able to figure out now to cause nerves to reconnect correctly and how to keep the brain from deteriorating over time.

--
Shadus
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by Luyseyal · 2003-01-22 03:20 · Score: 1

You should check out The Metaphysics of Star Trek. The author discusses this and a variety of other interesting philosophical topics.
-l

--
Help cure AIDS, cancer, and more. Donate your unused computer time to worldcommunitygrid.org. Join Team Slashdot!
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by ShavenYak · 2003-01-22 03:26 · Score: 1

Once again, Trek provides the answer. Remember when Spock's brain was stolen?

--

Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by graikor · 2003-01-22 03:29 · Score: 1

--Begin Obligatory ST Reference--

I don't know, man...

I mean teleporter-based problem episodes were of uneven quality, but Spock's Brain was just awful!

Maybe if they could put our brains into clones of Kahless?

--End Obligatory ST Reference--
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by Rothron+the+Wise · 2003-01-22 04:15 · Score: 2, Interesting

You say that transferring could work - but how is transferring different to a copy-and-delete? (I guess, again, it depends on whether one believes in some unique un-copyable property of physical particles).

I've always imagined that any teleportation device, at least any device I'd ever set my foot in, would work in one of two ways:

1: Quantum entanglement of some weird matter at both locations and transferring my entire quantum state between them.

2: The wormhole thing.

Both methods does not include storying or copying information and could conceivable preserve my... let's call it "selfness". At least the 2. method should be pretty safe as it's not really teleportation in the classical sense, but more of a spacetime shortcut.

I don't believe in a soul personally, but I accept the fact that the philosophy of it all is pretty hairy. It's a difficult paradox. I'm only the sum of my "components" so what's the part that cannot be reconstructed? Is my conciousness somehow linked to my the quantum states of the particles making up my brain, or perhaps conciousness itself is merely an illusion?
It sure doesn't feel like it.

--
A witty .sig proves nothing
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by Mordred · 2003-01-22 04:48 · Score: 1

Here's the catch, the original still dies. Meaning you still die, but a backup lives on.

Orson Scott Card wrote a short story called "Fat Farm" (from his excellent Maps in a Mirror collection) with this exact idea in mind.

Basically the protaganist was an insanely rich glutton. He would eat for a year or two until he could no longer walk, head over to the cloning place, have a new body made, and have his memories transfered into the new body. Process then repeats.

The story is about the old fat body (which still has the mind of the man) who is sent to a "Fat Farm" where he's forced into hard manual labor and inhuman punishment. Since he has no rights (as he is no longer the official version of himself) he is basically a slave.

I highly recommend it.

Mordred
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 05:15 · Score: 0

Consider - it could be that every night I go to sleep, "I" die, and it's a different "me" that wakes up the next morning.

Great, now I won't be able to sleep tonight...
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by dscowboy · 2003-01-22 05:39 · Score: 1

>>Here's the catch, the original still dies. Meaning you still die, but a backup lives on. Personally I'm not sure I like that a whole lot. It might be nice to know that my personality will go on, but it still is not me.

I think you're wrong. You're talking about the difference between, say, ghosting a hard drvie from one computer to another verses physically removing the hard drive from one computer and putting it in the other. Warcraft is still going to run the same either way.

Let's consider the following scenario. Forget about bodies and all that messy stuff. Assume that the current 'state' of your brain can be copied. You go to a labratory and are rendered unconscious. You wake up later. You know that one of two things may have occured; either your brain was physically moved from one body to another and the old body was destroyed, or the structure of the old brain was copied and a new brain was created that mimics that structure perfectly and the old body/brain was destroyed. How could you possibly tell the difference? You wouldn't be able to.

This kind of thought experiment illustrates something that most people won't accept: There is no such thing as the Ego outside of the physical structure and 'state' of the brain. If a perfect copy of a brain were made, but the old brain was NOT destroyed, there would then be two different _instances_ of the same mind waking up and both thinking they were the original. People who believe in 'souls' and 'afterlife' will never be able to accept that your entire consciousness is just a big circuit inside your head, and our concept of Self is just an illusion.
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by Curt · 2003-01-22 05:39 · Score: 1

This would only give you pseudo immortality. Consider:

You have the original and make a copy of it, then place the copy into the new body. For a brief period there are now two copies of you.

Here's the catch, the original still dies. Meaning you still die, but a backup lives on

You know this is the plot of a freakin' Arnold Swartzenegger movie, right?

The Sixth Day. It wasn't even that good.
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by 3Bees · 2003-01-22 05:42 · Score: 1

AFAIK, I die every night and am replaced by something that is an imperfect copy of the thing from the day before.

That would explain my poor memory at least.

--
"I think we should tax people who stand in water! " - Mr. Gumby
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by firewrought · 2003-01-22 06:41 · Score: 1

You have the original and make a copy of it, then place the copy into the new body. For a brief period there are now two copies of you.
Here's the catch, the original still dies. Meaning you still die, but a backup lives on.
Ahh... but what is conciousness? Nobody really knows, but a good (naturalistic) guess is that conciousness includes the sensation of change to an agent's internal state. "Self" is somewhat illusionary under this definition: if you make a working copy of someone's brain, both the original and the copy will fervently insist that they are the same conciousness as from before the copy-event. And they would both be correct. It's like a unix fork()... both resultant processes have the exact same state after the call as before (ignoring the change in PID, etc.).
Of course, it may also be possible to copy over bits and pieces in a cojoined fashion so that the subject doesn't even realize he is being duplicated... kinda like the Java Virtual Machine rearranging objects in memory at run time to conserve space.

--
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by Suidae · 2003-01-22 06:53 · Score: 1

it could be that every night I go to sleep, "I" die, and it's a different "me" that wakes up the next morning.

A better example with the same point would be going under surgical anestesia. What we call consciousness isn't an on or off thing, it seems to be composed of multiple parts. When one sleeps one is still conscious (during REM sleep one is frequenly conscious of what is happening in a dream). When one wakes one is aware of the passage of time to some degree. However, when one is put under anestesia, consciousness is, near as I can tell, 'off'. No dreams, no awareness of the passage of time, no memories form. A deep anestetic state isn't far above death, from what some anestesiaologists have told me.

Anyway, the point is the same, the concept of continuity of consciousness is difficult to define. I have a theory that there is no continuity of consciousness, only continuity of memory. What may appear to be discontinious is the memory of the events. Consciousness itself cannot be said to be continious or not, it is simply a moment-to-moment phenomenon that can evaluate if a record of events appear to be continious (such events could be its native memory system or an external record such as a video tape, or the memories of others).

If you were to suddenly find yourself lying on the floor, with no idea how you arrived there, you might be inclined to believe that your consciousness had been interrupted. However, consider the following. Your trusted friends, standing around you, show you a video of yourself, taken only minutes before. In the video, you consume a substance that blocks the formation of new memories and then perform some series of acts, then lie down on the floor, at which point the substance suddenly wears off. You have no memory of these events and yet clearly were consious while performing them. Excepting the most paranoid, most people would accept that they simply did not remember what happened.

I believe that 'me', the self, as an atomic, continious thing does not exist. 'self' is the instantanious combination of consciousness and memory. Either without the other is incomplete and not sensical to consider a 'self'.
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by Indras · 2003-01-22 07:47 · Score: 1

I ran into this same logical problem when contimplating some stuff I read on the Singularity Theory (over at www.singinst.org, which I arrived at by reading the FAQ on the meaning of life, which I arrived at by typing "What is the meaning of life?" into Ask Jeeves, but anyways...)

The argument goes like this: A person's mind/memories/personality lies in state "A" (normal)

Experiments have already been performed where brain cells can be replaced by a couple dollars' worth of equipment at Radio Shack (I remember seeing the picture, it was a small circuit board mounted to the back of a lobster, that had a brain cell removed and replaced with it, he went on without noticing). With very advanced refinements of this, we create nanomachines the size of a brain cell, that are capable of emulating it exactly, and replacing it (and throwing the old one away via some physical means). Person in state "A" has these nanomachines injected into his head, a few minutes/hours later, his entire brain has been replaced, from organic to mechanical, though without feeling anything different in his head. He is now in state "B".

There are lots of advantages to being in state "B", most notably that an emulated brain cell would be capable of thinking at rates up to 1,000x that of an organic one. Now there definitely needs to be a speed throttler here, because once the speed is set too high, a person loses control of their body, or suffers from sensory deprivation, because information is still entering the body at the same rate, but we'll leave technicalities like this for later.

Anyway, a third state, "C" is available. Every nanomachine, via radio transmitter or the like, tells a computer it's exact location in the brain, and what other nanomachines it is connected to. Computer makes exact 3D replica of the human brain as it is now via these signals. With the help of some emulation software (which emulates electrical signals in the brain, and emulates how these nanomachines work), the virtual brain is powered up, given a virtual body, and a virtual world to live in (to prevent sensory deprivation and possible insanity). Body and mind of state "B" are destroyed. Presto! Eternal life!

However, the problem with this is that in moving from "A" to "B", his/her thought processes are not disrupted in any way, and essentially, "B" is still the same person as "A". But, in moving to "C", thought processes must be stopped. Even if you shut of the brain of "B", then created "C", "C" is still not "B". Therefore, a person could not fall asleep on the operating table as person "B", and expect to wake up in a virtual world in a computer, because the computer program would be a clone. Need proof? Then think about what happens if you turn "B"'s bran back on. "B" is still there, not in the computer.

Essentially, this is the exact same thing that happens in a transporter (Star Trek style). The person that steps on the transporter at the origin is not the same person that steps off it at the destination, and the proof is that if the body of the person at the origin is not destroyed (a la the Star Trek episode where this happens to Riker), then it becomes glaringly obvious that the person at the destination is a copy.

For that reason, I would never use a transporter, or be converted into software as the Singularity Institute thinks that I will. It's my natural survival instinct that prevents me from doing so. Because, survival instinct tells me that my thought processes should never be stopped or interrupted.

Which also makes you wonder, if you were capable of completely stopping all electrical movement in one's brain, then restart them, is it still the same person? Because, why is it any different from stopping a brain, making a copy, and starting up the copy?

If anyone can give me some more info on this type of thing (philosophical, physical, or phisiological), please respond. Oh, and I don't want to hear things like "we don't have the technology to do it anyways, so who cares?" I do!

--
The speed of time is one second per second.
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by KDan · 2003-01-22 08:07 · Score: 1

Method 1 would not preserve your soul, as it is a transfer of information, not matter. Daniel

--
Carpe Diem
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by Daetrin · 2003-01-22 08:37 · Score: 1

You say that transferring could work - but how is transferring different to a copy-and-delete? (I guess, again, it depends on whether one believes in some unique un-copyable property of physical particles).
There's always the old fashioned cut the physical brain out of the old body and put it in the new one :)
I might also accept some system where the brains could be dirrectly connected together and synchronized, ie the result is one person controlling two bodies at once. Then either wait for the older body to die naturally, or deconstruct the old brain while mainting the synch. That wouldn't be a definite way of making sure you didn't die, but it's better than most of the alternatives.

--
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 09:49 · Score: 0

One doesn't have to believe in souls to be wary of this predicament. I personally don't believe in souls or an afterlife.

I suspect that such a process, if interrupted, would create two copies of my body and brain, both of which would believe they were me.
In such a case, who could tell which should live and which should die ?
They *are* both me, as you suggest.
And since I am still me, and the new me is still me, why would I volunteer to die so that another me can live ?
If I were already old and nearly dead anyway, I might consent to a brain 'transfer' - but I'd never do so while I were young and healthy.
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by another_henry · 2003-01-22 10:43 · Score: 1

You seem to imply that in going from A to B, although it all happens within a few minutes, each neuron is replaced one-by-one. This sounds like a very good idea to me as although I might not want to be transferred all at once, it wouldn't bother me to go piece by tiny piece.
Could something similar be done with the B to C transition? i.e. with the radio link, the function of each electronic "cell" is emulated one-by-one by the computer, destroying each of them as they are transferred while keeping the link open to maintain integrity. This way there would be no big switch, no two minds existing at the same time and no "death".

--
"Studies have shown that people who eat peanuts live longer than those who do not eat."
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 11:10 · Score: 0

I think a soul IS information, not matter. So, in fact, it would perfectly preserve your soul.
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by fferreres · 2003-01-22 20:48 · Score: 1

Suppose you magically disappear, maybe some alien frooze a spehere of matter that contained you, so no electron or any matter of any kind are moving, you are just paused. Are you dead? Nobody knows, except the aliens.

Suppose you just dissapear (say, are vanished from physical reality). Well, you will never know if you are dead, or just frozen. Anyway, you would have no opinion on this regard, but others would consider you 100% dead. Of course, if you knew you'd vanish, you still would not know if you will die. So, are you really dead? Nobody knows.

Suppose wake up one morning and there is "another you" sleeping with you. Which one is you? Suppose one dies. Are you dead? According to your idea od what is "you", you will never know if you are dead (the "real" you).

All this seems to go nowhere, but it does try to go somewhere. The point is there really is NO you at all. There's a circular reasoning built in each of us humans that defines what we think it's AS (or "you"). Well, bad news, we ARE NOT. I mean, we are, but we are not what we think we are, there's no unity in us. We are a bunch of matter scatted, that runs a system that attaches a self-concious module in circular fashion to our particular instance of existance, as opposed to our "type" (the problem is our type is constantly redefined on the go, as our experiences and reasonings are part of us).

To ANY outsider (non human like) a perfect clone of us that is transfered our memories, reasoning and values would obviously be regarded as US as well ("Oh, he mutated there!!"). And it would be us, only that we would be using other matter to exist.

We regard ourselves as US as long as our particular instance of existance never ends. Whenever our particular instance of existance is supposed to have a finite end, we regard ourselves as mortals. So the trick to imortality is to devise ways in which we'd all agree our "instance of exitance" has never stopped beign, and that "WE (whatever we are now)" is the same "evolved or not" instance of the past US.

But the important thing to have in mind is that we really aren't. We are just matter flowing in a very elegant and complex structure. Any sufficiently advanced creature would regard us as non-being, or being just a simple machine, just as we think viruses are not beigns, or that "vaccum cleaners", cars or "simple AI" are not beings at all, but "machines".

Anyway, don't pass the world and let's allow the illusion to ontinue to enlighten our suffering souls! ;)

--
unfinished: (adj.)
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by smyle · 2003-01-23 03:04 · Score: 1

(assuming one doesn't believe in an afterlife)
That should be "assuming there isn't an afterlife." Your beliefs have nothing to do with it.

--
Sleep is just a poor substitute for caffeine, anyway. -Bob Lehmann
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-23 21:26 · Score: 0

Read Orson Scott Card's short story "Fat Farm" for an interesting take on this.
Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy by Will+Sargent · 2003-01-25 05:23 · Score: 1

Derek Parfit actually took a hard look at our philosophy of personality and how it pertains to science and the "actual" circumstances. He's a philosopher, but the language is understandable and he actually is not afraid to say "good" or "bad" about a particular viewpoint.
Much of the philosophy of Iain Banks' Culture novels can be based on Parfit. He explicitly covers teleportation and running personalities on machines.
The book is called Reasons and Persons.

Ah... but by pythorlh · 2003-01-22 01:13 · Score: 2, Interesting

Once scientists develop the technology to support gestation in an artificial womb, the will have the abillity to measure and control that environment. Which should lead to lots of interesting theories regarding agressiveness (social standing, intelligence, etc.) as a product of womb temperature (pH, noise level, etc.) Get a good handle on that, and we'll be well on our way to creating clone subhumans to enslave. Not that anyone would do that, of course.

--
Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.Duty is a debt you owe to yourself.

Re:Ah... but by MamasGun · 2003-01-22 03:13 · Score: 1

Get a good handle on that, and we'll be well on our way to creating clone subhumans to enslave. Not that anyone would do that, of course.
What, you mean like THIS?
O brave new world, that hath such people in it!

--
"But you've already got a DVD. It lasts forever....In the digital world, we don't need back-ups..."
-- Jack Valenti
Re:Ah... but by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 03:13 · Score: 0

Of course no one will clone people to enslave. That is just way to expensive. What they will do is clone the leaders, the "important" people of society. They are, after all, the ones that could afford this.
Re:Ah... but by ZaphodCrowley · 2003-01-22 13:30 · Score: 1

"we'll be well on our way to creating clone subhumans to enslave"

w00t! Sign me up for the first batch of D-class submorons. Now I'm off for a nice, refreshing soma vacation, later!

cloning... by m1chael · 2003-01-22 01:14 · Score: 0

is bad for the gene pool. the only good uses for it are to fight diseases, for creating organs and for cloning lost loved ones so people can live in a fantasy of the past.

--
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.

It was the Dukes, it was the Dukes..... by paiute · 2003-01-22 01:22 · Score: 1

I forget. Which Duke brother is vindicated by this observation?

--
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine

They have cloned... by Alien+Being · 2003-01-22 01:26 · Score: 4, Funny

Mr. Bigglesworth! I will call him mini-meow.

And Biologists 'round the World Cry Out ... by cookie_cutter · 2003-01-22 01:26 · Score: 1

... DUH!

Someone had to say it... by syle · 2003-01-22 01:31 · Score: 1

....so I guess you could say, the cat is out of the bag?

(the karma hit was worth it)

--

/syle

Bloom County References? by velcrokitty · 2003-01-22 01:38 · Score: 1

Did they use the cat's tongue for selecting the cells to be cloned? They had to try out several attempts before they got a perfect copy of Bill...

--
I stick to walls...

They DO look the same - just not fur by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 01:47 · Score: 0

Take away their markings and they are mostly identical.

Same shape - same face ears, etc.

MTV Animated clone series... by ClioCJS · 2003-01-22 01:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

By the way, if anyone wants a lighter approach to the topic of clones, tune in to MTV's "Clone High", a new animated series that premiered last monday at 10:30PM. (Originally aired on Teletoon in Canada in the last 6 months I believe.)

The main characters are Abe Lincoln, Joan Of Arc, Ghandi (all highschoolers), along with J.F.K., Van Gogh, and many others.

I'm very anti-MTV but they have always had good series. (Aeon Flux, The Maxx, Daria, Beavis & Butt-head, The Head, Liquid Television, Cartoon Sushi, hell even 3-South is semi-tolerable.)

--
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com

"identical twins" not identical by peter303 · 2003-01-22 01:54 · Score: 1

They'll have different fingerprints, somewhat different personalities. Some due to non-deterministic development in womb.

No surprise by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 01:59 · Score: 0

Had they cloned a dog, it would have been identical. A cat, however, was different just to be difficult.

At University far, far away.... by cedars · 2003-01-22 02:06 · Score: 1

Just a bit of (attempted) humour for you all, no offence intended. :-)

Mr. Petersen, there's some concern about your doctoral thesis, "Cloning Cats".

What's that Professor?

Well, some of your peers are suggesting that you didn't actually clone the cat.

On what grounds?

Well, for starters, the suspicion started since the cats don't look anything like each other.

Oh.

Then, there was concern over the fact that your cloned cat looks exactly like Mr. Muddles owned by Mrs. Tileman four blocks down from you.

But look at the DNA print-outs they're identical.

Yes, well some are suggesting you simply printed the same chart twice...if we could just run the tests ourselves...

I told you the cat was run over.

Look I'm afraid no respectable journal will print your work with these results nor any news site worth its salt for that matter.

Soon after this conversation CNN did a full report on the findings, today Mr. Petersen is a multi-millionaire who sells a variety of bathroom products he claims to have mystical powers, he credits his wealth to CNN who did at least seven reports on the products.

Mosaicism and color patterns by Phaid · 2003-01-22 02:07 · Score: 2, Informative

Setting aside the whole nature vs nurture issue, the reason that two calico cats won't look the same even if they are "genetically identical" is due to mosaicism. Basically what happens is that the gene for certain types of coloration is carried on the X chromosome. Early in embryonic development, each cell in the cat inactivates either the paternal X chromosome or the maternal X chromosome (obviously this only applies if the cat is female). This inactivation happens once at a fixed stage in the cat's development; as the cat develops, these individual cells multiply and eventually the cat becomes a patchwork of coloration, some triggered by the paternal X and some by the maternal X chromosome.

There's no way to predict this pattern, so two cats whose parents have different patterns of orange or black fur will always look different, and the clones of any one of these cats would all look different as well.

And while this is a particularly colorful example of mosaicism, it in fact happens in all mammals, so female clones will always express different patterns of X-linked genetic traits.

Dang lab geeks... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 02:07 · Score: 0

Someday these scientists will go outside and discover sex...

don't forget muscle memory by DrSkwid · 2003-01-22 02:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

I bet it takes you longer to spell your password out loud than it would to type it.

The whole body contributes to memory not just the brain.

--
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter

Re:don't forget muscle memory by ShavenYak · 2003-01-22 03:29 · Score: 2, Informative

I think what you're calling 'muscle memory' is really a function of the cerebellum. The intricacies of the motion are not something you're consciously aware of anymore, but the muscles are still being controlled by the brain.

--

Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!

Not that surprising... by TheWhaleShark · 2003-01-22 02:17 · Score: 2, Interesting

It's always been surmised that genetics does not determine behavior. DNA just makes a slate; something else actually writes on that slate. Why people act the way they do has always been a mystery of science, and now it's obvious that genetics doesn't hold the answer (though I would say it was always obvious).

What interests me the most is that the two cats are different colors. Perhaps pigmentation and coloration also have absolutely nothing to do with genetics. That certainly warrants further investigation. I do recall hearing that the Human Genome project has yet to find a gene that codes for skin pigmentation; it may truly be a superficial thing.

I also have to echo the sentiment that genetics really shouldn't be used to bring back your dead kitty, or your dead grandmother for that matter. Stem cell research and cloning would best be used in treating nasty diseases and degenerative conditions, as well as regrowing of lost tissues and/or organs.

--
"It never got weird enough for me." - HST (RIP)

purpose by thoolihan · 2003-01-22 02:24 · Score: 1

I still have yet to see a good argument for why cloning is useful. After all, it's not an exact replica. Like cloning a sports star. They're are a lot of prodigies that throw it all away because of the expectations.

As for immortality, I can't think that's a very worthwhile goal. That's like baseball without a winner. Yeah, it sucks for the losers, but it's what makes the game worthwhile. Nothing is special or enjoyable, unless their will be an end to it.

Lastly, isn't this a conspiracy to remove the need for sex so it can be made illegal, a la Demolition Man?

Seriously, though. It seems like this is being done just for the sake of saying we can do it.

--
http://unmoldable.com W:"No one of consequence" I:"I must know" W:"Get used to disappointment"

Re:purpose by praksys · 2003-01-22 04:36 · Score: 1

There are lots of uses for cloning, which seldom get metioned in the press because they are borring. Stories about cloning pets, and people, are more exciting, but are really just a sideshow in the cloning business.

The big advantage in clonning animals is that (1) you get exactly the genetic makeup that you wanted, and (2) you get an animal (or plant, or whatever) that is much more similar to its "parent" that anything that would result from sexual reproduction.

Examples of uses that rely on (1) include, the manufacture of tissue and organs for transplant, the manufacture of animals (etc) for testing purposes, and the resurection of recently extinct species.

In some ways (2) is even more important. Selective breeding (i.e. what farmers etc have done for thousands of years to produce our current selection of domesticated species) partly aims at producing breeds that are more useful, but also aims at producing populations that are highly uniform (diversity is good sometimes, but as most industries have discovered there are advantages to having standardised parts and products). Cloning promises to allow breeders to keep the very best genetic combinations that selective breeding produces, and to allow for highly uniform populations.

Take a look through some of the publications that specialise in science (like New Scientist, or Scientific American) if you want to find out what cloning might be good for. Avoid regular news publication. Even the goods ones tend to focus on the uses that pose social policy problems rather than the uses that are economically important.

Re:Impossible to... metaphysics of identity by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 02:31 · Score: 0

You're not the same person you were a year ago or maybe even a moment ago. You cells have changed; many have been completely replaced.

At what point of replacing you cells do you become another person?

You can't step in the same river once.

Conspiracy? by mulhall · 2003-01-22 02:36 · Score: 1

Is no one going to suggest that perhaps these two cats that don't look similar are in fact not related at all?

Smith "Okay, I've got these two cats, right, and they're clones!!"

Jones "But they don't look the same at all..."

Slashdot "That's because of a very complicated process during the early stages of mitosis in embreonic...etc."

Jones "But they don't look the same at all..."

Where are the conspiracy theorists!? Come on! ;)

I'm not overly religious by cp5i6 · 2003-01-22 02:56 · Score: 1

But do any of you ever wonder about the guff and the soul. (the guff is a place in heaven that holds all the souls that ever will be)

after reading the post about the random switching of teh X chromosomes it gets me wondering. Perhaps the switching is not random and that somewhere something knows to say turn that one off because it knows that somewhere another soul already turned it on.

So going by that even though we can clone an animal... it will never be the same because the soul knows what already exists and won't allow the exact copy to be made. and when you have made every single possible copy and you run out of souls.. it's no longer possible to clone the animal because it would have no soul.
br. be an interesting religion with some basis in science :) something to think about

reply to sig... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 02:59 · Score: 0

In Soviet Russia Beowolf clusters imagine YOU!

Naturally by corvi42 · 2003-01-22 03:03 · Score: 3, Insightful

I find it odd how so many continue believe this myth that clones are somehow identical carbon copies of each other. I don't know where this started, but a simple look into nature will show you that it can't possibly be so.

Look at identical ( monozygotic ) twins. Twins of this type are as close as you will ever be able to "duplicate" someone. They share the same DNA, as they are produced from the same egg and same sperm in conjunction. They shared the same womb environment, and all forces that shaped one in the fetal stages of development would also have occured to the other. In the cases where they are not given up for adoption, they share the same family & early childhood environmental influences. It is true that there can be slight differences, it is often true that parents will ( often unconsciously ) treat one twin differently from the other, viewing one as "the strong one" and the other as weak. Even in the womb, there can be slight differences, where one gets a kind of biological "preferencial treatment" receiving slightly more nutrients, oxygen, etc. than the other. But they are as close as can ever be made by anyone.

Now compare this with a clone. Certainly they share the same DNA - but under most circumstances they do not share the same fetal environment or the same early developmental environment. Even if they are born to the same mother and raised in the same place, simply the difference in time between when one is born and the other can yield significantly larger differences. Beyond all that, those who study such things regularly say that only about 40-50% of what we would consider to be the "fundamental characteristics" of a person is determined by genetics, the rest of it being some mix of individual experience combined with individual decisions. Ie: genetic factors only account for 40-50% of the variation between individuals.

So we can easily see that twins ought to be much more alike than clones. Yet we know that even identical twins are often not carbon copies. They may look nearly identical, but they often have quite different personalities. True that there are cases where identical twins seem nearly mirror images of each other, and strange tales of those who are seperated at birth and find that years later they have lived almost parallel lives, but that is by far the minority. As for such ridiculous things as "what happens to your soul if you get cloned?" - noone ever worry about the souls or "essential personality" of twins as being a philosophical problem, so why clones?

--

There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin

Only one thing is hereditary... by TheConfusedOne · 2003-01-22 03:07 · Score: 2, Funny

Diahrhea.

It runs in the jeans.
(Yeah, I probably should have resisted that one.)

--
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.

Re:Only one thing is hereditary... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 06:20 · Score: 0

You could have at least spell-checked it. Dumbass.
Re:Only one thing is hereditary... by TheConfusedOne · 2003-01-22 06:44 · Score: 1

Sorry, had to run to the can too fast to wait for m-w.com to load up.

--
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.

Cat genetics by frozenray · 2003-01-22 03:11 · Score: 2, Informative

Here you can find everything (or more) than you ever wanted to know about the genetic foundations of the feline fur color, including the tortoiseshell variation. The text requires a basic understanding of genetics lingo (homzygous, allele, recessive and the like).

HTML version of the same from Google's cache for those who don't like the .doc format.

--
"There are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton

Actually... No by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 03:16 · Score: 4, Interesting

I think you are confusing breeding with cloning. In breeding, two cats give half of their genes to combine into one set of genes. It would then make sense to say one gene is active and the other gene counterpart is inactive. In cloning, the genes come from the same donor so it is not possible for the clone to have an active gene while the original have not.

The reason why the cats have different fur patterns is the same reason why identical twins do not have identical fingerprints even though they have identical DNA. Don't believe me? Check your twin friends' DNA and compare their fingerprints. The DNA only provides the general blueprint, the cell has some leeway on the implementation... much like our manufacturing industries. :-)

Re:Actually... No by saforrest · 2003-01-22 10:50 · Score: 1

In cloning, the genes come from the same donor so it is not possible for the clone to have an active gene while the original have not.

No, it's entirely possible for that to be the case. The active gene is determined on a cell-to-cell basis, not throughout the body. The inactive X chromosome becomes what is known as a Barr body.

Cloning and souls by totallygeek · 2003-01-22 03:22 · Score: 1

You can clone a body, but you cannot clone a soul.

First, this irritates me because we are talking about animals, not beings with souls (from Christian teaching). Second, and most important, you are saying that identical twins are in serious trouble, because only one of them has the soul, as the clone does not.

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Click here or here.

Re:Cloning and souls by axxackall · 2003-01-22 03:49 · Score: 0

First, this irritates me because we are talking about animals, not beings with souls (from Christian teaching).
That experiment just proves that Cristian teaching is wrong, or at least it is not complete. All living beings have their souls. Including cats and all other animals. You can ignore it, but ignorance doesn't help your own soul.
Second, and most important, you are saying that identical twins are in serious trouble, because only one of them has the soul, as the clone does not.
No, that post is saying that the clone received its own soul in a way as all we receive ours. It doesn't matter what way original emrion appeared - as a result of sex or of scientific experiment. It's got its own soul or it doesn't live.
The soul is not a bilogical substance, although it lives together with our bilogical bodies. For some period of time. The source of soul is from karma judgement of previous lives. That's why twins and clones has own absolutely independent souls. The similarity of their curent bilogical lives just gives them similar memories, which will disappear after this live anyway.
That's the problem of Christian teaching: it decare the soul existence but it doesn't explain the nature of soul.
If you are interesting in more details about the subject try to read articles on this site. Or, better, find a good teacher.

--

Less is more !
Re:Cloning and souls by PenguiN42 · 2003-01-22 05:38 · Score: 1

That experiment just proves that Cristian teaching is wrong, or at least it is not complete. All living beings have their souls. Including cats and all other animals. You can ignore it, but ignorance doesn't help your own soul.

Uh....

how does this experiment prove *anything* about souls? If you're assuming that differences in personality imply different souls, I'd say you had a flawed assumption. Development and upbringing can have a huge impact on personality (not to mention age -- one's a kitten, the other's an older cat) -- why make the illogical leap to the realm of the soul?. Really, you're just throwing the word "proves" around a tad too easily.

I really don't see how this experiment says anything one way or the other about the nature of "souls."

--
The following sentence is true. The preceding sentence was false.

The Two Most Important Lessons .... by fygment · 2003-01-22 03:26 · Score: 1

... from this are:

a) From "Experts say environment is as important as genes in determining a cat's personality." we can conclude that the world ISN'T BLACK and WHITE; and

b) There probably isn't such a thing as "...the gene for ...". The genes are part of a larger system and it is that _system_ that has to be altered and understood for cloning or disease prevention or whatever.

--
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.

This has already been done... by joebagodonuts · 2003-01-22 03:28 · Score: 1

In science fiction. Sounds like a Heinlein universe.

--
"Give a woman two glasses of wine and some pad thai, and they'll agree to just about anything." the Sports Guy

Hey, it was in the parameters. by TheConfusedOne · 2003-01-22 03:30 · Score: 5, Funny

Obviously they compiled the new cat as:
cc -O

--
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.

Ray Charles' Cloned Kitty by vudufixit · 2003-01-22 03:35 · Score: 2, Funny

Is named BCC

Re:Ray Charles' Cloned Kitty by gol64738 · 2003-01-22 08:43 · Score: 1

oh my god, i'm crying with laughter!

Deja vu... by Have+Blue · 2003-01-22 03:42 · Score: 1

"How much like it? Was it the same cat?"

"It might have been."

"Deja vu is a glitch in the Matrix..."

XX XY by chloroquine · 2003-01-22 03:43 · Score: 2, Interesting

X inactivation is just about the coolest thing since sliced white bread.

I'm still confused on why X inactivation seems to only be happening on one specific X chromosome - this implies that whichever inactivation that happened to the original cell that was cloned has remained through the entire developmental process.

From what I've read in the past, this should actually cause some problems when we start doing more cloning in the future. There are definitely animals/people out there who only survive because they are mosaic for certain X-linked disorders. Think about all those haemophiliacs (an X linked trait).

But I guess one could select a cell to clone which had the X without the defect.

The other issue I see here pertains to imprinting - there are genes for which the paternal copy is always silenced (turned off) while the maternal is expressed. When this system breaks down, the organism either dies or has severe problems. (Angelman's Syndrome and so on). I think that the lack of tortoiseshell pattern implies that these genes will remain imprinted allowing survival.

I guess I'm convinced that you would have to lose random X inactivation so you could maintain imprinted genes. The next thing to think about is what kind of genes are on the X chromosome and how do they affect the organism as a whole.

But, then there is this nice science article from Jaenisch's lab
http://www.wi.mit.edu/nap/2000/nap_press_00_d pxina ct.html

Mitochondrial DNA not the same in clones by bmcent1 · 2003-01-22 03:55 · Score: 3, Interesting

IANAB, I think I'm correct on this point. (Someone else in the know please elaborate.) A major point most people overlook when they talk about cloning is mitochondrial DNA. Mammalian cloning so far has only used the DNA extracted from the nucleus of the doner (original ?) animal. There is also a whole bunch of mitochondrial DNA that is floating around in the cells of that doner that they don't get and use. Further more, the egg that the DNA is inserted into contains its original mitrochondrial DNA. So, while the nuclear DNA may be a match, the mitochondrial DNA is not... Its not a perfect copy.

--

"Hey Albert, Good luck exploring the infinite abyss."

Well DUH by Maeryk · 2003-01-22 03:57 · Score: 3, Interesting

Anyone who knows a set of identical twins should have been able to predict this out of the box.

I know two sets.. and both of them were raised in identical environments, however each is quite distinct from their sibling in a million ways.

*sigh*

How could _any_ rational person think that a clone of your old dog would know you and know the old tricks when it was born? They said it TWICE in the article, which makes me think someone somewhere thinks this is possible.

Maeryk

--
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?

Re:Well DUH by poot_rootbeer · 2003-01-22 04:44 · Score: 1

How could _any_ rational person think that a clone of your old dog would know you and know the old tricks when it was born? They said it TWICE in the article, which makes me think someone somewhere thinks this is possible.

Well, the second time they said it was a clone of the first...
Re:Well DUH by Plug · 2003-01-22 14:25 · Score: 2, Informative

The main point is that the two cats, whilst being genetically identical at an embrionic stage, look totally different.

Identical twins are that - identical - as much as you treat them differently you can look at them and see the resemblance fairly instantly. These two cats -look- like any two random cats. You wouldn't even pick them as parent and child.

You'd expect a clone and its 'parent' to act differently, sure, but the point that Hollywood wants you to believe is a clone will 'look' identical.
Re:Well DUH by Jodka · 2003-01-22 17:36 · Score: 1

How could _any_ rational person think that a clone of your old dog would know you and know the old tricks when it was born? They said it TWICE in the article, which makes me think someone somewhere thinks this is possible.
Some breeds of dog exhibit complex and specialized genetically programmed behaviors. So it is reasonable to expect that these behaviors could include tricks. Two such behaviors are pointing by the golden retriever and heeling by the australian blue heeler. You should realize that these animals, reared in isolation from birth, will exhibit these behaviors. They do not learn by watching other animals, nor are they conditioned by humans to exhibit these behaviors. Rather, they have been bred to perform these tricks without prior behavioral conditioning.
Heelers demonstrate heeling spontaneosly and early; a young heeler puppy will follow you around biting at your heels. They seem to think its fun. It's kind of annoying, actually.
So it seems reasonable that in addition to conditioned behaviors, some idiosyncratic and specialized behaviors wich we could classify as "tricks", are genetically programmed.

--
Ceci n'est pas une signature.

What makes you? Souls, etc by phorm · 2003-01-22 04:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

Which brings in a big debate over cloning and just what makes a person, well, a person. If you have a soul... would a clone be born with a soul? If you were brain-copied over to the clone, does that clone inherit your soul as well? If you original body dies... what goes to heaven/hell? What really defines you.
Yeah, I think cloning really scares the crap outta a lot of religious people, especially with the concept of having a lot of soulless clones.

That being said though, even if you copied the "memories", a lot of the way a body works depends on how it has grown. John Doe "A" may be 5'8" tall, with a slight case of asmthma from living near the local carcinogen plant, etc etc. John Doe "B" would grow up with different ailments, and probably a different biochemical pattern within his body. A lot of how we work is in our hormonal, etc, balances.
So, even if there were no soul issue, growing a new John Doe "B" from DNA of John Doe "A" (or a new fluffy the kitten), will not create an exact replica.

Re:What makes you? Souls, etc by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 04:55 · Score: 0

The first question seems easy: I believe that the "new me" will be just another human being, with a separate soul, being it a "bitwise/particle-wise copy of me" or a "baby-clone of me". Which of course means his "file" in "heaven" will be empty - no sins or anything, i.e. he will be a completely valid, still innocent, new-born human.

As for the second question - yes, indeed. And I once heard a medical scientist say that, since the nucleus which replaces the egg's nucleus is that of an adult human, the child will be born "old" - as the cells tend to age (their chromosomes, I believe it was, shorten each time they divide). Perhaps that expains why Dolly died "young".
Re:What makes you? Souls, etc by mark-t · 2003-01-22 06:51 · Score: 1

Assuming the existence of souls, it is most probable that a clone would have its own soul or else it would not live (since a soul is supposedly a requisite for life). Given this, if you were brain copied over to your clone just before you died, your soul would die too... but your personality would go on living in a new body, with a new soul, which could, if there is any part of the mind inside of soul, plausibly lead to something akin to organ rejection -- hmm... that scenario has all the earmarks of an interesting outer limits episode.
Again, this is all assuming that souls exist in the first place.

--
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Re:What makes you? Souls, etc by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 08:35 · Score: 0

Also depends on your definition of "soul"

If you mean soul as used in the Bible, soul = life, so obviously it would.

If you mean soul as used in many churches, it might have a soul, but it wouldn't be yours.
Re:What makes you? Souls, etc by fferreres · 2003-01-22 21:01 · Score: 1

Suppose you PROBE there is no soul, because, physically, no soul is needed. Maybe the problem was the definition of soul. What forces a "god" not to revive us (no revive us, but maybe undie-us), in an inmortal way, if we've done the things well?

I think that was the point in the movie AI, and I haven't figured out that as of yet, I just understood it. We don't need to HAVE a "physical" soul, complementary to ourselves and separate from ourselves, to actually have a soul.

In brief, we do HAVE a soul, and it is us, we are our souls, and that soul is what makes us us. He just need to discover what IS us exactly, and that would be our soul. And nobody could EVER probe we will not live forever in heaven if we do the right thing. God (or whoever has enough power... aliens?) could reinstantiate us and in a way we'll never die.

So the thing is, we are our soals, everything else are just attachments. The question is: what is us?

--
unfinished: (adj.)

Spock Must Die! by uberdave · 2003-01-22 04:02 · Score: 1

This was explored in one of the books. "Spock Must Die", I think. Basically, instead of the transporter breaking you down, they modified it so that it sent a tachyon image of you. The image does all the work, and then the image gets destroyed. The person stays intact. I forget the details; it's been a few years since I read it.

--
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad

Well, DUH! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 04:03 · Score: 0

C'mon folks...the same principles behind identical twins are working here. Think of twins as clones in the closest possible sense: not only are they genetically identical, they also are often raised in or about the same environments. Some twins look and act very alike and some are completely different. Anyone interested in the ramifications of cloning should first look very seriously into twins research. I recommend the University of Minnesota Twins Project (study of identical twins reared apart): http://www.psych.umn.edu/psylabs/mtfs/

DMCA violation! by b1t+r0t · 2003-01-22 04:06 · Score: 0

They clearly circumvented the copy-protection mechanisms by placing code from the original cat into an egg cell. This is an outright violation of the DMCA.

Fortunately, they missed the second layer of copy-protection, and the copy failed. We are now offering this technology to the RIAA and MPAA for (finger on mouth) one MILLION dollars. (whisper whisper whisper) I mean one TRILLION dollars.

--

--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft

Cat not clone - will be cold-fused by xipho · 2003-01-22 04:09 · Score: 1

A&M researchers, while dissapointed with their non-cloned cat, happily pointed out that it can be used in their revamped cold-fusion machine which generates ulimited energy from fur.

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only infrmatn esentil to understandn mst b tranmitd

RTFA by Suppafly · 2003-01-22 04:14 · Score: 1

If you had read the article, it would be obvious that they are different other than age and size. The article points out that their coloring among other traits is very different.

What a ridiculus Debate by DenialX · 2003-01-22 04:21 · Score: 1

This cloning issue is really stupid...Identical Twins have the same DNA and ussually VERY different personalitys, although they share many little, genetic quarks, or heriditary dispositions to disorders.

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- DenialX

Re:What a ridiculus Debate by Madcapjack · 2003-01-22 06:46 · Score: 1

This cloning issue is really stupid...Identical Twins have the same DNA and ussually VERY different personalitys, although they share many little, genetic quarks, or heriditary dispositions to disorders.
I'm a twin, and I've been saying this for a long time.

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Logic, macros, and more

CC and BCC: Battle Cat/Cringer! by GQuon · 2003-01-22 04:25 · Score: 1

We have seen the cat from the CC, but there might be lots of cats in the BCC, the secret ones that they won't show us. Everybody who have had their private emails spread around the Internet knows what I'm talking about :-)
And BCC might mean something else than black carbon copy: What about Battle Cat Cringer? They are making "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe"TM come true! Yippee!
cat %

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Irene KHAAAAAAN!

Why TV is good by Scott+Hussey · 2003-01-22 04:28 · Score: 1

After watching CSI, the CBS drama, I was curious about DNA evidence. So I looked up info on identical twins and if they have identical DNA. They do, which surprised me since I know they don't have identical fingerprints. The difference is not in the genes, but in the physical realization of them: genotypes vs. phenotypes. So even if you have true genetic clones, you can and will have physical differences in the resultant person (or animal).

--
Scott, Keeper of the Crystal Flame

Insert Aggie Jokes here.. by Rudy+Rodarte · 2003-01-22 04:38 · Score: 1

There was an Aggie that was down on his luck. In order to raise some money he decided to kidnap a kid and hold him for ransom. He went to the playground, grabbed a kid, took him behind a tree and told him, "I've kidnapped you." The Aggie wrote a note saying "I've kidnapped your kid. Tomorrow morning, put $10,000 in a paper bag and put it beneath the pecan tree next to the slide on the north side of the city playground. Signed, An Aggie." The Aggie then pinned the note to the kid's shirt and sent him home to show it to his parents.
The next morning the Aggie checked, and sure enough a paper bag was sitting beneath that pecan tree. The Aggie opened up the bag and found the $10,000 with a note. The note said, "How could one Aggie do this to another Aggie?" Sic em Bears!

--
What, me Tweet?

Speaking of the original source code for cats... by unitron · 2003-01-22 04:55 · Score: 1

Speaking of the original source code for cats...

"...the last thing we need is a new production strategy for cats."

Especially when the original production strategy works entirely too well.

--

I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

Wrong hate ... by freaker_TuC · 2003-01-22 04:58 · Score: 1

Damn copied cats !
It's immoral to xerox a cat!

--
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..

Something else by MicroBerto · 2003-01-22 05:23 · Score: 1

One thing of concern to me is that these people want to eventually allow cc, the cloned cat, to have kittens. They say that cc is a perfectly normal and healthy cat, but do they know that?

Now they allow cc to breed, and then its children breed, and so on and so forth. What if there was some sort of genetic malfunction or mutation in cc that nobody knows of right now though?

These doctors may be starting an evolution of their very own, by introducing cloned animals into the wild like this (or has this already happened with pigs?)..

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Berto

Raelian Cloning for Immortality by billstewart · 2003-01-22 05:23 · Score: 1

One newspaper article said the Raelian obsession with cloning was partly for a similar variation, which is to do a brain transplant into the clone's body. Yes, this means killing your clone's personality by chopping its brain out; the "keep it's brain blank" is unlikely to have any meaningful definition. But you don't have to worry about whether a copy will really be you.

As far as this is really what the Raelians believe, or just some reporter's interpretation, I don't know; finding out would mean reading their stuff, and there are more than enough kooks around.

--

Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks

Same Old Shit, Different Day by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 05:29 · Score: 0

But then, I'm more boring than you are...

Question by roystgnr · 2003-01-22 05:44 · Score: 1

A basic equation in quantitative genetics is:

phenotype = genetics + environment + developmental noise.

If this is a quantitative equation, what are the units?

Re:Question by kirkjobsluder · 2003-01-22 07:07 · Score: 1

If this is a quantitative equation, what are the units?

Proportion of variance within a given phenotype.
Re:Question by jgerman · 2003-01-22 07:26 · Score: 1

Sorry to nitpick but "proportion of variance within a given phenotype" is not a unit. The argument is silly though, you obviously mean qualitative instead of quantitative in the original post ;)

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I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Re:Question by kirkjobsluder · 2003-01-22 09:30 · Score: 1

Sorry to nitpick but "proportion of variance within a given phenotype" is not a unit. The argument is silly though, you obviously mean qualitative instead of quantitative in the original post ;)

My mistake. If you are going with proportions, the equation is %V_g + %V_e + %V_n = 1. Sorry, its been almost 10 years.

Of course the units of variance is the square of the units you are measuring. If you are measuring height units would be cm^2 and weight the units would be km^2. If you don't know enough statistics to know this, then you probably should not be throwing around terms you don't understand such as quantitative and qualitative. Cliff Notes makes a good starter guide ;).

Here are some good study notes on quantitative genetics.
Re:Question by jgerman · 2003-01-22 10:49 · Score: 1

then you probably should not be throwing around terms you don't understand such as quantitative and qualitative

Hope that was directed at the original comment that attacked you, I was just pointing out the mis-choice of words ;)

--
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Re:Question by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 16:40 · Score: 0

"If this is a quantitative equation, what are the units?"

Thats the stupidest question I have ever heard.

Question... by maynard · 2003-01-22 05:47 · Score: 1

Thanks for a great read! Do you think you could speak to the relationship between tolemeres and cell apoptosis, along with popular speculation on how that might relate to aging?

Re:Question... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-26 16:24 · Score: 0

fuck you, faggot.

Multi-Article Tie-In by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 05:48 · Score: 0

In relation to today's FORD vehicle post, I got a great idea. What if we could invent a car whose fuel was merely liquified cat? Take all the sheltered animals, plus all living, existing housecats, and melt them into an earth-friendly bio-paste.

Cloning Picard by fredbear5150 · 2003-01-22 05:49 · Score: 1

Speaking of clones, did anyone question the fact that in "Star Trek: Nemesis" (a film that finally breaks the "even numbered Trek movies are good" myth), how was it that Shinzon suffered the same genetic defects in early life that Picard did, even though the genetic material taken from Picard to create Shinzon was removed after Picard had had the defects corrected?

I also wondered why Shinzon couldn't clone enough good first-generation-cloned blood cells from the sample he took from Picard to at least try to delay his deterioration a little while?

Still, with all his money, we can be thankful that rich Billy Gates has no guarantees of inflicting identical copies of himself on future generations... we might even get a characteristically opposite Billy clone that runs a software company selling cheaply priced, stable operating systems...

Nah...

nobody could ever clone my kitty by thedbp · 2003-01-22 05:50 · Score: 1

she's my special one-of-a-kind sweetie cat :)

Unless you're Japanese- by Mu*puppy · 2003-01-22 05:51 · Score: 2, Funny

and are one of the people who go with the idea of how blood types affect personality, relationships, etc.

"C'mon baby, I'm O pos, we were meant for each other!"

--
There's no wrong way, to eat a Rhesus...

Proteomics by Pup5 · 2003-01-22 06:02 · Score: 2, Interesting

As I understand it, the issue isn't as simple as nature vs. nurture. They're finding (like they find in sooo many other things) that it's not a dipolar situation, but a continuum.

Genetics is just the starting point for an organism... the baseline... the nature part. But before you get to the nurture (psychological issues and rearing... the nurture), you have this incredibly complex process of gene activation and suppression. What activates genes? Protiens. And what are the chances that two identical organisms (even maturing in the same womb) are going to have identical interactions with identical protiens at the molecular level? About as rare as you can imagine.

So the issue is the organisms interaction with the environment. And what is that, nature or nurture? Well, it's neither... and it's both.

We can never study true nature... by bhsx · 2003-01-22 06:08 · Score: 2, Funny

We can never study true nature, only nature as exposed to our method of parsing RealNetworks Helix code.

--
put the what in the where?

Cleaning and the Star Trek Transporter by bimmergeek · 2003-01-22 06:09 · Score: 2, Funny

The underlying problem with the promises of cloning and, incidentally, Star Trek's transporter is the assumption that everything significant about a human or even a cat is expressed in physical terms.

The possibility of transporting inanimate objects is very interesting and not dificult to understand: break down the atoms, beam them and reconstitute them. Straightforward. Cloning is also relatively straightforward: copy the genetic description of a creature and you can make endless replicas of that creature.

The problem is this: Humans are not merely physical objects. We have personalities, emotions, longings, etc. How does cloning duplicate personality, intelligence or, in the case of the cats, perfect physical appearance? It doesn't.

The assumption behind the promise of cloning your favorite pet is that the things that make your particular black lab more endearing to you than your neighbor's are contained in genes. Intuitively, with some reflection, we see that this cannot be true. It is not the physical appearance of our black lab that we love, it is the specific manner in which the dog loves us that makes that dog better than some other dog.

The assumption behind transporting humans across space is that humans are merely warm physical objects. Suppose Captain Picard is quite pissed at Data as he is beamed to the planet surface. How does the transporter deconstruct his pissed off emotion? Or suppose Catain Kirk is falling in love with some forbidden fruit: a slinky little Klingon hottie. How does the transporter beam to the surface his romantic longings and anxiety about whether he will choose love over career? If the *material person* is being beamed, what happens to the emotional and spiritual person?

Cloning and transporting are the same problem because they are based on the same assumptions about what it means to be human. Namely, that there is no difference between us and a phaser. There will be many pet owners and surviving lovers/family members who are disappointed when their hopes for reunion are dashed because cloning fails to replicate the intangible mystery of what differentiates people and animals from other lumpy objects.

--
-Everyone laughs at lemmings but no one ever wants to admit to ever being one.

Re:Cleaning and the Star Trek Transporter by vigata · 2003-01-22 12:01 · Score: 1

Obviously cloning and transporting are NOT the same problem.
When you clone you only copy the genetic material of the being. Since the moment of conception two individuals with same genetic material accumulate different experiences.
Those experiences, feelings are stored somehow physically in someones brain, so when you you use the Enterprise transporters you are transporting those feelings too.

what about gestation? by siskbc · 2003-01-22 06:12 · Score: 1

First, those "twins in different settings" weren't exactly the best studies because the control groups weren't always too well defined. There are also a lot of twins raised by the same parents who have very different occupations...

Also, people talk about nature vs. nurture as if nature=genetics. However, a LOT of a person is affected by development in the womb - before the person has any contact with the world, but after the genes are set. The mother's hormones, stress to the fetus, illness to the mother, exact timing of gene expression, etc all are extremely important, and is something that is minimized in nature vs. nurture issues.

Ultimately, it should not be surprising that, even comparing newborns, that two animals with the exact same genetic code should act completely differently.

--

-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat

Nurture wins! by supabeast! · 2003-01-22 06:26 · Score: 1

TSIA.

Re: Actually... No... by Qzukk · 2003-01-22 06:36 · Score: 2, Informative

Genetics lesson, from the basics:

In animals, gender is determined by X and Y chromosomes. The valid choices are XY (male) and XX (female). Other cases create a sterile or nonviable mutant.

Now, cells only require one X chromosome to operate. In females, therefore, every cell de-activates one of the two X chromosomes during fetal development, which becomes a Barr body and is completely genetically useless.

In cats, Black and Brown hair colors are stored on the X chromosome. Thus males can be black or brown (since they have only one X chromosome), and females can be black and brown.

Females get to be black and brown when one inherited X chromosome is black, and the other is brown. Then, when one of the chromosomes is turned into a Barr body, the patch of skin that develops from that fetal cell becomes either black, or brown. Other cells could have disabled the other chromosone, leading to splotches of other colors.

And now for the cloning:
When the ovaries/eggs develop, each egg receives one of each pair of chromosomes. Thus, the eggs of a Brown/Black cat are either Brown, or Black. I am not sure what technique exactly was used in producing the clone, but if they doubled the chromosomes in each egg, the Black egg would create a Black/Black clone. If they merged two eggs together, its possible that they just happened to pick two Black eggs. If they picked a non-egg cell (unlikely) then they would have either had to swap the Barr body for a real X chromosome (in which case they could have chosen a Black/disabled cell, and added Black in again) or somehow re-activate the Barr body.

--
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.

Human Cloning Implications by InfiniteWisdom · 2003-01-22 06:50 · Score: 1

Does this mean that if they clone human beings, the clone will have a different colored fur?

Re:Human Cloning Implications by tbj61898 · 2003-01-22 21:54 · Score: 1

Hey,
that's not only a different cat! in many ways it seems an opposite cat!

One is a 'reserved' cat, the other is just curious... one has certain color, the other not.

I must say, I'm going to clone myself. Maybe the second me will be less fat, beauty and with lots of money ;)

Bye,
Andrè V.

--
nop, nop, nop #VBLANK

mods please by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 06:58 · Score: 0

If you didn't know what the parent post was talking about, don't mod replies. The parent was making fun of Heissenburg's theories. The basic theory goes something like:
We can never study true nature, only nature as exposed to out method of questioning.

This is clearly not offtopic, it may not be funny, but as of right now we don't have a -1 Not Funny rating.

Duplication physically impossible by Dwindlehop · 2003-01-22 06:59 · Score: 1

It is physically impossible to produce two copies of an unknown quantum state. One can reproduce an unknown quantum state but the original quantum state is destroyed or modified. One can produce multiple copies of a known quantum state, but that is hardly useful for human teleportation or copying.

Barring revisionist physics that alter our current understanding of the universe rather than adds depth, any sort of human teleportation or copying (including copying of the brain) will involve destruction (or at least alteration) of the original. I do not know about you, but I'm not about to undertake any sort of copying that fails to guarantee that my original quantum state will remain intact.

--
Jonathan Pearce jonathan@pearce.name
3EAAFB2A http://www.jonathan.pearce.name/

Re:spell-checking by tomhudson · 2003-01-22 07:06 · Score: 1

I guess he was just "running on" ...

CC by _ph1ux_ · 2003-01-22 07:12 · Score: 1

If its not a carbon copy - then why is it called "CC"?

religious wackos by anomaly · 2003-01-22 07:41 · Score: 1

As one of the people who you would call a "religious wacko" I would like to suggest that there's more to the picture that you have protrayed.

We DO live in exciting times. We have the knowledge and tools to learn much about life, genetics, biology, disease, and much much more than you or I can conceive of.

However, the road to curing disease does not necessarily pass through human cloning and embryonic stem cell research. The initial attempts at mammalian cloning have been sketchy at best, and it may realistically be decades before we understand enough about this to successfully clone complex mammals or humans.

Adult stem cells show much promise, as do stem cells collected from cord blood after birth. Neither of these lines of research come encumbered with the toying with human lives (creation of new people, or require destruction of existing people - as I believe science demonstrates that abortion does)

I want to see our brilliant scientists cure previously incurable diseases, but I strongly disagree that the best way involves cloning and embryonic stem cells.

Even with our recent (past 500 years) successes, we stand on the shores of an ocean of knowledge and can only wonder in awe about our ignorance. What we do not know dramatically dwarfs what we do know.

Respectfully,
Anomaly

BTW - God loves you and longs for relationship with you. He doesn't call you to check your brain at the door, either. If you want to know more, please email me.

--
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?

Re:religious wackos by LeBleu · 2003-01-22 10:47 · Score: 1

BTW - God loves you and longs for relationship with you. He doesn't call you to check your brain at the door, either. If you want to know more, please email me.

Then who asked you to check your brain at the door? Because if you hadn't, you'd realize that they can't email you when your email address isn't listed in your post or your user profile!

Oh wait... this is /. - silly me, I forgot I was reading a site known for posts that do not show signs of thought.

--
--LeBleu
If you're reading this you're part of the mass hallucination that is Kevin the Blue.
Re:religious wackos by anomaly · 2003-01-22 13:09 · Score: 1

My oversight. I usually include it, and people who want to criticize me then post it to porn spammers for their entertainment.

It's mailto:tom_cooper@bigfoot.com

--
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?

Re: Actually... No... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 07:46 · Score: 0

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyP ages/S/SexChromosomes.html

X-inactivation occurs early in embryonic development. In a given cell, which of a female's X chromosomes becomes inactivated and converted into a Barr body is a matter of chance. After inactivation has occurred, all the descendants of that cell will have the same chromosome inactivated.

The egg contains one of the X chromosome. For a female, the sperm provides the other X chromosome. After the genes are combined, one the X chromosome becomes a Barr body. This selection happens in the embroynic stage. In cloning, the selection does not happen again. Cloning involves taking a donor egg, removing all the genes including the X chromosome, and implanting it with a completed set of genes which has already been combined and selected. The cloned genes should have been activated and inactivated the same way as the original genes. Cloning does involve merging the two eggs together - that is similar to breeding or insemination using sperm.

And legal ramifications. by RatBastard · 2003-01-22 07:47 · Score: 2, Interesting

There are also legal issues that have to be addressed.

Is a clone a full citizen?
Is a clone even legally a human being?
Is a clone a child of the donor, or the donor's parents (as it is basically a time-delayed twin)?
Does a clone have any rights?
Can a clone inherit your stuff?

Now, siome of you are going Duh, Rat! Of course clones are people!, but until we make a full an legal decision on this all bets are off.

--
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.

Re:And legal ramifications. by mdwh2 · 2003-01-22 09:26 · Score: 1

Is a clone a child of the donor, or the donor's parents (as it is basically a time-delayed twin)?

I can see this one being an issue - similar to surrogacy, where the surrogate mother suddenly claims she has rights over the child for example.

But as for the other points, I don't see why they should pose legal problems. If cloning was a process whereby a fully grown person suddenly got made in a machine, then there might be problems. But a clone in this context still has to be born using natural methods. Conception may be artifical, but things like artifical insemination already occur, and people don't generally suggest that those born as a result of that should not be a legal citizen in any way.

In short, a clone would be no different to any other child in these respects.

Re: Actually... No... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 07:49 · Score: 0

Ops... a typo... it should be:

Cloning does **NOT** involve merging the two eggs together - that is similar to breeding or insemination using sperm.

No sir, I didn't like it by ColonBlow · 2003-01-22 07:59 · Score: 1

After Episode II, I'm against anything involving cloning.

--
free online diet tracking.

And you said DRM would never work! by Sloppy · 2003-01-22 08:28 · Score: 1

Humans can see the cat, but they can't copy it.

--
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.

Calico Colors are random. by withak53 · 2003-01-22 08:41 · Score: 1

Well, not entirely random.

The X chromosome carries the color gene.
Since females are XX it is possible for them to have two colors (white is a defect that occurs elsewhere).
The multiple colors in fur are the result of the two X's battling it out during mitosis.

This is why almost all calico's are female.
The only way to get a male calico is if it has XXY.

The differences in attitude and weight can be attributed to environment.

Finally some evidence! by CrystalFalcon · 2003-01-22 08:44 · Score: 1

The clone was, by necessity, born at a different time than its original.

Finally some evidence for what people have suspected for ages: it is not genes that determine who and what we become, it is astrology.

Why are these people surprised? by IBitOBear · 2003-01-22 08:51 · Score: 1

Nuclear DNA is only part of the story. If the eggs are not from a direct female descendent of the original mother then all the other DNA would be different.

Yes, I said it, "other DNA". The mitocondrial (sp?) DNA and the RNA in all those tidbits floating around in a cell do things too.

Go look up things like the two-headed fly. Chemicals in-utero affect development a lot.

Barring a replicator (a la Star Trek) cloning won't make anything close to *exact* copies.

How sad... 8-)

--
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press

Chimeras *not* clones?? by myowntrueself · 2003-01-22 08:52 · Score: 1

Just trying to establish correct useage of the terms;

Arn't these so-called clones really chimera?

They are a genetic blending of two organisms:
take the nuclear DNA of one animal and insert
it into a cell from another animal, thus creating a chimera with nuclear DNA from one and mitochondrial DNA from the other.

Wouldn't a true clone have to have both nuclear and mitochondrial DNA replicated?

--
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.

Re:Chimeras *not* clones?? by corvi42 · 2003-01-22 11:21 · Score: 1

Quite possible. I've never heard this term before, but that seems to make sense to me. However I wonder how much any changes in mitochondrial DNA can have upon the phenotype of the resulting creature.

--

There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
Re:Chimeras *not* clones?? by myowntrueself · 2003-01-23 08:26 · Score: 1

Mitochondria being the 'batteries' of a cell, their DNA regulating a cells energy usage, my guess would be that their effect could be quite important.

The term chimera is usually used to describe a composite organism (from the Greek mythological monster with bits from all sorts of animal).

I've seen the term applied to creatures artificially made from multiple 'parents' (ie; not through crossbreeding).
I believe that, for example, the sheep-goat genetic hybrid is classified as a chimera.

Of course, despite *correct* useage of technical terms it is the 'common useage' which actually dictates what a word *means*

(take 'cyber' for example; from the Greek 'Control' it once meant 'something to do with control technologies' then in the 70's it became 'something to do with robots' nowadays it *means* 'talking dirty online' ;)

--
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.

Re:Pseudo Immortaltiy the answer by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 09:00 · Score: 0

The trick answer to this problem is that during the
transfer "me" or the soul is allowed to inhabit both bodies once it realizes it has two bodies then
it can choose to move to one ( preferably the new one )

Thus if its a soul decision : ) to move bodies then problem solved. Only one copy.

In otherwords if the soul is concious of the movement then it knows its not a copy.

good point by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 09:07 · Score: 0

why the hell is it that so many slashdotters can't spell simple words?! IHMO it's all those illiterate engineers in these forums making themselves and the rest of us look dumber than the president.

Not the same thing by Daetrin · 2003-01-22 09:21 · Score: 1

That's interesting, and it explains tortiseshell cats. However the cat that was cloned was a tabby, and tabbies can be both male or female, so an explantion of how tortiseshells and only torstiseshells develop their coats is largely irrelevant.

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This Space Intentionally Left Blank

Strange choice for a first cloned cat by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 09:35 · Score: 0

You would think as a first technology demo, they would have started with something easier to clone than a calico cat. A pattern-less all-gray or all-black cat would presumably have had better chances of coming out the same as the original...

Analogy by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 09:57 · Score: 0

I take a class cup and drop it off the top of a building and then photograph where the shards of glass go.

I take a 100% identical cup - identical down to every single atom - and drop it off the building the next day and the photograph where the shards of glass go.

How can you expect them to be identical?

There are billions of variables in the equation of why anything is the way it is.

Not as different as you seem to think by Phaid · 2003-01-22 10:28 · Score: 1

The original cat in the story is a calico ("Rainbow the cat is a typical calico with splotches of brown, tan and gold on white."). Tortoiseshell cats are not the only cats whose coats develop their color patterns via mosaicism -- calico cats are another classic example. And both the clone and the original cat are female.

But thanks for your input!

Who's everyone? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 10:37 · Score: 0

No scientist thought the cat would be an exact copy. The guy from the humane society didn't. The only people who thought it would be an exact copy were uneducated slobs who read too much science fiction.

The nature of cats by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 11:26 · Score: 0

Well, this just proves that a cat's independence is genetically hard-coded!

Genes Differences by qwizitz · 2003-01-22 11:30 · Score: 1

Everyone knows that there are dominant and recessive genes, although can two genes be recessive and have an equal chance at turning up visibly? Such as the colour of the cat.

I guess... by The+Fink · 2003-01-22 11:35 · Score: 1

... we'll never know, then, if there's more than one way to skin the same cat.

~ducks~

Brahma Bigstud by Mittermeyer · 2003-01-22 11:55 · Score: 1

Genetic mastery is the ultimate point of all this, but remember agriculture (or more properly speaking veterinarian sciences of which TAMU is a foremost practitioner) is a business. Therefore what I see this technology being used for most is cloning top breeder bulls and the like. Losing a top breeder is a big loss for a cattleman, so bringing one back is money well spent.

They won't be bringing back fluffy, they will bring back Brahma Bigstud.

--
________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________

everyone expected to see... by quintessent · 2003-01-22 12:00 · Score: 1

Mod story:

-3 Troll, -2 Flamebait, -4 Redundant

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Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.

Alligators!!! by istartedi · 2003-01-22 13:37 · Score: 1

For all you debating the nature vs. nurture aspect of this, consider alligators: A difference of just a few degrees in temperature of the nest determines whether they are male or female. And you're all fussing about fur color?

--
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?

Duh by Clockwurk · 2003-01-22 14:36 · Score: 1

We already knew that, you're on Slashdot

copy cat, good or bad ? by clareo · 2003-01-22 17:26 · Score: 1

This is why species that reproduce asexually often also reproduce sexually, it allows in good conditions for a plant/fungus/etc to establish itself in it's biological niche yet at the same time produce different offspring via sexual reproduction to survive a change in conditions. Then there are things which only reproduce asexually like bacteria, they have different methods of coping, which involve being able to pass good characteristics to other bacteria (why we need to be careful with antibiotic use, but this is completely off topic :) ) So why would we want to purposefuly wish to reduce the genetic diversity of a species? I don't get it (except in a few rare cases like apples as each tree is completely different) Could you imagine the rise of a cloned cat sold at pet stores " Cloned Cat is free from genetic diseases and has the perfect temperament for every family, with individualised coats" ... This may seem abit far stretched, but this is what happened in Irealand in the summer of 1845 with the potato famine ... (for more info read "The botany of desire: a plant's eye view of the world", by Michael Pollan, pub by bloomsbury) All delving into the world of genetic cloning/modification needs to be taken slowly with appropriate educated social debate.

Hint by fferreres · 2003-01-22 21:04 · Score: 1

The answer is not 48! (couldn't resist!)

--
unfinished: (adj.)

Cats, or maybe pets in general by Alphtoo · 2003-01-23 05:28 · Score: 1

Cloning is interesting, but I have to go with the Humaine Society on this one. I had a friend who had no sense of smell, love animals, and always kept a cat around to check out food of indeterminate age from his fridge. If the cat wouldn't eat it, my friend wouldn't, either. He'd go to the amimal shelter and pick out the ugliest kitten he could find (because he knew that nobody else was likely to take it, and it would soon be killed). What was strange is that the cats seemed to know this, and always made wonderful pets. Folks, there are far too many animals put down every year and each one is unique. If you want a pet, go to the amimal shelter and look around. I'll bet you'll find the perfect pet for you, it won't cost you much, and you'll probably have saved its life. What could be better than that? The angels God sends us don't, as a rule, have wings, and often aren't even human. And sometimes critters need angels, too. You can BE one. Think about it.

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Cloned Cat Not a 'Carbon Copy'

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