Cloning Essay -- essays research papers fc

Cloning our society It is hard to say if cloning is an answer to a problem or just another problem for the human race. There have been books, movies, and even stories about mankind creating their own species of humans. A good example of what could happen if mankind learns to clone itself is Mary Shelly's' Frankenstein, a classic novel demonstrating what could happen when mankind takes the power of "God" in our own hands. Cloning is physically a new science but ethically is a century old debate. A clone is a group of genetically identical cells that are borrowed from a single cell by asexual methods and used to create a new cell identical to the first ones. Cloning happens everyday in the human body, muscle creates more muscle, the cells in the mouth, and the walls of the large intestines are constantly dividing. Besides the human body, plants also are able to procreate by asexual means also create plants that are identical to them. "The body cells of adult animals and humans can be routinely cloned in the laboratory. Adult cells of various tissues, such as muscle cells, that are removed from the donor animal and maintained on a culture medium while receiving nutrients manage not only to survive but to go on dividing, producing colonies of identical descendants. By the 1950's scientists were able to clone frogs, producing identical individuals that carry the genetic characteristics of only a single parent. The technique used in the cloning of frogs consists of transplan ting frog DNA, contained in the nucleus of a body cell, into an egg cell whose own genetic material has been removed. The fused cells then begin to grow and divide, just like a normal fertilized egg, to form an embryo." (Britannica) The process, which was previously described, is the same way that human beings can be cloned. The major misunderstanding is that all someone needs is a sample of DNA to put in this magical machine and a couple days later a fully-grown identical twin is born. The cloning of a human being would be a very difficult, time consuming, and risky venture. It took 277 attempts to clone "Dolly", the sheep born as the first success in cloning an adult mammal. This was achieved in 1996 at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland by a team of British researchers led by Ian Wilmut. However, there is a group of people who have the intent to... ...eplace an extinct animal but the animal won't even be pure guar. The newly born animal will have some cow DNA as well and now there will be a new species not the replacement of an old one. Humans may think that we've found the answer to so many problems, when actually we have just opened the door to cloning, but that's not the only door. Scientists seem to be the only ones who want to use this new technology with caution and reason. But yet the private sector just seems to be out there for its own interests: to be the first, be the best, or to go down in history. They don't seem to care of what a large responsibility this puts on the world as an entire population, it weighs down on us with moral problems, mental problems, and cloning problems. Works Cited "Clone". Britannica. 1999-2000 ed. "Private Group Set to Launch Human Cloning Scheme" National Geographic Society. http://www.ngnews.com/news/2000/10/10132000/clone_3142287101384834.asp "Raising the Dead". New Scientist. http://www.newscienist.com/nsplus/insight/clone/raisingthedead "Cult of the Clone". New Scientist. http://www.newscientist.com/nsplus/insight/clone/cultoftheclone Cloning Essay -- essays research papers fc Cloning our society It is hard to say if cloning is an answer to a problem or just another problem for the human race. There have been books, movies, and even stories about mankind creating their own species of humans. A good example of what could happen if mankind learns to clone itself is Mary Shelly's' Frankenstein, a classic novel demonstrating what could happen when mankind takes the power of "God" in our own hands. Cloning is physically a new science but ethically is a century old debate. A clone is a group of genetically identical cells that are borrowed from a single cell by asexual methods and used to create a new cell identical to the first ones. Cloning happens everyday in the human body, muscle creates more muscle, the cells in the mouth, and the walls of the large intestines are constantly dividing. Besides the human body, plants also are able to procreate by asexual means also create plants that are identical to them. "The body cells of adult animals and humans can be routinely cloned in the laboratory. Adult cells of various tissues, such as muscle cells, that are removed from the donor animal and maintained on a culture medium while receiving nutrients manage not only to survive but to go on dividing, producing colonies of identical descendants. By the 1950's scientists were able to clone frogs, producing identical individuals that carry the genetic characteristics of only a single parent. The technique used in the cloning of frogs consists of transplan ting frog DNA, contained in the nucleus of a body cell, into an egg cell whose own genetic material has been removed. The fused cells then begin to grow and divide, just like a normal fertilized egg, to form an embryo." (Britannica) The process, which was previously described, is the same way that human beings can be cloned. The major misunderstanding is that all someone needs is a sample of DNA to put in this magical machine and a couple days later a fully-grown identical twin is born. The cloning of a human being would be a very difficult, time consuming, and risky venture. It took 277 attempts to clone "Dolly", the sheep born as the first success in cloning an adult mammal. This was achieved in 1996 at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland by a team of British researchers led by Ian Wilmut. However, there is a group of people who have the intent to... ...eplace an extinct animal but the animal won't even be pure guar. The newly born animal will have some cow DNA as well and now there will be a new species not the replacement of an old one. Humans may think that we've found the answer to so many problems, when actually we have just opened the door to cloning, but that's not the only door. Scientists seem to be the only ones who want to use this new technology with caution and reason. But yet the private sector just seems to be out there for its own interests: to be the first, be the best, or to go down in history. They don't seem to care of what a large responsibility this puts on the world as an entire population, it weighs down on us with moral problems, mental problems, and cloning problems. Works Cited "Clone". Britannica. 1999-2000 ed. "Private Group Set to Launch Human Cloning Scheme" National Geographic Society. http://www.ngnews.com/news/2000/10/10132000/clone_3142287101384834.asp "Raising the Dead". New Scientist. http://www.newscienist.com/nsplus/insight/clone/raisingthedead "Cult of the Clone". New Scientist. http://www.newscientist.com/nsplus/insight/clone/cultoftheclone