Cute Clones

30 responses to “Cute Clones”

1. 

   Jane Kratochvil (Amazin’ Jane)

   Mar 4, 2009 at 5:59 am

   That’s crazy. They sure are cute though. What’s their age difference?

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2. 

   menlo

   Mar 4, 2009 at 6:29 am

   no father/dead mother + 3 contributors = very odd (+/-)

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3. 

   conformation_change

   Mar 4, 2009 at 6:32 am

   I wonder if the dogs have very different telomere lengths? Last year Ian Wilmut visited and listed numerous reasons why cloning primates is incredibly difficult, not to mention unethical. It turns out that different organisms require very specific processing steps that are difficult to predict. I read that he has stopped pursuing nuclear transfer and has focused his work on cell reprogramming via transcription factor transfection. Amazing technology!

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4. 

   PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE

   Mar 4, 2009 at 8:50 am

   Human cloning claim…
   We had another claim two month ago in Paris, at a conference on synthetic biology, with a man claiming it was already done too, during the Q&A. As the speaker pointed out…it ‘ s just a matter a time now…the question is where and when…and who will bring scientific proofs of it !

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5. 

   Steffe

   Mar 4, 2009 at 10:45 am

   I remember reading about that Italian doctor a few years ago. He is probably not telling the truth.

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6. 

   gorgeous bee

   Mar 4, 2009 at 12:08 pm

   What hath god wrought?

   …oh wait. God had nothing to do with this. Zing!

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7. 

   The Rocketeer

   Mar 4, 2009 at 1:28 pm

   I respectfully disagree with Carleton… God provided the working materials.

   Interesting differences in the colors on their coats… very slight variations but they’re there. Is that due to mitochondrial DNA variations from the different mothers?

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8. 

   TomiTapio

   Mar 4, 2009 at 1:32 pm

   Nice doggies.

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9. 

   Todd Huffman

   Mar 4, 2009 at 3:44 pm

   When I saw the thumbnail I thought you’d caught a super-cute version of Cerberus!!!!
   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerberus

   I’m glad to hear that you haven’t unleashed the hounds of hell… though I’m sure some fundamentalists and bio-conservatives might disagree!!!

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10. 

    Vanita

    Mar 4, 2009 at 5:02 pm

    Cloning is disconcerting.

    
    :

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11. 

    biotron

    Mar 4, 2009 at 5:55 pm

    ditto Todd… well said 🙂

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12. 

    jmcminn

    Mar 4, 2009 at 6:51 pm

    Cloning = bad idea

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13. 

    gorgeous bee

    Mar 4, 2009 at 6:54 pm

    That logic could also apply to Aspertame.

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14. 

    The Rocketeer

    Mar 4, 2009 at 7:48 pm

    I don’t get your point, Carleton… it could also apply to a lot of things… so?

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15. 

    gorgeous bee

    Mar 4, 2009 at 8:14 pm

    I guess my point is that all things are natural if you consider that it’s natural to make stuff in a lab.

    I don’t want to argue. Was just trying to make a dorky joke. I’m not a religious zealot in any sense of the word.

    I believe that science for science’s sake is awesome (I’m an engineer). But, as we all know, there are those that will undoubtedly look to apply such technology for more purposes than originally intended. Look where gunpowder got us.

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16. 

    AMagill

    Mar 4, 2009 at 8:37 pm

    I would have expected more difference in their coats, as a result of slight environmental variations affecting the fur color morphogenesis during development. I’d be curious to see the result of cloning an animal where morphogenesis plays a stronger role, such as creating spots or stripes.
    I wonder what other dogs think of meeting two dogs with nearly identical scents?
    Very cute dogs. 🙂
    jmcminn: That’s a heck of a blanket statement. Do you suppose you’ll still be saying that if/when in the near future you’re offered a cloned replacement organ to save your life? Of course, as with any science and technology, there are great and subtle evils to be avoided. Few things, though, bother me more than statements of ‘[field of study] = [evil/bad/unnatural/etc.]’.

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17. 

    The Rocketeer

    Mar 4, 2009 at 8:53 pm

    Thanks for the clarification, Carleton!

    Steve’s photos have all the interesting comments…

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18. 

    Resh B.

    Mar 4, 2009 at 9:29 pm

    Ha! I knew from the thumbnail that a photo of 2 dogs wasn’t just about dogs.

    Cloning humans – it is inevitable, isn’t it? But imagine if someone like the Octuplets’ mom takes a fancy for cloning… *shudder*

    On a funnier note, Calvin and Hobbes comes to mind – when Calvin’s ‘Duplicator’ clones 6 Calvins. What a riot! 🙂

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19. 

    NYCArthur

    Mar 5, 2009 at 12:49 am

    pretty amazinzg – thanks for this.

    Octoslam at Denny’s – a plate of 8 over easy eggs, NO Sausage, and the guy sitting next to you Pays for it.

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20. 

    j_silla

    Mar 5, 2009 at 1:21 am

    I won’t be surprised, if they suddenly started thinking and talking like humans. 🙂
    Good news, as longas they are not hurt when created. Interesting how many times they had to try before succeeding? Few years ago the falure rate was really high.

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21. 

    jurvetson

    Mar 5, 2009 at 1:28 am

    Vanita – righteous!

    Jane – 12 and 15 months.

    Rocketeer – Not sure, but we have all kinds of interesting nature/nurture experiments to consider. I would guess that coat variation has some developmental randomness, like human fingerprints, which are different for identical twins. Also, with these dogs, the coat pattern changes a bit with age.

    AMagill – They are considering novel colors, extended lifespan, double muscle, and other features.

    Imagine clone horse racing. All the horses have the same genes. It’s like leveling nature for NASCAR where the cars are the same. Nurture and jockey skills become the art…

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22. 

    AMagill

    Mar 5, 2009 at 5:12 am

    Jurvetson- Would they increase muscle by deliberately giving the dog a myostatin disorder? (Anybody who doesn’t know what that is, you’ll be amused by this.) By other colors, do you mean other than white, black, brown or yellow? I also wonder how extended lifespan would work, aside from selecting dogs with exceptionally good health.
    Perhaps they could knock out allergen production?
    How long until we can program genetic memory to produce instinctually well-trained dogs? 🙂

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23. 

    Shoshin Seishu

    Mar 5, 2009 at 6:36 pm

    Selection effects are often not the product of monotonic functions, that is, selecting for one characteristic often brings along other, unanticipated variations (mutations).

    Am painfully ambivalent about cloning of both human & non-human animals.

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24. 

    OldUncleMe

    Mar 11, 2009 at 8:21 pm

    My ambivalence produces no pain at all: cloning isn’t really necessary when it comes to pet dogs. I’m not sure that it’s the highest and best use of science, but it is an undeniable advancement to scientific knowledge as whole; how does the race of man progress by cloning dogs though? Would population control and improvements in social science not rank ahead of this sort of ‘toy’ effort in improving the lot for all?

    /.. [TWTME pool.]

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25. 

    Pet Charts

    Mar 12, 2009 at 1:47 pm

    Congratulations, your photo made the Pet Charts for March 12, 2009! Vote it up the charts at:

    petcharts.purina.com/Default.aspx?day= 2009-3-12

    Reply
26. 

    jurvetson

    Mar 12, 2009 at 2:50 pm

    Purina likes it!

    Vote for M&M!

    AMagill – yes, the "concept cat" will be a nice hypoallergenic purple. Interestingly, people are not willing to pay as much for a cloned cat as a dog. They are cheaper to make, but the market price difference is greater…

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27. 

    OscarFalcon

    May 29, 2009 at 7:53 pm

    If a cloned cell is different in age, does that mean that the first younger cell once gone into growth is better than the older cell? how does science cope with the cell cycles and cloning? is it better to star from a younger cell or are all cells at all ages the same, from the same individual, DNA?

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28. 

    KeizGoesBoom

    May 12, 2010 at 1:54 pm

    they are gorgeous, interesting story too. what breed(s) are they?

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29. 

    jurvetson

    May 12, 2010 at 4:14 pm

    They are near-Missies.

    =) The original Missy was a mixed-breed border collie and Siberian husky.

    Soka: they create a new germ cell, so the age of the cell does not have the same meaning. I think they source germ cells from Missy too, so cell division would not have happened yet. But if not, your question is interesting as telomere snipping would already be underway…

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30. 

    DanVoglesong

    Jul 19, 2010 at 7:31 pm

    Hi, I’m an admin for a group called ~GMO Free World~sans OGM~Gentechnikfrei~No Quiero Transgenicos~, and we’d love to have this added to the group!

    Reply