杏吧原创

Cloning of animals certainly, humans quite probably. It鈥檚 going to be as much
part of our future as aeroplanes and antibiotics are part of our present. But
when pushed most people admit that they are ignorant about the fundamentals of
cloning.

That鈥檚 hardly surprising.

Dolly, the first ever clone of an adult mammal, trotted into the limelight
little more than a year ago. The very concept was so mind-boggling that some
biologists found themselves checking the calendar to make sure it wasn鈥檛 an
April fool joke. It wasn鈥檛. There followed months of sometimes anguished debate
and speculation, as people struggled to work out just what this meant鈥攆or
human psychology, sex, religion, disease, agriculture, society, and for
themselves. The questions threatened to overwhelm us. Stopping to examine how
scientists pulled off the trick, or to assess the progress being made in
post-Dolly cloning research, seemed less important.

Now everyone has had time to come to terms with Dolly, we鈥檙e taking a fresh
look at the science behind cloning, and what directions the technology is likely
to go in.

For this special report, we asked the experts to settle some of those
niggling questions. Why clone sheep anyway? What鈥檚 to stop someone trying to
clone me? And how would you go about developing the technology to clone humans?
(鈥淲e Ask, They Answer鈥� p 26).

We also got eyeball to eyeball with Dolly. Is it possible she isn鈥檛 a clone
of an adult sheep at all, as some experts argue? Or has the Scottish research
team that produced her every reason to be confident in their creation?
(鈥淐lone Alone鈥� p 32).

Finally, we look at one particularly harrowing view of where the recent
breakthroughs in reproductive technology could lead鈥攏ot in the next year,
or the next decade, but maybe later next century. It鈥檚 not cloning itself we
should be worrying about, the argument goes, but its sister technology genetic
engineering. The frightening result could be the almost accidental emergence of
an entirely new human species
(鈥淯s and Them鈥� p 36).

So welcome to the clone zone. Everything you wanted to know about cloning but
were afraid to ask.