Brazil clones dead cow

[The Sushi Bandit]

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/09/17/1063625062201.html

A research company has cloned, for the first time in Brazil, a living cow from a dead one.

"Cloning can be used when an animal of high genetic value has died from an accident," said Rodolfo Rumpf, who led the research for Investigaciones Agropecuarias (Embrapa). He told journalists yesterday that the calf, born on September 4, was in perfect health. He said the technique could also be used to replace dead members of endangered species.

[cliss]

1. Wow,

that gives new meaning to the phrase, "dead meat".

Wanna try some?

[Brucey]

2. Meanwhile, in Germany

neocons are attempting to exhume the remains of the fascist leader, Adolph Hitler, for an experiment...

[Maple]

3. Wouldn't matter if they did

what you get is physical structure...not political beliefs.

[Brucey]

4. But beliefs come from the brain, which is physical.

Studies on heredity show that political beliefs, like everything, are influenced by genes.

[amazona]

5. I wouldn't worry about it

I've held a great many different political beliefs, especially when I was young and stupid, before I had more experience of life and developed more progressive ideas. I'm fairly certain that I still have the same body and the same genes I was born with. :-) Seriously, while I'm just one example, I think you can find many, many others. What about Arianna Huffington? Or Christopher Hitchens, to cite someone going in the other direction? I think any given genotype can support any number of different political and religious beliefs.

[Brucey]

7. I'm not worried, I was just making a joke. But seriously,

all the things you listed are influenced by genes. You don't have the same body and genes now as in the past, cells divide and replicate. Also, genes express themselves at different times. Just because babies aren't born with teeth doesn't mean that teeth are learned.

[Maple]

8. LOL no they don't

And if your beliefs are influenced by your genes...we'd never have gotten out of the caves.

I should add..on edit...we have clones now. They're called twins.
And they can be alike, or complete opposites. Depends on everything else involved...upbringing, environment etc.

[amazona]

6. endangered species? for some species, maybe...but...

It might not help endangered species that had a culture.

Example:
Even if they could clone their
recently extinct Spix macaw, could they return it to the wild? I would not put too much faith in this concept for
an intelligent parrot species.
People who have worked with returning endangered parrots to the wild have had a very frustrating time; an example would be Noel Snyder and his team, and their work with the Puerto Rican Amazon and also the THick-Billed Parrot of Arizona. You cannot just get a baby bird and throw it out there; these parrots have a culture, and they have had a great deal of trouble trying to get them back in the wild, because they have to create a culture and training so that the flocks can be returned to the wild.

Now, I don't doubt that extinct species can be freely cloned for zoos, but cloning is going to have very huge limitations for your more intelligent species that rely on learning. Especially when we don't know enough about their culture to teach them how to live in the wild. What do we really know about how Brazil's Spix Macaws lived in the wild? We don't even seem to know how to restore our own Thick-Billed Parrots.

I honestly believe cloning will be most useful for animal livestock that is valuable in dollar terms -- beef steers, racehorses, what have you. I see it doing less than expected for wild life. Of course I hope I am wrong. The California Condors are being re-introduced to the wild OK but there is even a certain amount of hand-holding with them...

To me it's a huge leap from cloning a food animal to cloning an animal that has to find its own food!