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Scientists Claim They Cloned Humans
dustinbarbour writes "A South Korean-led research team has cloned human embryos to produce embryonic stem cells, a scientific first that promises to reignite public debate over cloning. Medical researchers hope to use cloned embryonic stem cells to someday treat diseases such as diabetes and Parkinson's. The cells potentially could create rejection-free transplant organ tissues." There's another story in the NYT.
...That they didn't claim to produce an entire embryo; just stem cells.
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Now the big question is: who to clone?
I, for one, can only think of people that should not exist.
Can we pass a law that stupid people aren't allowed near this stuff? We've got too many of them already.
It must be Thursday... I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
Not according to "Coast to Coast Radio" with Art Bell. According to him, the UN already has millions of cloned army men stationed in secret bases in Siberia and Northern Minnesota.
Am in support of using stem-cells to repair organs. It's not really unehical at all. I mean an embryo doesn't have a personality or a self so it's hardly going to miss being alive.
They seem to be cloning the cloning messages.
How often did we hear this before?
They seem to be cloning the cloning messages.
How often did...
What's with the sensatioanlistic headlines this morning? KAZAA'ers PAY TO USE VPN TO BYPASS RIAA on a story about a company who offers public vpn for $6, with no implicit mention of Kazaa or FileSharing. And now WE'VE CLONED A HUMAN about a korean company who has cloned only an embryo to only a very early stage to generate stem cells, not making Steve 2.0 from Steve. Let's not go overboard, or am I talking out of turn? This is Slashdot, of course. Overboard is the story d'jour.
Th
The team detailed here has not cloned a human has such. It has cloned the stem cells in an embryo specifically for stem cells. The claims that they have made (also made in New Scientist this week) are not as radical as the claims made by the Raelians and Panayiotis Zavos, and so are much more believable than can be expected by looking at this title :)
I say all power to the team doing this as they are obviously going for something that is going to eventually become a pioneering field for saving life. I think the key issue is that they are cloning the cells (i believe) rather than the entire embryo, and so the issue of Sanctity of Life does not come into it.
Tim
tim
article here
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
"In related news, delegates to the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention have attempted to introduce a "yes, you can marry your own clone" clause into the gay marriage debate."
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
it's only a matter of time before someone does clone a human. There's nothing mysterious or exceptionally difficult about it as compared to cloning sheep, cows, horses, etc.
The ethical questions are something else entirely, due to the fact that at this time, there's no way to relibaly bring forth healthy clones (most have some sort of genetic defect).
There's also a general misconception that a clone will be just like the clonee. Something that's extremely unlikely, just look at identical twins.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Your stem cells can be collected and stored at birth, from the cord blood that is thrown away anyway when they tie the knot to make your belly button. It should be standard practice to store them now from newborns for when stem cell technology matures in the future.
When I was at Uni, they told us a US company held a patent on the harvesting(?) of cord blood stem cells, and demanded a license fee which is hampering the introduction of this. Don't know how true that is.
Nevertheless, this bypasses peoples squemishness on the use of embryos for this type of thing, though I don't have a problem with it myself. I can see why this work has been done, but there are a number of ways to generate this material that isn't morally suspect.
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
On this morning's Today programme on BBC Radio 4, this very thing was discussed. One of the interesting arguments: at what point to we determine an embryo a human being?
Is a ball of 100 human embryo cells a human being? One woman on the program was claiming - yes, this is so. I personally think that this is a bit extreme, almost "every sperm is sacred" extreme.
On an unrelated note, I find it ironic that the same people who claim that abortion at day 3 is criminal are often pro-death penalty.
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... and the inexorable march of science continues unabated. This is a significant breakthrough, if not a huge step forward, in the process, and there will probably be another within 12-18 months, and so on. FWIW, I think the most positive aspect of this is that it will bring bioresearch back into the public eye, and will hopefully foster intelligent, measured discussion on the obvious benefits and admitted drawbacks to all forms of new technology, bio, nano, or otherwise. As the proliferation of nuclear technology (now 60 years old) has shown, technology will out, despite all attempts to contain it. Therefore, we need to be discussing the ethics and ramifications of said technology well before it becomes public domain. Note that I'm not advocating the containment of technology -- heaven forbid! I'm merely suggesting that we're not yet ready to deal with these issues as a nation or as a race, and the time to begin thinking about them is sooner rather than later.
Stem cell technology has the potential to save millions of lives. Clearly, we need to issue bans on it.
Can we clone some pretty girls to make supply so high to make them available for geeks too?
SHE does throw dice.
Opponents of cloning fear the development will lead to cloned babies.
What if it does? So what? Clone me anytime. All it means is that there will be another guy who looks just like me walking around. Will the clone think and act like me? Fuck no; the people who think cloned genes will equal a cloned mind are the types who worry about cloned little Hitlers running around. Don't place your faith in Hollywood movies to show you what cloning is all about.
Cloned people are not any less human than "naturally born" people. What makes a human is intellect, not just how one was born.
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"Ours was a free culture. It is becoming much less so."-Lawrence Lessig
They transplated the nucleus of a somatic cell into an egg, cultured it to the blastocyst stage, then extracted the stem cells from them. In what sense does that not involve a cloned embryo? If they had implanted the egg into a uterus instead of extracting the stem cells it would have developed into a more or less normal human.
Yeah, but cloning people in a white lab under sterile conditions is MUCH more exciting than doing it the old-fashioned way! I mean you get cool instruments and get to work with all these geeks! It's Slashdot, after all :)
Yes, but unless they have also conquered the problem with Telomeres, the resulting human would at best have a greatly shortened lifespan, and may have all sorts of other problems.
I have mixed feelings on this one. The method they have used provides a viable alternative to using aborted fetuses and embryos for harvesting stem cells and at the same time looks like an answer to the problem of rejection. Aside from the "we shouldn't clone" argument, I think the only other complaint is the use (and destruction) of the egg cell. While this may seem trivial to many, there are some people who will still be very upset by it.
Does anybody know whatever happened with the research on harvesting real adult stem cells from fat tissue? I would think this would solve both the rejection AND Telomeres problems, as presumably these cells would have lain dormant and not used up their life cycle like other cells in the body.
GreyPoopon
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Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
is that a story like this immediately transforms itself in the minds of some very ignorant people, into: Scientists are now able to create fully adult genetic and mental duplicates of me, who will look, talk, and act just like me, sleep with my wife and take over my life just like in The Sixth Day, and furthermore they will all be abominations in the eyes of God!! The reality of what's possible with cloning is far more mundane than our sci-fi nightmares, but the general public rarely concerns itself with the differences. Lets see:
Sci-Fi | Real Life
Genetic duplicate | Check
Adult | Baby
Same memories | No memories
Same personality | Somewhat similar personality
Steals my identity | WTF?
JC wouldn't like it | You are an idiot
Pretty clear - they DID clone embryos, then killed them.
Let's not get into a killing-an-embryo-is-killing-humans discussion. A 7-day old human embryo is indistinguishable from most other embryos at that percentage through fetal developemnt (~1/39th). At 1/39th development, it is identical to all mamals and almost identical to all vertebrates. Mathematically and biologically, this is no different than doing it with sheep or fish.
~Will
sig?
Tell me - *exactly* when does a "human embryo" become a "human"?
It's the simplest question in the world. You want the truth? You want to know exactly when an embryo or fetus becomes a human?
It becomes a human the moment that the woman carrying it decides she wants it, and it is a tragedy if something goes wrong. She'll sing to it, look at the sonographs, eat right, and buy baby supplies.
If she doesn't want it, it's a simply a piece of extra tissue and can be terminated and disposed of.
Got it? Good.
By the way, the father's view on the issue either way happens to be irrelevant.
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Does anybody know whatever happened with the research on harvesting real adult stem cells from fat tissue?
From fat tissue? At last, jobs will go back to Americans!
U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
Cloning is like prostitution. Moral or not, legal or not, people are going to do it and get paid for it. The question is whether we want an open, regulated industry or an underground one.