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Re-Pet a Reality

Posted by michael on from the double-your-pleasure dept.

tigerdarklord writes "The Sci-Fi concept of pet cloning has become a commercial venture. Genetic Savings & Clone now not only offers genebanking for your pet (alive or recently dead), but a full service cloning shop. Although they started by producing two clones of the CEO's cat, they have now produced their first commercial clone for a woman from Texas. GSC has modified their cloning procedure to overcome the resemblance issues demonstrated when the College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M, created CopyCat. The technology looks promising but the $50,000 price tag will prove to place the service out of the reach of most pet owners."

4 of 482 comments (clear)

  1. Re:More money than brains I guess by nwbvt · · Score: 2, Informative
    "... and they get a pet that looks like their deceased pet yet isn't. "

    It actually may not even look like their pet. Often appearance is not identical even with clones, such as in calico cats.

    --
    Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
  2. You're getting confused... by lxt · · Score: 3, Informative

    "Why do you think the first thing the Scottish scientist cloned was a sheep?" ...look, it's the Welsh, not the Scots...the Welsh! :)

    Go on! Mod me flamebait!

  3. Dolly problems by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 2, Informative
    Dolly the cloned sheep was much celebrated, but developed arthritis early ask Google for "dolly arthritis". There is some speculation about this, but one is that the DNA slowly fall apart due to aging and therefore the cloned animal is "pre-aged".

    If this is the case then that kitten you had cloned from your aging cat will start costing a lot in vet bills and will die at an early age.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
  4. Telomeres by some+guy+I+know · · Score: 2, Informative
    There is a kind of "buffer" at the end of your genetic sequence that slowly decays over your life
    They're called "telomeres".
    --
    Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana