SPLATS about cloning

SPLATS about cloning

For an explanation, see the main splats page

The principles of cloning

Clones are organisms which have identical genes, so identical twins are clones and vegetative reproduction produces clones. Scientists can clone some organisms.
We eat food from clones all the time: almost all sugar cane is produced from cuttings, which means that sugar cane is cloned, and our sugar comes from clones.
Cloning humans is regarded by most scientists as both unethical and also dangerous to the new clone, due to errors that will occur in at least some early cases.
Cloning a mammal means taking a prepared nucleus from a cell and placing it in an ovum which has had the nucleus removed to let the new nucleus to take control.
The normal nucleus in a new zygote has very few genes operating, while committed cells, anywhere in the body, normally have quite a few active genes.
The preparation of a nucleus for cloning usually involves depriving the cell of nutrients, so that the nucleus largely shuts down, switching genes off.

This file is http://members.ozemail.com.au/~macinnis/scifun/, first created on February 17, 2009. Last recorded revision (well I get lazy and forget sometimes!) was on February 17, 2009.

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