Woman is carrying first cloned embryo, claims doctor

[bobthedrummer]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=482348

[leesa]

1. Most of the cloned animals have been very sick with short life-spans

This could be very ugly for this child, if it survives to birth.

[ncrainbowgrrl]

2. is this another Raelian-linked story?

Anyone know?

[MercutioATC]

3. This isn't the same group who claimed the same thing a year or 2 ago,

is it? Nhe names don't sound familiar. Hopefully, they'll provide actual evidence of their claim if it's true, unlike the other group.

[NickB79]

4. Human cells have a unique quirk that makes them impossible to clone

At least, with current technology.

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993614

"A newly discovered quirk of primate cell biology suggests that monkeys - and humans - are impossible to clone from adult cells using current techniques. The finding directly contradicts by Clonaid, a company started by a UFO cult, to have created several cloned babies."

snip

"Unlike other species in which adult animals have been successfully cloned, Schatten's team found that the eggs of rhesus monkeys are robbed of a key set of proteins during the cloning procedure. The same appears to be true for human cells.

That loss causes genetic chaos in cloned monkey embryos, with chromosomes distributed almost at random. As a result, the embryos look fine at an early stage, but are completely incapable of further development."

Simply finding a way to prevent chromosome disorder in primate cells would be Nobel-prize material, much less actually producing a living cloned human. There is NO way they are 10 yrs ahead of the most advanced and heavily funded genetics and biotech labs in the world. This is just another quack looking for publicity.