Human Cloning (Now Official)

[dawks2020]

I am surprised no one yet posted this. So I figured I would. We can now successfully clone human embryos. The scientist took a stem cell and one of his skin cells and cloned himself and it produced an embryo. He did it three times and destroyed the embryo three times because he did not want to clone himself. This should be a fun Thread.

Link

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22706947/

 

[Dirt McGirt]

I am surprised no one yet posted this. So I figured I would. We can now successfully clone human embryos. The scientist took a stem cell and one of his skin cells and cloned himself and it produced an embryo. He did it three times and destroyed the embryo three times because he did not want to clone himself. This should be a fun Thread.

Link

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22706947/

I'm all for it. The prospect of replacing all the fat, ugly chicks with Jessica Alba clones is intriguing.

 

[Abelian Sea]

Alright, now all we need to do is get good at gene manipulation and some day we can add "human evolution" to the list of natural processes we've commandeered.

Silly natural order. Let us show you how it's done. What could go wrong?

 

[midcan5]

Fascinating stuff - I wish I could come back every 50 years to see if we have survived ourselves.

"Most of the given bestowals of nature have their given species-specified natures: they are each and all of a given sort. Cockroaches and humans are equally bestowed but differently natured. To turn a man into a cockroach—as we don’t need Kafka to show us—would be dehumanizing. To try to turn a man into more than a man might be so as well. We need more than generalized appreciation for nature’s gifts. We need a particular regard and respect for the special gift that is our own given nature[3]

Transhumanists counter that nature’s gifts are sometimes poisoned and should not always be accepted. Cancer, malaria, dementia, aging, starvation, unnecessary suffering, cognitive shortcomings are all among the presents that we wisely refuse. Our own species-specified natures are a rich source of much of the thoroughly unrespectable and unacceptable – susceptibility for disease, murder, rape, genocide, cheating, torture, racism. The horrors of nature in general and of our own nature in particular are so well documented[4] that it is astonishing that somebody as distinguished as Leon Kass should still in this day and age be tempted to rely on the natural as a guide to what is desirable or normatively right."

http://www.nickbostrom.com/ethics/dignity.html

 

[RetiredGySgt]

This goes hand and glove with the thread on embryo manipulation, it is only a matter of time before someone screws up and we pay a steep price for it.

 

[AllieBaba]

I just assumed we've been cloning humans ever since The Matrix came out!

Eugenics. That's all it is. And it's wrong.

 

[waltky]

Advance in human cloning discovery...

Embryonic stem cells: Advance in medical human cloning
15 May 2013 - Human cloning has been used to produce early embryos, marking a "significant step" for medicine, say US scientists.

The cloned embryos were used as a source of stem cells, which can make new heart muscle, bone, brain tissue or any other type of cell in the body. The study, published in the journal Cell, used methods like those that produced Dolly the sheep in the UK. However, researchers say other sources of stem cells may be easier, cheaper and less controversial. Opponents say it is unethical to experiment on human embryos and have called for a ban. Stem cells are one of the great hopes for medicine. Being able to create new tissue might be able to heal the damage caused by a heart attack or repair a severed spinal cord.

There are already trials taking place using stem cells taken from donated embryos to restore people's sight. However, these donated cells do not match the patient so they would be rejected by the body. Cloning bypasses this problem. The technique used - somatic cell nuclear transfer - has been well-known since Dolly the sheep became the first mammal to be cloned, in 1996. Skin cells were taken from an adult and the genetic information was placed inside a donor egg which had been stripped of its own DNA. Electricity was used to encourage the egg to develop into an embryo. However, researchers have struggled to reproduce the feat in people. The egg does start dividing, but never goes past the 6-12 cell stage.

'Real deal'

A South Korean scientist, Hwang Woo-suk, did claim to have created stem cells from cloned human embryos, but was found to have faked the evidence. Now a team at the Oregon Health and Science University have developed the embryo to the blastocyst stage - around 150 cells - which is enough to provide a source of embryonic stem cells. Dr Shoukhrat Mitalipov said: "A thorough examination of the stem cells derived through this technique demonstrated their ability to convert just like normal embryonic stem cells, into several different cell types, including nerve cells, liver cells and heart cells. "While there is much work to be done in developing safe and effective stem cell treatments, we believe this is a significant step forward in developing the cells that could be used in regenerative medicine."

Chris Mason, a professor of regenerative medicine at University College London, said this looked like "the real deal". "They've done the same as the Wright brothers really. They've looked around at where are all the best bits of how to do this from different groups all over the place and basically amalgamated it. "The Wright brothers took off and this has actually managed to make embryonic stem cells."

The ethical rival