Quote:
Originally posted by Rick V
*rant-on*
I just watched a story on the news about meat and milk from "cloned" animals. Am I missing something, is there a problem with cows,pigs,and chickens, doing the wild thing to make more of them? Why do we need to clone food? Isn't there a better way to spend research money...................like curing the common cold?
The last time I looked critters just went at it in the middle of a field and they made more critters.
I just don't understand, and can't wait for the research to see what cloned chickens do in space. (another big waste of money)
*rant-off*
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They use clones of particularly productive individual animals for their productivity potential, same for plants, only more so. Cuttings taken from grape vines for example, are in fact clones since they'll produce exactly the same grapes as the parent plant. The
clones of specific French wine grapes is a billion dollar industry.
The problem with animals to a certain extent, and with humans very strongly is that you can't avoid chromosomal drift in the clones. Little by little the cloned animals change, usually for the worse because the chromosomes become damaged over time.
This phenomena is being studied, but my expectations that the problem will never be overcome in humans, so the research should be in plant reproduction. Some chromosomal drift produces new, better plants, or some other change such as the fuzzless peaches we call
nectarines.