this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
112 points (97.5% liked)

World News

39127 readers
2967 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

A “healthy” rhesus monkey cloned in China has survived for more than two years and is providing “valuable insights” into the scientific process, according to researchers.

Scientists in China used a modified version of the same technique that was used to create Dolly the sheep, the world’s first cloned mammal.

Out of the 113 cloned embryos, 11 were implanted into surrogate monkeys, but only one survived.

Named ReTro, the male rhesus monkey was born following a gestation period of 157 days.

The team said that although the success rate of producing viable and healthy clones is low – less than 1% in this instance – it advances the understanding of the mechanisms involved in primate cloning.

top 11 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I can't say I know a lot about cloning. But isn't it already an established thing? Aren't people cloning their favourite pets and polo horses already? What's the main difference with this older method, why bother with it?

[–] WeeSheep 8 points 10 months ago

They are trying a different method of cloning to determine if it's better than what was used with dolly the sheep.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


A “healthy” rhesus monkey cloned in China has survived for more than two years and is providing “valuable insights” into the scientific process, according to researchers.

Scientists in China used a modified version of the same technique that was used to create Dolly the sheep, the world’s first cloned mammal.

Commenting on the findings, Dr Lluis Montoliu, a researcher at the National Centre for Biotechnology in Spain, who was not involved in the study, said: “Both the cloning of crab-eating macaques and rhesus monkeys demonstrate two things.

It was the first time scientists had managed to clone a mammal from an adult cell, taken from the udder of a Finn Dorset sheep.

The researchers said this approach proved to be more successful, leading to a healthy male rhesus monkey, which has now survived for more than two years.

Writing in the journal Nature Communications, the authors said: “These discoveries provide valuable insights into the reprogramming mechanism of monkey SCNT and introduce a promising strategy for primate cloning.”


The original article contains 598 words, the summary contains 167 words. Saved 72%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Ethical quarries aside, would the clone make the same decisions as the original given the same circumstances? Could this be a test to see if we have free will or just running biological programming?

Would be an interesting test.

[–] cynar 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

We have that test, in the form of identical twins. They happen when a single embryo splits into 2. The 2 babies are generically identical. They are also often raised in almost exactly the same conditions, which makes their study even more useful.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

What is even more interesting to me is epigenetic studies on monozygotic twins. As twins age, their DNA can begin to alter thru epigenetics (environmental impacts on DNA), such as if one twin smokes cigarettes and the other abstains.

The identical twins can become less 'identical' throughout the span of their lives. Here's an article on the subject.

Edit: Here's an accessible scholarly article with more information.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Given that the brains develop differently even in clones, it wouldn't mean much

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago
[–] MyDogLovesMe -1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

What about the humans that were cloned? You know, the ones you kept secret? How are they doing?

Or is this the ‘soft tell’ that it’s going well?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Keriger was to marry 宮住 美津子 but Lana had to fuck that up so not so well I guess.

[–] Cinner 2 points 10 months ago

I'm not sure why you're downvoted. It's China. If they can do it, you know they are. But the question is whether they can. I imagine cloning sheep and small monkeys are much easier than cloning humans.