Slashdot Mirror
Family Dog Cloned, Thanks To Dolly Patents
patentpundit writes "BioArts International announced today that they have delivered the world's first commercially cloned dog, a 10-week old Labrador named Lancey, to Florida residents Edgar and Nina Otto. According to the press release issued by the company, 'BioArts International is a biotech company focused on unique, untapped markets in the global companion animal, stem cell and human genomics industries. The Best Friends Again program is a collaboration between BioArts and the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation in South Korea, home to the best and most experienced dog cloning team in the world.' The technology that makes this animal cloning possible stems from the cloning patents developed at the Roslin Institute for the cloning of the now famous, or infamous depending on your view, Dolly the sheep."
If you have to ask, then you couldn't possibly understand.
I dunno about cat people, but, as a 'dog person'...I can tell you that my animals really have become a part of the family. They aren't treated like 'dogs' or animals, they are really more just little fuzzy people that don't talk much in our homes.
When I lose my pups....I grieve over them like I would a friend or family member that is close to me.
In fact...I've often though, if you don't feel this way about your pets....why own one?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
It may look the same, but its not the same.
Heck, the pet may not even look the same, depending on if some of the factors in coloration are environmentally induced.
More importantly, behavior is very much a factor of the pet's environment. It certainly isn't going to know who you are without the same amount of work you'd have to put into a puppy or another dog.
I'm not totally against cloning technologies, but I wish people would invest in shelter dogs instead of spending tens of thousands of dollars to add another animal to the existing population. Your old pet had a good life with you, why don't you share that with a pet who never had the same chance?
The old and tired bumper sticker sums it up nicely:
"The more people I meet, the more I like my dog"
My dogs and cat are members of the family. I'd throw my neighbor's sprogs under a train to save my dog.
But with so many animals in shelters, it seems a bit odd to clone one (other than to say you can). Go give a new one a good home.
Sheldon
I think trying to xerox the dog kinda misses the point. You're going to spend the entire dogs life wondering why he's not exactly like his progenitor.
Get a new dog, and you can keep your good memories of the previous dog untainted.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Yes yes, this is precisely the point.
A dog is a guy, one loves them. True. But they are an experience that changes your life.
What you want to do if you loose a great companion dog is grieve... and then, when youre ready, go and have a new adventure with a new dog! Why the exact same genome?
The genome means nothing to human emotions. Nothing at all. We can adopt and love our children as our own. We can love people that are not in our family and will never be.
The genome is only a code that generaly states how the hell the thingie will look, what diseases it inherits, what inheritable strenghts can it inherit. But its not, at all, the same individual (it really CANT be the same individual, you see? Not in this universe. To quote Dr. House "ive complained, but there you have it").
NO SIG
Not at all the case. I love my dog dearly (the cats are OK too I guess...) But that's really part of the problem I see with this.
I accept that you love your pets and accept them as members of your family. That's great and I understand completely - I'm in the same boat. But, if another member of your family died, would you also clone them? Cloning a beloved pet only strikes me as slightly less creepy than cloning a beloved child that died too early...
Like I said in a post above, genetically identical != same animal. We (typically) outlive our pets. That's just the way it is. Forming an emotional bond to an animal just because it shares genes with an animal that you loved just seems unhealthy.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.