Pet cloning is the cloning of a pet animal. The first commercially cloned pet was a cat named Little Nicky, produced in 2004 by Genetic Savings & Clone for a north Texas woman for the fee of US$50,000. On May 21, 2008 BioArts International announced a limited commercial dog cloning service through a program it called Best Friends Again. This program came on the announcement of the successful cloning of a family dog Missy, which was widely publicized in the Missyplicity Project. In September 2009 BioArts announced the end of its dog cloning service. In July 2008, the Seoul National University created five clones of a dog named Booger for its Californian owner. The woman paid $50,000 for this service.
Science fiction depictions of cloning often create the impression that clones emerge full-grown from machines, are indistinguishable from their predecessors, and have even had their predecessors' minds "downloaded" into them. However, while an animal clone has the same genes as its genetic donor, behavior is influenced by environment and experience as well as by genetics. The behavior of an animal clone and its genetic donor will therefore be no more similar than the behavior of identical twins.
A cell is taken from a animal. The cell develops into a embryo. The embryo is placed into a suurogate mother animal. A clone of original animal is born.
Read more about Pet Cloning: Controversy, In Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words pet and/or cloning:
“Tom was a glittering hero once more—the pet of the old, the envy of the young. His name even went into immortal print, for the village paper magnified him. There were some that believed he would be President, yet, if he escaped hanging.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Language is as real, as tangible, in our lives as streets, pipelines, telephone switchboards, microwaves, radioactivity, cloning laboratories, nuclear power stations.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)