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South Korea Deploys Cloned Drug-Sniffing Dogs
Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that six puppies cloned from a Canadian-born sniffer dog in late 2007 have reported for duty to check for drugs at Seoul's Incheon International Airport after completing a 16-month training course. The customs agency says clones help to lower crime-fighting costs as it is difficult to find good sniffer dogs. Only about 30% of naturally-born sniffer dogs make the grade, but South Korean scientists say that could rise to 90% using the cloning method. The puppies, each called 'Toppy' for 'Tomorrow's Puppy,' are part of a litter of seven who were cloned from a 'superb' drug-sniffing Canadian Labrador retriever called Chase at a cost of about $239,000. 'They are the world's first cloned sniffer dogs deployed at work,' says customs spokesman Park Jeong-Heon. 'They showed better performances in detecting illegal drugs during the training than other naturally-born sniffer dogs that we have.'"
This also raises big problems as far as disease resistance goes -- if all the dogs are genetically identical they will all have identical immune systems, making it far easier for a single strain of disease to wipe out a large chunk of them.
On a totally unrelated note -- why are we so concerned with drug sniffing dogs? OMG!! Someone wants to get high!!! Quick -- clone some dogs so that we can put them in jail!!! This whole drug prohibition thing is beyond infantile, but I digress. Why not use the time and effort to create better service dogs, or bomb-sniffing dogs?
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
"Canine cloning runs contrary to the Kennel Club's objective 'To promote in every way the general improvement of dogs' ... "
The KCs objective is complete and utter crap. Since when has encouraging bulldogs and the like to get more deformed to be as close as to the KCs definition of what makes a perfect example of a breed. Bulldogs should be at least twice the height they are now and should be able to breath properly.
I'd take dog cloning that produces a healthy dog over a KCs definition any day of the week.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
wouldn't it be cheaper to just end the drug war?
Training isn't free. If you take your success rate from 30% to 90%, you need less trainers, and so on.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I have a dalmatian
with cloning i wonder if the spots be all the same shape on position?
anyone??
On a totally unrelated note -- why are we so concerned with drug sniffing dogs? OMG!! Someone wants to get high!!! Quick -- clone some dogs so that we can put them in jail!!!
It is not quite as simple as that. These dogs are not just out there to find the little bag-o-mary in your inside coat pocket, they are there to pick up on a variety of stronger drugs that are massively addictive and cause the country various troubles such as the extra crime created by the badly addicted running out of money but still needing their next fix, needing to run treatment programs for the addicted, needing to fund medical care for the health complications that result from certain drug use and persist even long after the addiction is dealt with, and so on.
I would agree that seeing this research go into bomb sniffing as well as drug sniffing dogs, but how do we know it isn't in another lab? This report is specifically about one set of dogs resulting from one lab's work, which happens to center around a particularly proficient drug detecting animal.
I don't think the fact that some drugs are bad for you and can be detrimental to society is really is question -- the only question is whether or not prohibition helps the situation. In nearly every regard, prohibition fails to improve the situation and only serves to exacerbate it. Users get lower quality product with no dosage control, making accidental overdose far more likely. People are much less likely to come forward with drug addiction problems when they can be thrown in prison. Prohibition greatly increases the price of drugs, making addicts far more likely to turn to crime to fund their addiction. Prohibition puts the distribution in the hands of hardened criminals, rather than say, a licensed professional. Prohibition makes no financial sense -- the government spends money fighting the drugs rather than raking in tax dollars from the purchase of the drugs. Finally, and possibly most importantly, making drugs illegal does absolutely nothing to stop people from using them. In fact, there is much evidence to suggest that prohibition increases drug use. I could go on and on, but I think I make my point fairly clear, drug prohibition is entirely infantile and serves no purpose other than to be a huge burden on our society.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
While there is a strong rational argument for drug decriminalization (just look at Portugal), the real problem is that people hate liberty and loath tolerance.
Actually, if you want a healthy dog, all else being equal, what you want is a mutt, a dog that resulted not from planned breeding but from an "encounter" between random parent dogs of entirely unrelated stock. Ideally, you want a multi-generation mutt, a dog of such mixed breeding that you can't identify which specific breeds any of its parents or grandparents may have been.
All else being equal, a clone should be about as healthy as its "parent", but a *population* of clones would not be as healthy as a population with a more diverse genome, because part of the healthiness and robustness of the population stems from the genetic diversity it contains. (And that's true even assuming the clones are perfect copies, so that there's no replicative fading.)
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
It's more than just noses. Labs are often used because they're well behaved (after puppyhood), easy to work with and have noses that are as good as most bloodhounds. Beagles especially would not be a good choice since they are pack hounds and tend not to work well individually. Labs are generally fairly sturdy and able to walk around all day long. Then walk around even more.
Besides, they're cuter.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Make enough to crash the prices, and destroy the profit motive for maintaining a market. Everybody wins! :-)
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
While the GP was wrong technically, he is correct in wondering about the risks of genetic monoculture - it's just not due to "identical immune system." Instead, we have to consider things like disease resistant polymorphisms (see also: innate HIV immunity and resistance) that will be eliminated by a genetically identical population. Although admittedly I think it's silly to worry about a genetic monoculture in animals, especially when the number of genetically identical animals is so low compared to the population (additionally, dogs have incredible genetic diversity).
Based on how many mistakes doctors seem to make, I don't think that qualifies you to be trusted on anything.
Based upon the effluence of moronic filth posted by Anonymous Coward, you are not qualified to say anything, on any subject, ever.