cloning2
Cloning, the process of creating a copy of a plant or animal that is genetically identical to the original through asexual means, has sparked some interesting moral and ethical debate. For years, cloning has been used to produce a greater number of a specific type of plant, such as the Macintosh apple trees, which have all been derived from single mutated plant . Now, however, upon the discovery of a method to clone animals, even humans, people are beginning to become aware of the benefits and consequences of cloning, as well as the ethics involved.Cloning has had a fairly long history. In 1952, the first successful cloning experiment took place. Scientists Robert Briggs and Thomas King successfully removed the nucleus from a frog egg and replaced it with the nucleus of an undifferentiated cell from another frog. The egg, then placed in a nutrient solution, eventually developed into a healthy tadpole. In 1962, ten years later, a similar experiment took a differentiated intestinal cell and allowed the tadpole created to develop into a healthy, fertile toad. Later, in 1981, a scientist from Cambridge University then combined two embryos, one of a sheep and the other of a goat, making the first "mosaic" animal eve
Then, that cell must be forced to begin to divide without fertilization. And while the availability of extra organs may be useful in shortening the organ-donor waiting lists, some believe that creating a brain dead class of humans used only to provide body parts is no better than slavery or the suppression of a people. While some of these possibilities may seem extreme or entirely plausible, everyone seems to have a different opinion. In addition, entire armies, genetically identical, could be created at will, and even clones of long dead personalities of the likes of Hitler and Einstein could be created . "The Ethics of Cloning: Who Decides?" Washington Post. At the same time, it has also been argued that the best advances come from a variation of people and ideas-the theory that variety causes change. " Encyclopedia Britannica Micropædia, 1985 ed. In this way, there would be no danger of rejection either, since the body part would be identical in genetic make up to the damaged one. In both cases, whether using a differentiated or undifferentiated cell as the original, the nucleus must be isolated and extracted from the cell and then placed into an embryonic cell from which the nucleus has been removed. It will be interesting to see what finally does develop of this issue. On another extreme, however, are the ideas of body farming.
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