Endangered Sheep Cloned

JoeyPea writes "Italian scientists have successfully cloned an endangered sheep, called the European mouflon, which is found in Sardinia, Corsica and Cyprus. A domestic sheep was used as a surrogate. This marks the first time an endangered mammal has been cloned and survived past birth."

Rescuing species

[pagsz]

The potential for saving endangered species is certainly interesting; however it would require vast ranges of DNA sample to provide any genetic diversity. This would require immediate action and plenty of funding, which in this field may be hard to come by.

Jurassic Park thought: Since the baby mouflon (I think that's right, I'm too lazy to check) was "created" using the egg of a domestic sheep and carried in a domestic sheep, it might be possible to clone long-extinct species. Obviously, this would be for research purposes only (to study anatomy and behavior, which are all but impossible with fossils) because there simply wouldn't be enough genetic material to even think about resurrecting the species (Besides, I'm not too keen on a T-Rex hunting in the woods outside Seattle. It might eat the Sasquatch).

I'll be surprised as Hell (can Hell be surprised?) if anyone actually reads this comment,

Re:Rescuing species

[cmowire]

The main thing is that we can also collect cell samples over time to return some biodiveristy later on.

The advantage to cloning a dead nearly-extinct animal is that you return that dead animal's genes back into the pool. This can preserve the status quo. Over time, if we DNA-bank merely troubled species before they are even midly or severely in danger of extinction, we can give species a little more diversity to prevent them from dying out, once the situation gets critical. Captive breeding programs often have 100-200 specimens left to work with. If we also have 1000-2000 old DNA samples from when the animal was more frequent, that might mean the difference between extinction and survival.

The danger here is that we really do not fully understand the cloning process. If we carelessly apply these techniques to endangered species, we could hasten their decline. What if the clones cary some factor we don't quite understand, created by cloning, that makes them too weak to survive in the wild. Given the rules of gene flow, it can quickly cripple the species.

Re:Rescuing species

[Kotetsu]

Not as much as you might think. My mother told me she once substituted some duck eggs under a chicken. The ducklings hatched, and followed the hen about as chicks or ducklings follow their mother. When it rained and some big puddles formed, the ducklings went right into the water and started swimming about, while their "mother" hen went crazy trying to get them to come out of the water. Apparently the ducklings grew up behaving like any of the other ducks they had. The biggest deal was probably the hen who couldn't figure out why her chicks kept doing things chickens don't do.

No T. Rex

[JJ]

Alas, DNA decays at a slow but perceptible rate. Although using several copies (as in a whole cell worth) allows small errors to be dealt with there are two problems with cloning T. rex. First, the DNA is millions of years old so the errors are huge. Second, whole cells are unlikely to be found. The Tasmanian wolf is a more likely candidate for back from extinction. Several pups are available in formaldhyde.

Re:No T. Rex

[ldopa1]

Unfortunately, not only does DNA decay at a slow put perceptible rate, it also decays natuarally while alive.

Every time a cell divides, the end caps for the DNA strand split too. While the caps themselves are very long (30% of the length of the DNA itself), there comes a time when the cap isn't long enough to divide again. When this happens, the DNA unravels and the cell dies. It's a natural anti-aging mechanism.

This is why "Dolly" (the cloned sheep) has a cellular life older than Dolly herself. If you look at Dolly's DNA, you'll see that all of the genes are the same as the adult's, right down to the end-caps. Those end-caps can only divide the same number of times as the parent DNA could divide (-1 for the cloning effort) because the cloned cells "inherited" the end-caps from the old cells. These end caps are called "Teleromes" and scientists have known about them for a long time.

Embryonic Stems cells have a store of hormones that allow them to grow new Teleromes. In this, they are different from normal, adult cells. In addition, Stem cells (both Adult and Embryonic) have the unique ability to become any type of cell in the whole organism. The type of cells they become seems to depend upon a complicated dance of hormones and environmental pressures. Without the hormones present, the stem cells just divide without direction (similar to cancer). If they have the right hormones, they might become nerve cells (to make a brain) or heart muscle cells.

These two reasons are why embryonic stem cell study is incredibly important if we ever want to be able to grow new nerve cells (for victims of MS, Parkinsons, Alzhiemers or CNS injury), heart cells (for your grandfather), or liver cells (for your frat brother who's on his 5th St. Pauli Girl).

Of course, the whole idea of cloning raises a thousand questions. If you clone yourself (a felony) and your clone kills your friend, who's guilty? Law currently states that if a death occurs because of or during the commision of a felony, the person who committed the felony is guilty of murder. That means your clone goes free! Granted, you get the chair or the needle, but still the clone goes free! He (or she) cannot be prosecuted for anything that he or she does. What a way to create a terrorist nation! Think about it:

L-DOPA creates a clone of himself. He then promptly kills L-DOPA(1). L-DOPA claims he is a clone (there's no way to tell) and is thereby blameless (and L-DOPA(1) is dead). He then goes on to clone 50,000 new L-DOPA(2)'s, which then go on a hacking spree the world has never seen. Nobody can prosecute him or any of his clones. The "blame" lies with L-DOPA(1), and because of double jeopardy laws, none of the other L-DOPA's can be prosecuted either...

Not to mention the tax implications... :)

Re:No T. Rex

[ldopa1]

Yes, but that's because twins have unique fingerprints and have a legal identity. A clone has no legal identity, and the birth of a twin isn't a felony.

Keep in mind, the hinge pin of my argument is the law that states (paraphrased) that if anyone dies during or as a direct result of the commission of a felony, or the attempted commision of a felony, the person who committed the felony is guilty of murder. I believe it's actually capital murder, but I'm not sure.

The cloning of yourself (or anyone else, for that matter) is currently a felony. So the person who performs the cloning is guilty of any crime that occurs as a direct result of that felony. So if a clone kills someone, the cloner is responsible. And because clones have no legal separate identity (not yet, anyway), they cannot be held accountable for their actions because the cloner is the one who's guilty (double jeopardy). In other words, they would be trying the same person twice for the same crime.

Is that any clearer?

Re:No T. Rex

[Ann O'Nymous-Coward]

Clones would have unique fingerprints, just as identical twins do. At the level of detail of fingerprints (and retinal blood vessel patterns, _precise_ placement of hair follicles, palm and other wrinkles and all other _micro_differences in structure) chaotic elements in the initial formation of the structures lead to observable differences.

Still the same thoughts from Dolly

[akiaki007]

When Dolly was first announced, and now, I still have the same thoughts. Bad Idea!

This is why. While it might seem like a noble and worthy cause, it's not. Everything can be made to look good and bad. The bad, I feel, weighs out the good in this case. Thousands of failed tries result one success, which doesn't even have a chance to live very long. Also, we can't predict what is going to happen. What if some of the genese from the surrogate mother do get into the embryo and then via mutation and recombination (since the genese will be very close), we get what we think is a clone, but will infact have odd gene combinations which could lead to a disater (read Jurrasic Park the book for frog/dinosaur example). I admit, I don't know how plausable this is, but wierder things have known to happen in the world of genetics.

One of my biggest problems is morals. Also, survival of the fittest. I guess this technology makes us the fittest, so we have the right to clone, etc, but it is this technology that destroyed everything in the first place. One wrong doesn't deserve another (2 wrongs don't make a right). We should use technology to comabt technology, but common sense. Stop trying to make all these "useful" technologies.

So doctors say that this can be used in research fo cures for diseases....Well, most of these diseases exist because they are induced by current technologies (skin, lung, etc.). If we didn't come up with such harmful things in the first place, then we wouldn't have to invent more things (who knows what harm will come of them) to cure these diseases.

All in all, technology doesn't cure technology. Common sense does.

Re:Still the same thoughts from Dolly

[Shook]

So doctors say that this can be used in research fo cures for diseases....Well, most of these diseases exist because they are induced by current technologies (skin, lung, etc.). If we didn't come up with such harmful things in the first place, then we wouldn't have to invent more things (who knows what harm will come of them) to cure these diseases.

I don't follow you. While many of our diseases are caused by self-inflicted behavior (smoking, exposure to chemicals, bad diet), most other diseases are not.

The goal of Ian Wilmut, the scientist who cloned Dolly, was to produce transgenic animals that would secrete drugs in their milk. He did that, with another clone, named Polly [sciam.com]. This sheep secreted human factor IX, which is used to treat hemophilia B [msn.com]. This disease is inherited, and is not caused by technology.

Wonder cures

[driehuis]

This only goes to show how complex the matter is... Nature has shown to be very resiliant to mans feeling of having conquered disease X. As a kid, when I had a cough, the doctor prescribed antibiotics. The result of this collective overreaction has, over the years, been that (a) a number of dangerous mutations of low-risk bacteria have sprung up (hospital syndrome), and (b) that if I ever get an infection with a life threatening hostile organism, the doctors will have a hard time figuring out an antibiotic that will work.

A very good example of what I think is wrong with the mechanical (i.e., the human body is just a machine) approach is the E.coli issue. A number of people have died from eating hamburgers that weren't fully cooked, and happened to be infected with a dangerous E.coli strain. Everyone points at E.coli as the culprit, but at least some of the deaths can be attributed to the use of Imodium, a drug that stops diarrhea by basically shutting down the bowels, stopping the annoying diarrhea, but allowing E.coli to grow unchecked in the bowels. Just allowing the body to be violently ill but get rid of the disease seems to have disappeared off the list of treatment methods.

I'm not a medical scientist, and in fact I know diddly squat about medicine, but I think there is genuine cause for alarm when I hear scientists claim that cures are around the corner. The most effectives cures I've seen so far are clean drinking water and a certain level of hygiene.

Oh, and has it ever occurred to anyone that happy people seem to be healthier too?

First?

[DiSKiLLeR]

First surviving clone?

I thought the African Wildcat that was posted on slashdot was. (Sorry, can't find the url. Seems slashdot's search won't find stories more then a year or so old, and google can't find it either! Stranger yet, i was looking at that story a few days back because i was showing it to a friend, and now i can't find it!)

However some urls to actual stories (and some VERY cute pics!) are here [discover.com] and here. [bbc.co.uk]

D.