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Re-Pet a Reality
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."
Welcome our furry overlords!
In all of Ruffy's 14 years, I never could teach her not to piddle on the rug. Now I have a second chance to housetrain her once and for all.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I wonder if they can clone my pet bee so I can have a whole Eric-the-bee instead of my Eric-the-half-bee due to his 'accident'.
Check out the best P2P sharing website: MEDIACHEST.COM
again...
The technology looks promising but the $50,000 price tag will prove to place the service out of the reach of most pet owners.
... and they get a pet that looks like their deceased pet yet isn't. "Mittens 2.0 scratches my furniture, Mittens 1.0 didn't."
If these people really loved animals and would quit trying to relive the past with a facsimile-pet the $50K (or less) would be better used if donated to a pet shelter for food and sterilization programs. And while they're there they could take home an animal currently on death row.
Trolling is a art,
Someone better check with the RIAA to make sure that this does not violate the DMCA.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
...read the Pet Cemetery, by Stephen King to find out how this is all likely to end.
This is not the sig you are looking for...
This whole experiment should solve the nature-vs-nurture controversy. The client claims that the cloned cat has the same personality as its donor...but then again, how closely was this one raised to its predecessor?
I could reproduce my cat, but it won't be the same cat. In my opinion, nuture plays as much a role as nature in defining the personality of a dog or cat. You like you animal for its behaviour, not what it looks like (at least I do).
is a lot of money for the "same" pet to piss all over the carpet.
I'll just go down to the pound and get a pet for $20 to piss all over the carpet, thanks.
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
Let's hope Hugh Hefner supports this initiative.
sometimes dead is better
didnt the lady say that everything about this cat is exactly alike? i imagine as time goes on and as the kitten grows to an adult(assuming the kitten lives that long) then some things will start happening that didnt happen before. i agree with one of the comments that for $50,000 she could have saved a lot of cats from being put to death, but rather found loving caring homes.
These people are not and never will be ressurecting their loved dead pets. The pet that you loved is DEAD. Go save some pet that is actually still alive and save it from being gassed.
Sounds too much like http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098084/ Pet Sematary to me.
Successfully condensing fact from the vapor of nuance since 1998.
Pet Sematary. I loved my cat, but that whole glowing-eyes-bad-temper thing is a definite turn-off.
Stephen King's novel is great, but this is one development that I'd prefer to keep strictly fiction.
...to my TwistyCat(TM)? Would it be more or less Twisty(TM)?
now only if they could bring back my Jane. too bad that it cannot bring what is really important - the mind. cat's or girl's, a body is nothing. hardware matters only if you have the software to run on it
Deliriant isti Americani.
I wonder if this cloning business would eventually result in DNA evidence being inadmissable in court.
I don't think the $50,000 price tag is really an obstacle. I mean, think of all the average people driving $40,000 SUVs and $100,000 motor homes. I think there are a lot of middle-class weirdos out there who would be willing to make payments for the rest of their lives to get a cat or dog back.
I mean, it would be stupid in a science fiction story, but to actually operate under that name has to earn some points.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Let's see if CopyCat can keep up with PlagiarAss technology.
It'll be the same cat. For the same reason that your girlfriend is turning into her mother.
And I am not talking about the cloning. Its a friggin' crime to spend all that money on a cat when there are hundreds of thousands of strays out there. Go to the shelter and pay $60 for an unwanted cat that comes neutered and with all its shots.
Trolls: The high-tech version of those morons that scrawl obscenities in public bathrooms.
Anyway, this is still a clone -- it's a different "instance" of the original animal (even if it's made via a copy constructor.) It won't have "genetic memory" of its new owner, it will be a completely different pet. Why spend $50,000? Why not spend $100 at the pound, or a few hundred from a quality breeder, or even a "FREE KITTYS" from a farm?
I see this as only catering to the clinically insane. The rich, clinically insane, but insane nonetheless. Oh, well, I suppose if there's cash to be made, why not make it? ...
John
Did they learn NOTHING from the movie Godsend?
Meh.
The guys paying $200000 for a seat in Virgin/Scaled/SpaceShip2 will let my kids fly in space.
The guys paying $50000 for cloning their pets will let my kids live forever.
Let's appreciate these guys instead of insulting them.
While there's lots of gasping about the price tag, there's no question that there are customers out there. See Burkhart Bilger's The Last Meow -- and no, it's not a joke article!
Cloning techology needs to be developed, but just because something can be dones doesnt mean it should be.
The Humane Society has thousands of animals that need homes. A more rewarding form of Karma would come from rescuing a pet from the Humane Society and then donating the 50,000 Dollars to the HS to care for the unwanted animals.
People like that lady who paid 50k for a cat have more money than sense, and her moral compass needs adjusting.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
There are millions of already-born animals that are dieing to be adopted. Literally. I wish some of this research money would be spent on population control of pets (i.e. free spaying and neutering) so we wouldn't have to put so many unwanted pets to death.
Here's where you can find pet adoption info for the state of Texas. Google for your own region.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I have a lot of trouble trusting a company with a name that's a terrible pun. "Savings and Clone"? Ow.
Love the Third Amendment?
Why pay $50,000 for one cat when she could have had ten thousand.
God spoke to me.
I wonder what will happen when they clone someones pet (a cat maybe?), and although their cat looks the same, it has a completely different personality. A personality in fact that the owner doesn't like.
Even more so, how will that affect sales?
Party at O'zorgnax's Pub! Buy me a Slurmtini aye?
So I wonder how this will effect Dog/Cat shows. What happens when winners start cloning their animals and when every year. Will we start to see rules in competions like this saying that clones may not compete.
And continue the thought, what happens then when we start cloning ourselves and we have 6 Micheal Jordons playing against 6 Larry Birds? Doesn't each clone have the right as an individual to play if they want? Should rules about clones apply or not?
He is a good man
Nope. Try again...
This is not the sig you are looking for...
Why do you think the first thing the Scottish scientist cloned was a sheep?
A girrrrllllll sheep...
This is going to be the best prom EVER!
John
- safe and affordable organ transplants from our own cloned tissue
- endangered species returning.
- extinct species returning.
- opportunities for better cheap foods
- ultimately contributing to our immortality
Getting cloning out of the hands of a few drug companies who want to profit from the rest of the world's ignorance will create industries and opportunities we can't even imagine today.Once the price falls from $50000 to $50, and they clone organs of humans, medicine will never be the same.
At least not according to a documentary I once saw.
I believe the proper way to get your dead pet back is to burry them in an Indian cemetary.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
OK, cloned cat, nice, but how long will it live?
People who read about cloning don't realize that the cloned cells have shortened telomeres. The Telomere acts as a cap to protect DNA as its copied. As cells reproduce, the telomere gets shorter and shorter until the DNA isn't protected anymore and you start seeing aging diseases.
Sure, this cat looks like a kitten, but at a cellular level, it's still an aged cat. It may not have much longer to live than its twin did if it lived out the rest of its natural life.
This is exactly what happened to Dolly the sheep. Dolly lived to be 6, about half the age of an average sheep.
Re-Pet? How creepy... What a creepy time we live in. Creepy!!!
"hey, could you pass me a paper towel? er.. I mean... DEPLOY ABSORBTION PANEL!"
The one thing these people are overlooking is that the personality of the pet will NOT be the same. The two pets that I have (and love) are unique because of their strange personality, not because they are "white with black spots in just the right places". A cloned pet will NEVER be the same because the influences that shaped its personality will not be the same.
This whole thing sounds like an emotional disaster waiting to happen for the people who don't realize this.
These people should do themselves a favor, adopt a pet from the local shelter. If they really have $50K burning a hole in their pocket then donate it to the SPCA and the organizations that rescue animals.
OS X, Linux, Tivo, Amiga, my fascination with cult-like technologies would intrigue any psychiatrist.
Not much of a christian if you think that animals can go to heaven. According to the book you worship, only men (mankind) have an immortal soul. There is no validation in the biblical texts that animals (pets or otherwise) are brought into heaven.
But hey I think they get the better deal...
Ahh... sweet sweet oblivion.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
It's interesting that the woman paid $50,000 to have her beloved now-dead cat cloned. I can understand why she would want to - the idea of having the same cat live again - but, she must realize that the cloned cat is not the same cat! It's a completely separate living being that happens to share the same DNA as the cat she used to have.
People also need to remember that these cloned organisms are not the same as the original, do not have the same memories, and deserve to be respected and loved for the uniqueness and individual identity that they have. Not because they happen to look like something else.
The analogue would be to marry your wife/husband because she/he looked like J-Lo/Brad Pitt. And I think everyone, hopefully, would agree that would be an idiotic idea. Such people could rightfully be deemed 'idiots.'
"Looks promising", eh?
No, just another example flagrant consumption -- commodity fetishism at its worst. Even life has a price for those who can afford it. As other have pointed out, $50,000 could have helped relieve a lot of suffering for people and animals alike.
Looked at another way, its just another example of our society's pathological fear of death. The Egyptians also had an major death fear/fetish and they even mumified their pet cats once in a while -- but at least they buried them!
And American soldiers are dying by the score to help preserve that way of life. Another sad day for the planet.
Is this sig nificant?
Our pets are so dear to us. They shine so bright in our lives but sadly burn twice as quick (and quicker).
I had a blue tabby cat for 18 years. He was dear to me. Losing him hurt like hell.
After a year of waiting, I got a new cat, this one a long haired calico. She's totally different than my old cat. There's things she doesn't do that my old cat did - and I miss those things. She brings new and different joys into my life. I have come to treasure her for who she is.
In a way I believe cloning diminishes the unique treasures our beloved pets are. If I had my old cat cloned - I would've expected him to be the same old friend I knew for all those years. That is a disservice to him and who he could become the next time around. It was his lifes experiences as they happened that molded him into the cat I knew.
Conversely, if he turned out EXACTLY the same as he had before in terms of personality - is the general public ready to face the potential spiritual implications that carries? Thta is a pretty deep philisophical question with theological overtones.
Despite all the arguments that this service is way too expensive, the money would be better used elsewhere, and that the clones don't have the same personalities, I believe this project is a great step forward. With this service currently being made available, who knows what the future holds for commercial cloning. I'm sure the government is interested in this, sure as hell would make building an army a lot cheaper...
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
They may not finance your cloned cat, but they will finance your home.... most people should have some equity they can borrow against.
Wow, way to make a commodity out of pets. If you can go out and just get another exact copy Fluffy or Fido, then I don't see how people would find pets to be a part of the family, rather than just another object in the house. We're already a disposable culture, do we want to extend this to pets, too?
I have three cats at home, and I love them dearly. Being able to get another copy of them wouldn't make them as special.
There are a lot of animals in shelters that need a home. If you create a "clone" of your pet, it won't be your original pet, it will just kind of resemble it. Personality is not born, it is acquired.
I commend them for the science, but abhor the stupid commercialism of this.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
Very much like that, in fact. Whoops.
It's that animals, like humans, have genetic predispositions. They are inherantly smarter or stupider, friendlier, etc. Of course how they are raised affects how they come out, but so does their genetics.
Well, I've had (adn have) pets that I'd like another one form the same template. One of my cats, Forte, is by far the smartest cat I've ever had. He's also very friendly, playful, and personable. Now all my cats are generally friendly, because all the humans they meet are nice and caring towards them. However I've never had one with the brains or personality of Forte, and I'd like to have it again.
Of course the next cat wouldn't be the same, no more than identicle twins are the same person, but they would be more similar than another random siamese, or another random cat.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
to bring back a rare animal. You talk of dogs and cats, but this can extend to exotics as well, like Pandas, or Zomodo Dragons, or other species that are rapidly becoming extinct.
I had a Roughneck Monitor (Varanus Rudicolis) that was my companion through all kinds of life experiences. He died unexpectedly and I was devastated.
I would give anything to be able to have him back, this news comes about 4 years too late, but I can only see benefits to this program.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Hey christian. Follow your own beliefs.
There is a reason the Amish don't serve jury duty.
"Judge not lest ye be judged."
Heed my words.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
yea, but at least that's the same cat. If they let it die, cloned it and raised the new cat calling it the same as the old cat...that's more on track of this issue.
sooo, ummm...How can I sign me up? I can't seem to fit in work and all the HL2 time that I need. (can you fix my clone so that he actually likes to go to work)
My wife actually cultured the cells that they used for CC. All very cool, and all as a 485 class she was doing for her senior honors thesis (in undergrad!).
ok, now that that is out of the way...
My wife is interested in conservation medicine (which she will be studying after finishing her DVM). When she began the actual work that yielded CC, I can tell you she wasn't doing it as a horrible person. When we got the cat we have, we picked one that had been taken back to the pound 3 times, and was going to be killed. However...for the proceedure/technology to be perfected, it needs to be *used*. For us to figure out how to mitigate the cloning problems for the purposes of endangered species, we have to have a large test pool - like people's pets. And if people pay for it, helping offset the research cost - all the better. There just isn't enough real money out there available in grants without commericializing it for supplimental income.
Just a little background for the teeming masses. Not everyone involved in this stuff are terribly people that ignore the rights of cats and dogs in pounds to have happy homes. Quite contrary, really - my wife could have taken her undergrad degrees and made more with them in human applications than she will after she gets her 2 graduate degrees (DVM and PhD). There's no money in it, for the most part. Most of these people (no, not all) have at least some degree of conservation background.
In the meantime, I think that money might be better spent on a psychiatrist for this woman. Death is a part of the life cycle - deal with it you loser. Death is nothing to be afraid of, nothing to be mourned for too long. It is the way things are, and you can't run from it forever. I shame someone that is so weak that they must do this - and pay a decent salary to do so in the meantime!
In short - welcome to the future, science is going to be doing some absolutely crazy things. And in all other news, many people are still pathetic losers.
Berto
If we could figure out how to fix that problem, we'd have cloning licked. The key will be in finding the best cell line to use to make the clone.
I figure that I could clone my pecker, and stack it onto the end of the one I have, and double my size. Then, I could do it again, and, after 64 times, I would have a dong the size of the universe, which would collapse on itself into a singularity before bursting to create a new universe. Thus I will truly have had the big bang.
This is my sig.
Cloning animals is one thing. I personally don't think we'll EVER be able to clone a human. The reason? Animals do not have a soul. Humans do. You cannot clone the soul, and without it a human cannot live. When the soul leaves the body, you're dead and no amount of shocking will bring you back.
Just my thoughts.
-- DuckWing
It should have said "no one short of (angle brackets) insert your all-powerfull diety or god of the dead (close angle bracket) can change that.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
You're missing a few very vital points.
Your advice assumes the following:
The pet owner actually had their pet as a companion, instead of as a status symbol.
The dead pet isn't a purebred that already costs close to $50k
A cloned pet won't become the SUV like status symbol of the next decade.
Said Pet owner actually loves animals instead of using them as accessories.
People understand that memories and training are NOT part of what's cloned.
People understand that any similarity in behavior between the clone and the original pet is coincidental
People have brains.
People care about shelter animals.
Now, I can understand making these assumptions. You sound like the kind of person where these assumptions apply. You clearly care about animals and want to see them cared for and happy. Good for you. I applaud you and your intentions.
Just remember, there is most likely enough wealthy people who do NOT meet the above assumptions to make cloning pets a profitable venture.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
you could just consider it private investment in developing low cost and more effective cloning technologies. One day I'll have a choice of putting my brain in a robot, a virtual reality or a clone of my original body.
I haven't decided whether to call them 3Jane or Wilbur Whately yet, though.
Many epigenetic states are also not reproduced because the cloned DNA doesn't go through the normal sexual process. Genetic imprinting (which parent does the expressed gene come from) is believed to be controlled through DNA methylation. Methylation in cloned cells is seen to be different. There are probably other differences we don't even know about. Limited lifespan is only one problem. Abnormally large offspring (possibly due to over-expression of genes) is one of a number of problems seen in clones. We have much to learn and the quest for cloning will help teach, but clones to date have genetic/epigentic states that have never existed in nature and do not go through the normal checks and balances that sexual selection provides.
I agree with the folks who've mentioned shelters. It's cool that we're seeing the evolution of this sort of technology, but thousands of healthy, potentially great pets are put to sleep each year because we've done such a poor job at controlling their numbers.
I realize this is (currently) too expensive to have a real effect on adoption numbers, but even a cloned pet will be a seperate, unique organism, albeit one that resembles your former one. You can already get those, usually free or very cheap, and it often saves them from an early demise.
If the cost of animal cloning drops to a few thousand - or a few hundred - dollars over the course of the next few decades, it might become a problem.
Last year I lost a kitten to a rare form of diabetes. Maybe that's a bad example since the clone of such an animal would probably bear a similar disease. But shortly afterwards we adopted a young adult cat who was living at the vet's office (where we spent a great deal of time).
My point is that there's no such thing as replacing someone or something you love, only moving on, and someone who spends $50k on a cloned cat is going to get the same return on investment as someone who spends nothing.
Two days ago my cat was killed by a driver who did not bother to even stop after the accident. We did not know about the accidnt until a boy came knocking on our door; he found the cat and used the address on the name tag to find the owner. When my mom arrived to the scene, she saw a pool of blood and the cat. Charlie was barely breathing; it tried to lick my mom and purr but died shortly aftewards. Every single bone in his body was broken. Now, I am extremely pissed at the mother fucker who was speeding through a resdential neighborhood and did not even stop after the accident. Had I witnessed the accident, I would have been in jail by now for putting a fist through somebody's mouth because it was not just a cat who died: Charlie was a memeber of our family.
The cat was pretty big: it ate about 4 cans of wet food per day along with anything he could kill: birds, rabbits and other small animals :) Charlie stood out from the rest of the cats I have seein in my life because he was fucking huge and lean. If had extra $50K that I could burn through, I would "re-pet" him just because of his size. I believe that there is nothing wrong with genetically engineered animals as long as people are informed that they are not getting the same pet back. I know all about different personalities, characters, moods, etc. However, I can see the joy in my mom's eyes if she saw that big red hunter again on her lap... I do not care if the cat is different or if it does not purr as loud. All I want is a big cat with large paws (same color plz!).
For now, $50K is a bit much for me. I would like to develop a technique for catching deuches who like speed through residential neighborhoods and "floor it" when they see animals. And those of you who kill domestic pets, please have enough balls to find their owners.
If you have any information about the accident, please let me know. The accident happened on December 21st, around 8-9 PM in Charleston, South Carolina around Corey Blvd.
That's my $.02 of belief.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Of course his old machine was 4 years old, and the new one looks pretty, but still...
Yndrd1984
hair that you found in her cubicle?
So they can clone a PET, but what about a SuperPET?
Dual processors, five programming languages built in, 96k RAM and stacks of detailed manuals. I'd take one of those for a dollar.
"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!
! Body !
When I finally get laid off, this is my business plan. I'm looking for investors.
1. Get lots of cats and dogs. Many different types.
2. Take dead cat/dog.
3. Take $50,000 (or more)
4. Find a similar looking cat/dog.
5. Give them that and say I genetically reengineered it. (If they demand to see how I did it, I'll show them a microwave oven).
6. Profit!
I think this will work. Although I may need to digitally sign the cat/dog to prove the authenticity. Still working on that part.
$50,000.00 for a cat? I can get a pint of cat at my local Chinese restaraunt for $2.75.
Sirry Americans...
"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine No Posessions?'" -- Elvis Costello
Signed: Garfield
"Yes, I have a Disaster Recovery Plan. It's called my Resume"
I think the idea is that humanity has killed off these species, so we are just righting our wrong.
The bio of Dr. John Sperling would qualify him as a slashdot favorite. Founder of University of Phoenix. Proponent of Medical Marijuana and all around iconoclast. He is *very* interesting guy with strong opinions and lots of money.
Because remember kids, humanity is not part of nature. We are not part of the ecosystem. We are a virus or a plague made on mars with no buisness here.
I'd love another Pet Rock to take the place of my original one.
something to consider.
If this came from a show quality cat there is a good deal of money involved. $50,000 might be a reasonable investment for a cat that can command a $500 - $1000 stud fee per litter. Now multiply that over the life span of the cat.
Even assuming a decreased life span due to cloning problems (that DNA cap thing) this still seems like it could easily pay for itself.
If this is the case then that kitten you had cloned from your aging cat will start costing a lot in vet bills and will die at an early age.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
- When you find a human companion (or have a pre-teen child), you don't take them to a doctor and have them sterilized so they can't sleep around and have bothersome babies.
Damn it. Stupid lying friends.
Is that reversable? I want to have children.
about her looks.
I just come from the clinic.
I bought 3000$ silicon implants as a christmas present for my pet sheep.
I just finished reading Richard Dawkins book The Extending Phenotype. A great but challanging book and i would recommend The Selfish Gene first. I wonder what effect wide spread cloning will have on gene replication. Imagine a scientist, or worse an evil meglomaniac, with the capability to clone a human and a specific genetic desposition that expresses a strong desire to clone themselves. These clones as they mature will have a similar strong desire and on and on until before you know it all of humanity will be able to trace their lineage to one of a few original founding clone germlines.
I don't even need a dna sample just a photo will do.. (Yea, we have the photo cloning technology.) We'll be starting at $25,000 for anyone stupid enough to do this!
She's balding. You don't want that.
I also really hope stuff like this is outlawed by President Bush, however. Someone might try to clone him, and people could vote for the clone in 2008.
First his clone would have to be a citizen. And it has to be at least 35 years old. 2039 perhaps? And I doubt his right-wing followers would go that far, hypocrisy aside.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
Here's another website by GSC's CEO Lou Hawthorne, called Hell's Buddhas. Another, more prominent- if not more skeptical- group is the Raelian Clonaid project. As Christians are often called to task for mixing religion and [job, politics, etc.], I find it interesting how the religious motivations of some of these groups make it under the radar.
It is plainly amoral to spend such amounts of money when one tenth of that could be saving or improving hundreds of human (or even animal) lives.
That is what happens when one becomes so rich. One seems to lose all sense of proportion.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I am not all opposed to researching cloning, but I find the ethics of the lady who paid to get her tomcat cloned rather appalling.
The cloned pet will probably suffer from health problems like infamous Dolly did.
On the other hand how many animals could have been saved if this lady would have gotten another cat at her local pound and donated the $50000 to it?
It is hard for me to think of anything else more egoistical than subjecting your next pet to physical suffering just because you are too immature to handle the loss.
She could have done so, donating to a charity fighting disease in a poor country, saving hundreds of dogs and cats from unnecessary extermination.
No, instead wasting 50000 in getting a fucking cat.
Now, that is truly enlightening.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
When we start self-censoring, the terrorists have won.
And BTW, "discrete, rich Texan" is an oxymoron.
They come back evil!
I don't want to be buried
In Pet Sematary
I don't want to live my life again.
- Ramones
Sure the 50k looks like a big price tag now...but this is the first commercially cloned cat ever. Once people realize that their beloved animals can be copied, the demand will go up making this a viable way for a company to make money. Once this starts to happen, more of these firms will start to open up and the pricetag will reduce dramatically.
Would you pay $200 to have your pet cloned? How about $20. What if the process of cloning a top of the line, purebread would actually cost less than purchasing one that came from a natural birth?
Just like humans, some cats are just more naturally inclined to be more intelligent and learn quicker. If I had a cat that I liked asthetically and that also was a quick learner, I would definately pay some money in order to know that my new cat would have good genes.
Getting a cloned cat does not imrove the survival of your genetic traits in the slightest.
Breeding does, which is why it is an instinct that obsese us.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
And what's this talk about being undisciplined for not accepting death? That asian complacency doesn't fly in the west, we didn't have the bravery bred out of us, damned if my european royal blood will be "disciplined" for anyone.
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
A clone is an identical copy, if the copy isn't cell for cell the exact reproduction of it's original it is not a clone, it's a twin, made with similar DNA but different nonethless. Clone is identical if it's not it's not a clone, science as this nick of rewritting the dictionnary everytime it wanna look great and take some credit, nevermind the process, nevermind the "test show DNA to be identical", if they aren't identical they aren't clones, if the test find both DNA to be identical, the test is flawed or DNA isn't the sole component of life shaping.
Clones: identical, very similar isn't enough, only identical is
Twins: look alike, very similar does fit here though
Which so many brain dead people like the above (coned or otherwise) it does not really matter what we do. We will just become a race of dumbos.
Pal, just for your knowledge, embryos are collected today, and as much as that little cossy world of yours wishes that humans were nothing else but an animal, animals is what we are, we will see people cloned that become adults in the next 100 years, perhaps during our lifetimes (and I am not a kiddie, mind you, I am not using "our" lightly).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
That people can grasp anymore what unethical or amoral means.
There are actions to which one can apply those adjectives, this lady paying this insane amount of money deserves either one.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Looking forward also to a commercial showing 5 identical McGruff the Crime Dog's standing in a row, saying in unison, "Don't clone that pup!"
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Oh, so THAT's what it's called. And here I thought my cat was only shedding.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
Just out of curiousity, does this remind anyone else of Stephen King's "Pet Sematary?" Sure, we're talking about a lab rather than an obscure cemetary, but the creepiness is still there.
I have some skin, nail and hair samples of Britney Spears when she was 18.
I want to clone her for a pet. /purrrrrrrrrr
1. Even though she is supposedly an adult, she isn't emotionally capable to deal with the death of a pet - something many children are able to do.
2. Completely missed a chance to save an unwanted cat from the same fate as her previously departed one.
3. Forwards the cause of fascism by successfully premoting the idea that people are incapable of handling excessive amounts of freedom
4. She doesn't even have the guts to give her full name and live by the consequences of her actions.
5. She probably wears fur, and drives an SUV 5 miles to work every day.
Indeed people are just animals, but maybe our awesome destructive power is counter balanced by our power to create things. If you take the "however the ecosystem is, it is" stance then our deciding to rebuild it is just as natural. I didn't mean to imply that humanity is not a part of nature.
If someone can get horse cloning to work, there will be considerable interest. The Jockey Club won't allow it for thoroughbreds, but there are some great horses of other breeds that could usefully be duplicated.
This article claims that "Commercial interests already are cloning prized cattle for about $20,000 each..." so could someone please tell me why a Cat would cost so much more?
Maybe I'm cynical, but is this a case of preying off someones emotions? After all, very few Cow owners are emotionally attached to their animals.
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Who the hell modded parent insightful?
It is funny, mind you... but insightful?
I don't know if that was racist or just plain stupid.
When this appeared on the web a few years ago, wasn't it shown to be a viral marketing campaign for a movie?
Screw pets! Bring back Phil Hartman!
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
google for turkish bath, and take a look at the palaces saddam had. Rich people spending their wealth(ill gotten or otherwise)is not merely a Western thing. People who wish to kill the infidel will find any reason(valid or imagined slight against them) to do so.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
You know how lottery tickets are a tax on the statistically challenged? Just think of this as a tax on the rich idiots.
You're right. And now that you mention it, there is a certain resemblance between George Bush and a chimpanzee, both physically and mentally.
Typical republicans, crossing the ethical lines (merging human and animal) but trying to legislate morality for everyone else.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
Now you gave an honest reply, and I am attempting an answer here, but basically I think that, at their core, science and religion are attempting to describe two entirely different universes. The problems occur when there is an attempt to overlap them. Again, that's my just my pair o' pennies, but there ya go.
But I have to tell you I did LOL at the thought of a cosmic screw-up whereby Beau Bridges was waiting for me witha chew bone;-)
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
The problems faced by our species are exacerbated by overpopulation. Our planet's resources are dwindling relative to the increasing demands placed on them. Nations are going to war over resources and will continue to wage war to secure future resources. With medical science thwarting virii and plagues, the normal population checks are failing to cull our population.
So yeah, you're right. Maybe we should voluntarily control our population growth for a better future instead of birthing 3 or 4 kids per family to then cart around in our Chevy Suburbans.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I went and checked out where Genetic Savings and Clone was located and their HQ backs onto an ancient Indian Burial Ground !!
So does Anonymous Coward have good karma?
from the USATODAY article: "Chromatin transfer, a process that GSC licenses from a cattle-cloning firm, adds an additional step to cloning by exposing the donor cell genes more cleanly, in theory, to the egg cell. However, the firm has not published statistics on its findings in a scientific journal, leaving outside researchers uncertain about the claim. How it works: Before cloning, technicians chemically remove extraneous genetic material from the donor skin cell. To do this, they make holes in the nuclear membrane of the skin cell, soaking it in a substance that dissolves the membrane. This facilitates the removal of specific cell regulatory proteins associated with the skin itself, leaving behind the basic genetic material, or chromatin, inside the cell. The chromatin, rather than the entire donor skin cell, is then placed inside the egg cell." Key words here are - no scientific publication to support their claims. Theoretically, the described procedure may be benefitial to the overall success of cloning but inherently the idea of stripping off unwanted proteins (not the genetic material as the article states) is very much an educated guess based on our current knowledge of gene regulation. Whether this is the case in reality - we need to see the data and more - reproduction of the data by other labs. My thinking - this is one lucky kitty to be alive and much more needs to be learned to ensure that our future clones are viable and just as smart as we are!
That anybody who cannot accept the death of a pet as a natural part of life is clinically insane.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Discrete means that there are separate ones. Discreet means that they keep their mouths shut.
If they are discreet, you wouldn't know about them, would you?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I work for a company that has its office next to Genetic Savings & Clone in Sausalito, CA.
Recently Genetic Savings & Clone has had to hire security guards to patrol their office because they are getting bomb threats.
Mind you this place is only in business to clone pets (cats and dogs) not people. But this is upsetting people to the point where they are threatening to bomb the place?! Wow. I don't get it.
And it doesn't make me feel any better about sharing a common bathroom with them either.
Chew: You Nexus, huh? I design your eyes.
Roy: Chew, if only you could see what I've seen with your eyes.
Yeah, pets. Poor soulless little bastards...
If all else fails... RTFM
Although I agree with you, I don't support making cloning illegal.
Freedom is more important than ideological uniformity.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
...a way for the public to fund research, when the government refuses to.
as for "pathological fear of death", yeah. silly things like that make us do things like create vaccines and organ transplants and stuff.
yeah, trivial and silly. we should just accept death and not try to fight it. bah humbug!
...why bring magic into the mess? it's a purely ethical question. we don't need no christian spellcasting involved.
This would let you alter your pet and then you could train, test, and weed out the subpar until you were left with only the best, and then have them cloned, and let them breed. You could let a dog live out it's entire life to see if it had any hip problems, or how old it ended up living, or how well it does with children, and then clone the dog and use it to breed (possibly with another dog that died twenty years before this one was born)
Breeding merely for show appearance has ruined many a blood-line. Interbreeding has caused a lot of genetic defects.
Perhaps people would neuter more often if the process was "reversible"
Apparently, you need to collect and save that DNA early.
If their new pet behaves differently from their old one, will people ask for their money back?
It probably Depends a lot on how long they've been extinct.
Also, some extinct species would probably be brought back only for zoos and research. The Ecology arguments wouldn't be a big issue. (Especialy something like a mammoth that couldn't slip away unnoticed.)
Don't they say in that movie "Death becomes her" that at the very end of the movie at Dr. Ernest Menville's death, the narrator that he lives on through his progeny?
I hate that sentement. It's given rise to uncountable generations of children being forced into attempts to live out their parents dreams. I'd find it great if we did live on through our children, but we don't. It'd be even more correct from both a biological, and psychological standpoint to say we live on in surviving siblings. We share much more geneticly with them, and were raised in exactly the same environment. If I took a bullet to the head, it wouldn't give me much comfort to know I had a brother as 'backup' though. Ideas of religious afterlife aside, when you're dead I don't see one living on as anything. You're only living on in the sense that the easter bunny is living on.
Everything will be taken away from you.
Stupid question, has anyone done peer review to check that the cloned kitten truly is a clone?
Poor woman is gonna be bombarded by asshats once "they" find out where she lives...
[o]_O
Given a choice, I'd have to bring back Bill Hicks!
Doesn't this destroy the nine lives notion? Now you get as many lives as your bank account can afford.
I still think a hammock is cheaper. (The Simsons - Treehouse of Horror XIII). Also all those wonderful mutations that would come from it!
Not if your pet happens to be a prize winning Siamese or poodle. There's money to be made just showing off these critters, and though you'll still have to raise them properly, I bet you'd have a good chance at winning some more prizes with it...
Heck, you might even be able to sell a few clones abroad, if your pet is a real looker. It might take generations of breeding to surpass your specimen, its 'siblings' could dominate the scene for quite a while.
Thinking some more about it, better take care nobody steals a sample of your pet at a contest, or it might be competing with the clone in a few years...
We can always use them for cat skeet shooting.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
On a different day we went to Inverness (tourists that we were, we had to see the loch) and we returned via Aberdeen and Dundee to visit with some people. I'm afraid I simply don't remember anything about Aberdeen.
"The Highlands looked pretty lonely," he said sheepishly.
John
Why is it that Americans are so goddam stupid?
Fuck you.
There are animals worth $50,000. Race horses in particular. This commercial venture will quickly expand to more realistic (but larger) targets once the technology has been proven. Extremely rich people are a good way to do that, because the nuance will attract a small number of customers. However, most technologies need to target a slightly broader audience, and this one has many applications that can make some sense, at least monetarily.
Playing pornographics games during the day is evil! Play at night!
Speak up. It's hard to hear people from miscellaneous little countries when you're sitting in the driver seat of the world. I think I heard you say something about overcompensating for feeling insignificant in light of losing a global empire, but it was hard to tell because of all the money and power crowding my position. I'm sure you can imagine what it's like to be from an important country. In fact, we publish some marvelous history books in my country that will tell you all about yours and its proper place in the world.
And more to the point, why is it that so many British people can't even form a complete sentence in English?
If you find something revolting, revolt! Before it is too late!
For Christ's sake, the language is NAMED for your country and you can't even express yourself properly. You should return to grammar school. "Before it is too late!"
this is simply not logical. its again nature, and I will never be for clonage. even if it can let us live "our dream", never be sad, live with the same pet all our lives... I find this stupid. sorry my english is poor to express myself about this, but I really dont like clone and stuff like that. seems most of the people out there don't even think about the philosophical problem behind this. or ?
Isn't this trying to hold on a bit too hard when we should learn to let go when it's time?
"Regardless of how much you earn, I see blowing money on a frivoulous project as feeding an economy with much needed money."
You're only creating wealth if the transaction is (a) mutually voluntary (b) spending your money how you'd prefer. If both those conditions apply, then both parties make a subjective profit, and total wealth rises. There is a real difference between spending and wasting money, but by "waste" I mean spending money on something you don't want, like eg: being forced to hire "department of homeland security" to spy upon you. Or being forced to buy a shelter cat when you'd prefer a clone.
BTW, those idiots who would force or guilt "altruistic" purchases upon you, fail to consider that first-world nations can support free-riders such as a huge population of pet animals, solely because of our huge economic productivity. That we cannot support more, is due to economic bleeding wounds such as taxation and red-tape. Both partners working long hours to keep heads above water, cramped n'th floor apartment = can't keep pets. Every kitten put down in a shelter should have stamped upon its cold furry forehead "killed by the IRS*".
(*or local equivalent).
"but the 50,000 price tag is out of reach of most pet owners.."
along with most very advanced genetic therapies currently enjoyed by the super rich for cancer and aging.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
If I took a bullet to the head, it wouldn't give me much comfort to know I had a brother as 'backup' though
;p
No, but it might give some comfort to your wife
So in other words, telomeres are basically DRM for life forms? Who came up with that idea? I guess we will just have to stick to creating life the analog way...
Ideology is for ideots.
A few years back, Chicago-based conceptual artist Eduardo Kac spliced the green fluorescent protein from the jellyfish into the genes of a rabbit, creating Alba the bright-green glowing transgenic bunny. He was also working with Mexican hairless dogs for a glow unobscured by fur. And I read in a recent ish of Wired scientists are "modifying" misquitoes to actually prevent malaria when they bite, rather than transmit it.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
NEO: A black cat went past us and then I saw another that looked just like it.
TRINITY: How much like it? Was it the same cat?
NEO: It might have been. I'm not sure. What is it?
TRINITY: A deja vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something.
I read about this earlier today as well. This absolutely sickens me that someone would spend $50,000 to clone a cat so it resembles a pet that died years ago. It's a cat! If you are willing to spend that much on a pet, then you've got lots of money to burn.
It's one thing for rich people to waste their money on sports cars, jewelery, etc, but at least that has some monetary value to other people. This $50,000 cat is only worth that to them and no one else. So there is no way anybody could try to justify this as some sort of investment.
I know it's common to make the argument "why couldn't they have spent that helping people?" but I think in this case since they're not buying a toy, but a companion, it's more relevant. How many coats for the homeless could that buy? How many hot meals? Wouldn't that make most people feel more warm and fuzzy inside than some genetically engineered cat that resembles Snowball 2?
I think there is something seriously wrong with our society when an action like this doesn't get the person committed.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Actually, you share exactly the same genetic information with siblings as with children, and as with parents: half.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Yeah, but it's not safe sex either, as anybody who has sex with an animal shall surely be put to death.
Maybe in Jesusland bestiality is punishable by death
The Christian Bible teaches that the whole planet will be Jesusland for one thousand years after the tribulation. But even disregarding the Bible...
but over here we don't have the death penalty.
Even in countries that choose imprisonment over execution, and I grant them that choice, sexually assaulting an animal is still punishable by imprisonment in most states of the United States and in many countries worldwide.
You seem to be a bit out of touch with the present.
I am fully aware that populations in the US and Europe are in decline. That does not mean, however, that the way people in those regions live their lives does not have an impact on quality of life on planet earth. Your perspective is one of futility. That there's no sense in modifying your behavior because of those people over there. I do not share this perspective with you.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
The Humane Society and other pet advocacy groups have criticized pet cloning as wasteful, noting that 6 million to 8 million cats and dogs enter shelters each year nationwide, where 3 million to 4 million are put to death.
Yeah, so let's oppose the cloning. I mean, if cloning of pets would be illegal, may be these 6 people would adopt all the 0.000075% of those animals who enter shelters each year. Yes, that makes perfect sense to me. BTW, I hope noone opposes people paying $2000+ for an expensive dog or cat, because it's clearly nothing like cloning and these people shouldn't have adopted a homeless pet instead. No, it's the evil scientists who clone pets that are to blame! Stop the cloning! Oppose the evil plot.
No, really, I am so sick of those morons, who pretend to be ethical and are able to get the media attention all the time. If I could, I would have killed every member of that Human Society (in the most humane way, of course)... for wasting oxygen that our cats and dogs need so much.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.