Somatic cells

A somatic cell is a biological cell forming the body of the organism. One method of cloning is “somatic cell nuclear transfer". This involves removing nucleus from the somatic cell. This nucleus contains all the genetic information needed to produce the organism it was removed from.  After that they inject it into an ovum, ovum: is a reproductive cell for a woman, of the same species which has had its own genetic material removed. 
The resulting animal will be a nearly genetically identical clone to the animal from which the nucleus was taken.

This might not be much but it is not just a walk in the park.

Food 

We are using the cloned animals for food. Yes, this means that we eat cloned food.Is that not weird? Did you know this? Is this healthy? Is it legal? There are cows that are now used to make milk and use as meat. The bad thing is you do not know if you food is cloned or not. That must be a pretty big surprise for you.

 I have a friend that has a blog  about Gm food. It is not really cloned but is genetically modified, but I am talking about cloned animals for food. If you want to visit the blog here is the blog: http://gmfoodconcerns.blogspot.com/

Medical research


My last post I was talking about cloning endangered species and cloning extinct species. I expressed my opinions about if we should /not use cloning. Here I am going to talk about using cloning for medical research. I actually do not know if cloned animals are living creatures or just living copy machines? If you think about it if you experiment on cloned animals it is not doing as much harm as if you used an actual animal.Or is it? To make a clone you need DNA. To get DNA you kill an animal. One animal for multiple clones. I do not know if that is equal or not.

Although they are only clones what if all the clones go wrong? They may not work.It is a waste of money time and the animal that got ,killed.Sure it saves animals all around the world but then they need more and more...DNA. Everything that they do can be for nothing. So is it worth it.

If I had to pick whether if it is worth it I would have to say that it is better doing medical research on cloned animals than actual animals.



Here is some pics although they might not be true: http://www.tetraplegicliving.com/cloned-animals

Cloning endangered and extinct species

In this next blog I will be talking about cloning endangered species.  I think that cloning endangered species is a great idea. One reason I think that cloning endangered species is a good idea because imagine our kids in the future or future generations not knowing how a panda looks like. In China they are trying to clone pandas because they are becoming to be extinct.Chen Dayuan, a senior scientist who specializes in cloning, introduced the idea of cloning pandas in 1998. Also , if you think about the food chain in the wild( it has nothing to due with cloning)if the chain breaks because one of the species go extinct what would happen? Well I don't think we should find out.
Pandas: http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/7100195.html

Although I think endangered species should be cloned ,I do not approve/think cloning extinct animals should happen. For example, in Japan some colleagues tried to find some kind of sample of DNA of a Woolly Mammoth and they did. They tried to find a sample they did. They just recovered well-preserved bone marrow in a mammoth thigh bone. Do they know what could happen to the world? Were will they keep this mammoth ? If in the wild the food chain will disrupt. Do we have the right climates? What will happen?
Mammoth: http://news.discovery.com/animals/woolly-mammoth-cloned-111205.html

Cat Cloning Offered to Pet Owners


Now, instead of adopting a new cat, you could clone your old one because now there is a cat cloning company. In fact, there was a special offer to cat owners, to clone their cats. They always say that it will be exactly the same by behavior and appearance, but something could go wrong. There is also a chance that the cat will have a disease or just not work/die. So would you do this? I think I would not do this because if you spend so much money and it does not work, it is a waste of money. Also, I think that a clone is not as alive as the original/or the actual live organism, which is why I would not do this.

http://bit.ly/po3nVY

Cloning is being let out to the world more and more now. Day to day people like us can even use it. Would you use it? Do you think it is affecting our society?  I don't know if I would use it, but I think that it is affecting our society in a way that nobody knows. I am researching, and will be blogging about what it is doing to the public. I am seeing what the society thinks of this. Now it is mine and your’s turn to think about it as a society.