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China Says it Cloned a Police Dog To Speed Up Training (xinhuanet.com)
A cloned dog, believed to be the first of the kind in China, has started training in Yunnan Province in a program to reduce the cost and time needed for training police dogs. From a report: Kunxun, a female of the Kunming wolfdog breed, was born on Dec. 19 last year in Beijing and arrived on March 5 for training at the Kunming Police Dog Base of the Ministry of Public Security. She was cloned from a 7-year-old female dog, known as Huahuangma, that has been in service in the city of Pu'er, Yunnan, by Sinogene, a Beijing-based biotechnology firm. The cloning is part of the ministry's research program.
Huahuangma played important roles in helping detectives with dozens of murder investigations, and was accredited the first-level merit in 2016, said Wan Jiusheng, an officer who is responsible for training Kunxun. Huahuangma's outstanding abilities as a police dog made her an eligible donor of genes, Wan said. "It takes four to five years to train a meritorious dog such as Huahuangma, and costs hundreds of thousands of yuan," he said. Police dogs serving in real tasks are not usually used for breeding. The cloning program helps researchers copy their excellent genes and reduces the time and costs needed for training, researchers familiar with the program said.
Huahuangma played important roles in helping detectives with dozens of murder investigations, and was accredited the first-level merit in 2016, said Wan Jiusheng, an officer who is responsible for training Kunxun. Huahuangma's outstanding abilities as a police dog made her an eligible donor of genes, Wan said. "It takes four to five years to train a meritorious dog such as Huahuangma, and costs hundreds of thousands of yuan," he said. Police dogs serving in real tasks are not usually used for breeding. The cloning program helps researchers copy their excellent genes and reduces the time and costs needed for training, researchers familiar with the program said.
So the training gets embedded in the DNA and transferred to the new generation?
Nature vs Nurture argument is back here. If we clone a good police dog, but assume it will be cheaper to train, then they don't train it as well as it genetic predecessor, thus isn't as effective, and the high cost of cloning a dog.
We have identical twins, who have different personalities, and over time actually have some physical differences in appearance, (A little fatter or skinnier), Gone gray earlier, one needs glasses while the other doesn't, even their face structure can be different over time, just because they express emotions differently.
I don't see much advantage over cloning a good dog vs breeding a good dog with an other good one.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Cloning would only affect the physical attributes and mental 'capacities' of the dog. It would NOT pass on the acquired skills or training so the dog isn't going to know how to sniff out a perp without that same 5 years of training including for physical abilities. I don't see how this "speeds up the process" although it's more likely that you're going to guarantee a successful candidate from the cloning.
Anyone who engages in or supports a conspiracy to overthrow the president of the united states and overturn the results of our sacred election process is a TRAITOR and must HANG for TREASON! Have a nice day!
I mostly agree the speed of training would not be impacted, a big advantage would be you'd have a police dog that should not wash out of the program.
There is actually one way in which training could be sped up though, trainers that had worked with the original dog would theoretically better understand what specific things helped motivate the dog. In that way they could take some shortcuts in training not having to fine tune the rewards they give.
I find it amusing though that Doom using repeated textures for soldiers and dogs was actually a prophetic vision of the future.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So, I'm told all the time now that aptitude doesn't exist for humans, that anyone can learn anything, that genetics doesn't determine (or maybe even influence) who will come out on top for a skill.
But it exists for dogs?
Maybe we could measure what we are going for here ... we could call it DQ (Dog Quotient).
I'll be curious to see how this turns out. It has implications for other cases outside of police dogs if it works*. For instance thoroughbred horses, prize bulls, and other fields where high-price breeding fees are in play.
*By works, I mean produce an animal with the same physical abilities, temperament, and other genetic traits without any undesirable side effects of the cloning process. Obviously no one thinks the clones will come out of the womb pre-trained.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
It would be far better to use embryo transfer to produce a few dozen puppies from selected parents. The mother wouldn't need to be retired because they can use surrogates to carry the pups.
Of course that assumes the female hasn't already been spayed, which has probably happened in this case.
We are just a short step away from China "cloning" people with "meritorious genes".
You know, the ones that are geniuses, and/or physically "perfect" specimens, while at the same time completely subservient to the Party.
You know, Worker Bees.
Trust me, it is GOING to happen, in your lifetime.
I guess it will turn out that "The Forever War" was more prophetic than we thought.......
Lower cognitive abilities predict greater prejudice through right-wing ideology, true.
Do Racism, Conservatism, and Low I.Q. Go Hand in Hand?
Apr 22, 2013
This morning as I logged onto Facebook, I came upon this image. Having followed the Boston marathon and MIT shooting coverage initially, I lost some interest when it came down to the “hunt.” As much as justice matters to me, so does tact and class, and the sensationalism of manhunts always leaves me uncomfortable. I also knew it would be a matter of time before the political rhetoric would change from the victims and wounded to the demographic factors of the suspects—namely race and religion. And alas, it has.
However, what struck me most about this image posted above was the Facebook page it came from, “Too Informed to Vote Republican.” I wondered about this, recalling an old journal article I’d come across when studying anti-Islamic attitudes post 9/11. The paper referenced a correlation between conservatism and low intelligence. Uncertain of its origin, I located a thought-provoking article published in one of psychology’s top journals, Psychological Science, which in essence confirms this.
Hodson and Busseri (2012) found in a correlational study that lower intelligence in childhood is predictive of greater racism in adulthood, with this effect being mediated (partially explained) through conservative ideology. They also found poor abstract reasoning skills were related to homophobic attitudes which was mediated through authoritarianism and low levels of intergroup contact.
What this study and those before it suggest is not necessarily that all liberals are geniuses and all conservatives are ignorant. Rather, it makes conclusions based off of averages of groups. The idea is that for those who lack a cognitive ability to grasp complexities of our world, strict-right wing ideologies may be more appealing. Dr. Brian Nosek explained it for the Huffington Post as follows, “ideologies get rid of the messiness and impose a simple solution. So, it may not be surprising that people with less cognitive capacity will be attracted to simplifying ideologies.” For an excellent continuation of this discussion and past studies, please see this article from LiveScience.
Further, studies have indicated an automatic association between aggression, America, and the news. A study conducted by researchers at Cornell and The Hebrew University (Ferguson & Hassin, 2007) indicated, “American news watchers who were subtly or nonconsciously primed with American cues exhibited greater accessibility of aggression and war constructs in memory, judged an ambiguously aggressive person in a more aggressive and negative manner, and acted in a relatively more aggressive manner toward an experimenter following a mild provocation, compared with news watchers who were not primed” (p. 1642). American “cues” refers to factors such as images of the American flag or words such as “patriot.” Interestingly, this study showed this effect to be independent of political affiliation, but suggested a disturbing notion that America is implicitly associated with aggression for news watchers.
Taken together, what do these studies suggest? Excessive exposure to news coverage could be toxic as is avoidance of open-minded attitudes and ideals. Perhaps turn off the television and pick up a book? Ideally one that exposes you to differing worldviews.
*Please note comments that are offensive, defamatory, discriminatory, racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise inappropriate will be automatically removed by the author’s discretion.
References
Furguson, M.J. & Hassin, R.R. (2007). On the automatic association between American and aggression for news watchers. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 1632-1647.
Hodson, G. & Busseri, M.A. (2012). Bright minds and dark attitudes: Lower cognitive ability predicts greater prejudice through right-wing ideology and low intergroup contact. Psychological Science, 23, 187-195.
The overwhelming majority of felons who are registered to vote are registered Democrats. I won't bother to provide a link, google is your friend.
Thanks for demonstrating the point, that Republicans are scientifically linked to lower IQ's and it affects their ability to read and comprehend, being inbred retards.
I understand cloning an animal passes on certain abilities and learning traits.. but it doesn't pass on the memories, experiences or those actual learned behaviors... so where's the time savings? What's not being said?
cloning police officers that are not corrupt?
You need to kill a female dog and harvest her eggs to get the building blocks of cloning a dog.
This is sick.
First thing you learn about Chinese research claims is always go to the source and verify the proofs.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Why do Chinese steal everything and smell like shit?
Oh and the US gov has secretly cloned everything. Yes everything. And your tax dollars pay for it all.
But you aren't allowed to see it, even though you pay for it all. What a great deal!
Chinaalso flys to space inside swimming pools.
STOP REPEATING CHINK LIES /.
Youre such whore for those tiny chink cocks...
The cloned dog will be trained with the best, premier techniques thought to produce a great police dog. However, what experience had shown to be a great police dog (the DNA donor) might have been raised or trained in ways nobody documented because they did not follow the handbook. So the new dog, while genetically similar to the old one is trained in the officially mandated style of today - which won't necessarily give you another champion dog because the training is what they think is best, not necessarily what the great dog got.
What about cloning Einstein and other bright minds?
it takes a long time to train an outsourced programmer correctly! ha
definitely.
How long before china selects the most trainable soldiers for cloning?
I bet they're already planning for it.
I suggest taking a plethora of highly accurate measurements of their skulls and jawbones. I don't know why, but that just seems like it should matter...
I treat this like all "news" coming out of China: As misinformation or a downright lie to make it seem like China actually achieves things, which i highly doubt it does. See also the FUD stories about people injecting themselves with fruitjuice and other bullshit like that.