geekosystem

In a scientific first, researchers at Oregon Health & Science University have created cloned human embryos they can use to harvest embryonic stem cells for human transplant. The long-sought advance -- which has the potential to make stem cell therapies safer and less prone to rejection -- has been the goal of many stem cell researchers for years, and will no doubt prove controversial, but could have the capability to drive the next stage of development in human stem cell therapies that could one day prove capable of of treating a vast range of diseases.

Do you remember where you were when scientists in Scotland announced that they'd cloned a sheep? It happened today, in 1997. The poster girl who triggered our collective identity crises -- and turned science fiction into science fact -- was named Dolly. Find out how they did it and what else they've cloned.

Nothing puts me in the holiday spirit like cold hard science. That's why the news that German scientists are planning to clone the perfect Christmas tree has me feeling so festive. The plan is to increase the percentage of saplings that grow to mature Christmas trees of a popular species. This should make the tree selection process a lot simpler, since they'll all be pretty much identical.

Your hopes of ever visiting a real-life Jurassic Park -- yes, we all still hold onto that dream, minus the rampaging dinosaurs part -- may have just been dashed upon the jagged cliffs of science fact. A team of researchers from Australia's Murdoch University released a study today suggesting that the very longest DNA could survive in a fossil intact is about 6.8 million years, meaning that giant lizards from the Cretaceous period are not viable candidates for cloning, no matter how sweet that would be.

We've all been there. Your pet gets sick, dies, and then you send off their genetic material to South Korea to have them cloned. Maybe not that last bit. That's what Edgar and Nina Otto did, however, when their precious Sir Lancelot died of cancer four years ago. Now the cloned dog, Lancelot Encore, has produced offspring the old-fashioned way and fathered eight adorable puppies. Which, in a way, makes him both their father and grandfather.

This rather lovely albeit suspenseful short animated film -- simply titled MURDER -- from Yang Tzu Ting is really something else. After a scientist's twin brother is murdered, he attempts to use the cloning machine the two of them created to reproduce his brother. After all, twins are basically clones, right? Surely nothing could go wrong as evidenced by the dark and stormy night all of this seems to happen on. Only good and awesome things happen in gloomy laboratories.

Russian and South Korean scientists have agreed upon joint research and signed a deal on intended to recreated the extinct woolly mammoth via the only means (somewhat) currently available when trying to recreate a species that is no more: Cloning.

Life finds a way, and sometimes that way is a curious and determined scientist.  Professor Akira Iritani is one such man. He says that the technological hurdles in the way of cloning a healthy mammoth have mostly been overcome.

The success rate in the cloning of cattle was poor until recently but now stands at about 30 per cent. I think we have a reasonable chance of success and a healthy mammoth could be born in four or five years.