that’s whacked

… 1 monkey cloned 10,000 times….

Monday, Dec 6. 2004  –  Category: Linkage

Wired News: Squeezing Out Monkey Clones

University of Pittsburgh researchers have cloned the first monkey embryos from which stem cells could be removed

This could be huge given Bush’s clampdown on creating new human stem cell lines. At first I thought they were saying we could use monkey stem cells in humans - but after RTFA again I see the part where they say this is a good MODEL for studying human cells. Given how restrictive and controversial human stem-cell research is, this is great…

I’m really enthusiastic about this kind of research… and the quote from Gerald Schatten (the lead researcher on this project) sums up my feelings perfectly: “Using this to derive stem cells for therapies I think is perfectly fine, but everything we know about cloned animals is they are all abnormal. That is why I’m so unalterably opposed to any attempt at human (reproductive) cloning. It ought to be illegal everywhere.”

The real question of course is… if you cloned 1 monkey 10,000 times… would they eventually produce the works of Shakespeare? or would they all just type the same “To be, or not to be” over and over and over….