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Zoo to Take 1st Cloned Endangered Animal

SAN DIEGO - The world's first clone of an endangered species is getting ready for his public debut at the San Diego Zoo.


Jahava, an 8-month-old male banteng, was expected to be moved Thursday from the San Diego Wild Animal Park in north San Diego to the zoo, where he will share an area with three banteng females.


Jahava was cloned from skin cells collected from a male banteng born at the zoo in 1974 that never reproduced. A banteng is a form of wild cattle from Southeast Asia.


The cells were cultured by the Zoological Society of San Diego's Center for Reproduction of Endangered Species and were stored in liquid nitrogen at minus 328 degrees. Last year, the cells were inserted into the egg of an Iowa cow.


Although Jahava looks like a banteng, he has genetic material from the cow, zoo geneticist Oliver Ryder said. If Jahava mates with another banteng, the offspring is expected to be full banteng, he said.


In his new home from the zoo, Jahava will be the smallest of the banteng group for some time. He will be distinguishable by his thicker and slightly parted horns.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=624&e=7&u=/ap/zoo_cloned_banteng

For.

But then I'm also for stem cell research, my wife a biologist and scientist, though she may be for cloning, is adamantly against stem cell research.

I like Sci-fi to much not to be for it.

Serious question.

How can you be "close" to curing something?

Until you're cured, you still have the disease.

I don’t think this is a good idea, and im speaking from a nature point of view.

Not that we are playing god, but we are playing nature, and nature will always turn on us.

tailgater

i'm glad i read it twice. i was going to give you a flip answer like you can tell when water is getting ready to boil.

research close to curing, means some people have had parkinsons slowed down so it doesn't get any worse. i have read nothing about reversal, but it appears that if caught early enough, it could be prevented from getting as debilitating as it evevtually becomes.

israel scientests have also tested cases similar to christopher reeves and have gotten some regeneration in the spinal cord. the patients tested were able to feel some of the lower extremities and some have gotten movement, however slight in a toe.

it's a start.

For !
recycle......we do it with donors on drivers licenses. my mother has bad parkinsons and if stem cell might possibly help......try!

my opinion

Im talking about the cloning of people and animals.

Rick,
I know the difference between a treatment and a cure.
The two are often not related.

Science is great, but as a civilized society we must not try to achieve things simply because we can.

I'm an engineer by degree, so I would never suggest that we squelch progress in the sciences. But to arbitrarily trudge forward in some sort of ego-maniacle footrace to be the "first" to clone a higher species can not be taken lightly.

I've yet to hear a convincing arguement for the cloning of humans. And if we're not going to clone humans, then why clone lower species?

Many books have been written about us building these super robots in the future, they start to kill us off because they see us as a lower life form and a threat.

If we start cloning (super humans) Im sure the aclu would fight for their rights and they would take over the government and enslave us real people.

I would have to do some research on this, but Hitler had some type of super race/human idea in the works, Im sure he would be very interested in this cloning stuff if he was around today.

It just gives me the creeps trying to think into the future about this topic.

Also Rick, if you clone you dog, it will only look like your old dog, it would have a new brain that would not know who you are. Unless they could transplant the brain.

What would happen if we could live forever in our physical copied bodies? Maybe that’s the future, we stop reproducing all together and just reclone our bodies after they get old and weak then reinsert our old brains back in.

> Science is great, but as a civilized society we must
> not try to achieve things simply because we can.

Why not? That's what pure research is, and a lot times we don't know where an experiment will lead until it's been done. There are undoubtedly numerous offshoot technologies which will become evident as cloning is developed and perfected, but there are plenty of more immediate and obvious benefits (such as stem-cells), as well.

Rickamaven,

These people usually come around once one of their loved-ones require the benefits of this research.