Scientist Claims to Produce Human Clone

Group aims for adult clones

The Raelians eventually hope to develop adult clones into which humans could transfer their brains, Rael said.

"Cloning a baby is just the first step. For me, it's not so important," he said. "It's a good step, but my ultimate goal is to give humanity eternal life through cloning."
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http://www.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/12/28/human.cloning/index.html

So...they eventually plan to grow human clones for 18-20 years, presumably unconscious, and then kill the clone by replacing their brain with the original donor. Super.

How else would you get an adult body...they don't usually pop out of the womb that big.

Cloning is NOT the direction to longer life spans...it's akin to the throwaway society we've become.

The biggest problem I see with these morons being the claimed first and revealing this ethically wrong goal is that the gov't will have a typical kneejerk reaction and blanket ban ALL cloning research. So because they jumped in with their claim that is probably bogus anyway, they hurt all legit genetic research.
 
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Actually, I think parthogenesis would be a lot easier than cloning. See, the biggest problem with cloning is that you've got to reset the state of the nucleus to it's initial state, so that it develops property. There are apparently unknown factors in an egg cell that do that. But most of the time it's not complete, which is why you get all the miscarriages and deformed births.

But the egg already contains half the genetic code, properly reset. If you were to fuse two egg cells, you'd have a complete genetic code, perfectly reset.

It wouldn't really be cloning, since the egg cells have randomly selected choices of genes, and combining two eggs from the same woman would produce a different genetic code, with some of the genes lost, and some of them doubled up. But you'd have to do a very careful test to pick up the difference.

And it would be the ultimate in inbreeding, with a high probability of recessive genes being reenforced. Of course, you could fuse egg cells from two different women, and get all the advantages of sexual reproduction, with only females involved.

I'm not as dubious as some people that this really was cloning. There are an awful lot of things you could try to solve the known problems with nuclear transfer cloning, and the Raelians may just have hit on the right formula.
 
Originally posted by Jaxom
How else would you get an adult body...they don't usually pop out of the womb that big.
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Obviously, that's the only way to get one at the present stage of the technique. I suspect that before they get to the brain transplant bit, the Raelians intend to solve a couple of other problems:

1. Artifical wombs. This might even let you maintain the fetal growth rate for another year or so, instead of waiting a couple of decades for a mature body.

2. Growing clones without brains, so that you're not murdering anybody with the brain transplant.

It's going to be tough, though, because a lot of the development of the mature body is a result of activity, and is mediated by the brain. 18 years of bed rest without a functioning brain would probably produce a VERY unhealthy body.
 
Originally posted by thecurly1
Cloning is horrible. Period.
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I don't feel clone to make children is horrible I just feel it has no real practical use! why waste the time making copies of people when we can make stem cell lines and organs for people and cure disease!!! We don't need to grow bodies for people when we can assemble bodies for them that are better, fast, strong and smarter then the original. If we assemble a body out of cell types (and maybe a little cybernetics J ) it would be a lot quicker, cheaper and morally correct over growing a clone and chucking the brain!

Originally posted by Brett Bellmore

But the egg already contains half the genetic code, properly reset. If you were to fuse two egg cells, you'd have a complete genetic code, perfectly reset.
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They have tried it... it failed! There was a attempt by a fertility clinic in the 90’s to fuss two eggs from a lesbian couple together… it did not grow! You need certain genes turn on from the sperm cell to activate embryonic growth. Also you can not take two gametes from the same person to make a clone because both haploid cells have a different arrangement of chromosomes and the resulting child will not be a genetic duplicate (aka clone)! Only way for asexual reproduction in Eukaryots to result in a clone is to have a diploid cell become totapotent and begin embryonic development.

In coclusion: these people are either @#$%ing with us or they made a clone! there is no half way mark and if they did manage one then it is a even bigger break though then cloning!!!
 
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I dunno. If you had a population shortage (lets say a disese knocks out most of your population) you might have a need to clone and raise the resulting children in a cresh like the Maori islanders used to. I wouldnt mind being born into such a situation. It would largely be necessary that we develop the artificial womb though.

It isnt necessary now but it might be in the future. Maybe we want to colonize a distant planet?
 
Sorry, Clockwood, i'm not following. What's a cresh/creche? I've heard of it before. It's just like a communal daycare, right?
 
Originally posted by Clockwood

It isnt necessary now but it might be in the future. Maybe we want to colonize a distant planet?
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Not good. The problem with wide-scale cloning is that it defeats "survival of the fittest" and, thus, would lead to an unhealthy population that could be felled by a single disease (ie. any disease that would adversely affect the donors).
 
cloning has no use in the deep future none what so ever that biorobitics can handle
 
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'Perpetual orgasms through cloning' thats it these people are beyond @#$%ed up! lets all pray to what ever you pray to, and ask that a comet comes soon to take these sickos to where ever they think they came from!!!

About liveing forever through cloning... the human brain like all information storage devices has a limited capacity sooooo how the @#$% to you expect to keep all your memories forever.
 
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I have no doubt that a cloned human will be born in the very near future. Think of the fame and $$ the scientist who accomplishes this will acquire.

Other than the possibility of genetic defects, I have trouble understanding the aversion most people have to cloning. A clone is a "delayed" identical twin. Of course it's human. Of course it is the biological parent of any offspring he/she has in the future. How do police deal with DNA evidence today when identical twins are invovled? No difference.

People were not "meant" to reproduce asexually? Huh?? Were people "meant" to fly in airplanes? Were we "meant" to reproduce by IVF methods? Once cloning is shown to be no worse (in terms of genetic/physical impairments to the clone) than other methods of conception, how can we reasonable deny someone the right to clone themselves?

By the way, the idea of fusing two ova to produce a sort of psuedo clone is intreaguing. Does anyone have info about this being done in other mammals...?
 
I have only read reports on how and why fusing ova can't be done... there in the mag. "Nature" about 4 year ago maybe :( sorry don't have any citations: how un-scientific of me!

I agree, cloning to grow full adults is not wrong but I do believe it has no real use… cloning to grow organs that I am totally for! Stems cells are very needed and GOOD!
 
Originally posted by John Mace
I have trouble understanding the aversion most people have to cloning. A clone is a "delayed" identical twin. Of course it's human. Of course it is the biological parent of any offspring he/she has in the future. How do police deal with DNA evidence today when identical twins are invovled? No difference.
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i totally agree
the aversion people have towards cloning could be due to a myriad of reasons. they could be superstitious peasants? they could be retards? they could be .......??
 
Originally posted by spookz
i totally agree
the aversion people have towards cloning could be due to a myriad of reasons. they could be superstitious peasants? they could be retards? they could be .......??
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you got it there!
They say things like "its playing God" or "its not natural" that just PISSES ME OFF!!! Just because it natural does not mean it good for you or the right thing... there is a lot that’s natural and bad: disease is natural! Lets just all live in a cave because hey its NATURAL and lets get parasites because it NATURAL and lets live to the ripe old age of 35 because that the way it was and that way was great and NATURAL! :mad: :mad: :mad:
 
Originally posted by John Mace

Other than the possibility of genetic defects, I have trouble understanding the aversion most people have to cloning.
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But the possible genetic defects could be important in the future. A single clone (or two or ten) is not going to effect the genetic diversity of the human race. However, what if cloning becomes common?

Question: do clones AND cloned parts inherit the same genetic defects of the donor?
 
Yes, but we can do gene therapy on a stem cell line. Gene therapy on a full body is impracticable and has failed lethally in resent cases.
 
It's hard to imagine that clonig would become "common". Most people marry and want to have kids with their spouses. Cloning is a pretty drastic measure. With 6 billion people on the earth, I doubt that cloning will threaten human genetic diversity. Can you imagine more than 10% of babies born by cloning? And even then, it would just keep the diversity at where it is now.

I'm not at all religious, but I can understand why a religious person would object to cloning. Of course, religion can cause people to have many seemingly irrational opinions...

I'm pretty ignorant about the history of IVF, but I sure don't remember doctors having to prove to any government agency that the procedure was "safe" before they were allowed to utilize it. They certainly didn't have to do any long term studies (i.e., look at adult humans) or we'd still be in the clinical trial phase even now.

There is a small minority of infertile people (and megalomaniacs) who will pay big bucks for a cloned child. If we ban it in the US, market forces will drive it out of the country. Of course if you think cloning is morally wrong, that's no justification to keep it legal in the US, so I think this argument, like abortion, will be staged more in the arena of religion than in science.
 
Originally posted by John Mace

It's hard to imagine that clonig would become "common". Most people marry and want to have kids with their spouses.
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Cloning for reproduction purposes is one use of cloning. The other purpose is "spare parts".

:eek:
 
no IVF is for reproductive perposes and cloning to make stem cell lines is infact for making "spare parts"
 
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