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Korea to Clone Drug Sniffing Dogs
SK writes "Scientists at Seoul National University Korea are seeking to commercially clone dogs this year — the world's first attempt to create canine clones for money. Senior researcher Kim Min-kyu at the Seoul-based University is spearheading the efforts based on his team's expertise in cloning dogs. As per Mr. Kim early last month, they signed a memorandum of understanding with the Korea Customs Service to clone its drug-sniffing dogs. They have already obtained somatic cells of the expensive dogs and will attempt to clone them in July or August to get puppies late this year at the earliest."
Rather than cloning, why not take the best sniffers, and breed them? It's cheaper, and given the failure rate of cloning with mammals, a lot more cost effective I'd think.
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Who's a good clone? Who's a good clone? Are you a good clone? Oh yes you are you're the best clone in the world yes you are yes you are!
This is the NFL, which stands for "Not For Long" if you keep making those bulls*** calls.
This is a good thing. Imagine if they'd decided to clone crotch sniffing dogs.
--Richard
What's wrong with selective breeding? It's proven to work, it's without any real drawbacks, it's cheap and it's easy to do.
I don't know where all the people in this thread who believe that have come from. It's incredibly hard to do, involving massive amounts of trial and error. By the time you've created a breed of dog that breeds true (i.e. within a certain range of accepted characteristics -- not necessarily always the exact point you want, though) you've usually introduced anything from hip dysplasia to total psychosis. It took hundreds of years to develop Border Collies and even then as anyone who's tried to use them to herd sheep will tell you only about 1 in 4 is really the way they're supposed to be. There's one on my Uncle's farm that doesn't go uphill. Product of centuries of very dedicated breeding, it is, much more than there's time to do for drug dogs.
So no, selective breeding is not simple or easy either in genetic theory or in practice, and it involves a lot of looking after puppies until you are sure they don't have the features you want and only *then* drowning them.
Sometimes, the simplest solutions are the best ones.
Sometimes, the 'inspirational poster slogan' approach to solving difficult biological problems is stupid. Actually, that's the case pretty often.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.