Free Republic

- Food and milk from the offspring of cloned animals may already have entered the U.S. food supply, the Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday, but it would be impossible to know because there is no difference between cloned and conventional products. The FDA said in January meat and milk from cloned cattle, swine and goats and their offspring were as safe to eat as products obtained from traditional animals. Before then, farmers and ranchers had followed a voluntary moratorium that prevented the sale of clones and their offspring. "It is theoretically possible" offspring from clones are in the...

Food and milk from the offspring of cloned animals may have entered the U.S. food supply, the U.S. government said on Tuesday, but it would be impossible to know because there is no difference between cloned and conventional products. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in January meat and milk from cloned cattle, swine and goats and their offspring were as safe as products from traditional animals. Before then, farmers and ranchers had followed a voluntary moratorium on the sale of clones and their offspring. While the FDA evaluated the safety of food from clones and their offspring, the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Making human-animal embryos for scientific experiments should be allowed because of the benefits to science and medicine, British experts said in a report released for Sunday. Such embryos should never, however, be implanted into either a woman or an animal, said the Academy of Medical Sciences. The combinations would include animal eggs and the nucleus, containing the genetic material, of a human being, or human embryos that carry the genetic material of an animal, the independent advisory body said. A cloning technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT for short, involves removing the nucleus from an...

The nation's biggest milk company, Dean Foods, said Thursday it will refuse milk from cloned cows. The Food and Drug Administration gave preliminary approval to meat and milk from cloned animals and could grant final approval by the end of the year. Federal scientists say there is virtually no difference between clones and conventional cows, pigs or goats. Smaller companies such as Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream and Organic Valley previously have said they oppose milk from clones. Dallas-based Dean Foods is a $10 billion company that owns Land OLakes and Horizon Organic, among dozens of other brands. In a...

LOS ANGELES -- A long-awaited study by US scientists has concluded that meat and milk from cloned animals and their offspring are safe to eat and drink and should be allowed to enter the food supply without any special labeling. The finding is a strong signal that the Food and Drug Administration will endorse the use of cloning technology for cattle, goats, and pigs when it publishes a key safety assessment intended to clear the way for formal approval of the products. That assessment is expected this week. "All of the studies indicate that the composition of meat and milk...

Cloneburgers, anyone? Farmer can’t wait Facing eviction, dairyman considers breaking ban on cloned meat Updated: 7:21 p.m. ET Dec 19, 2006 WILLIAMSPORT, Md. - For nearly four years, dairy farmer Greg Wiles has poured milk from his cloned cows down the drain in compliance with a voluntary ban on food from cloned livestock. Now in financial straits, Wiles says he may be forced to sell his cloned cows for hamburger. The Food and Drug Administration says that’s probably safe, but pressure from the food industry has kept the agency from actually approving it. Milk and meat marketers worry that consumers...

A cloned human would probably consider themselves to be an individual, a study suggests. Scientists drew their conclusions after interviewing identical twins about their experiences of sharing exactly the same genes with somebody else. The team said the twins believed their genes played a limited role in shaping their identity. The UK/Austrian research will shortly be published in the journal of Social Science and Medicine. Co-author Dr Barbara Prainsack, from the University of Vienna, Austria, who worked with Professor Tim Spector, from the Twins Research Unit, St Thomas' Hospital, London, said: "The birth of Dolly the sheep triggered many questions...

A GUN-control group has called for a total ban on semi-automatic handguns to prevent them falling into criminal hands with deadly consequences. Speaking at the launch of a new national anti-handgun advertising campaign, National Coalition for Gun Control chair Sam Lee said the future looked bleak in relation to guns. "What we are going to see in the future is more high-powered handguns on the streets because gun manufacturers are developing what are called quick-draws, which means they can be quickly grabbed and aimed at someone," Ms Lee said. The campaign launch comes just days after the fatal drive-by shootings...

<p>There was news last week that scientists in South Korea have succeeded in cloning a human embryo. Their reported intent is to extract stem cells from the cloned embryos for research and therapeutic purposes, not to produce cloned babies. But if these accounts are accurate, the world is a large step closer to reproductive cloning. What would a world with human clones be like?</p>

Stem cells have been obtained from a cloned human embryo for the first time by scientists in South Korea. The breakthrough is being seen as a significant step towards growing patients' own replacement tissue to treat degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease. The team took genetic material from volunteer women and combined it with their eggs. The resulting embryo was then cultured to produce the cells. The experiment - the first published report of cloned human stem cells - means so-called therapeutic cloning is no longer a theory but a reality. Grow-your-own organs Supporters of medical cloning say it can...

Five law lords rejected the final appeal yesterday by the Pro-Life Alliance against the law that allows experiments with cloned human embryos. The alliance successfully argued in the high court in 2001 that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, which regulates research on embryos, did not cover cloned embryos produced by cell nuclear replacement (CNR), the technique used to produce Dolly the sheep. The ruling, which would have left human cloning totally unregulated, forced the government to rush through legislation banning the use of cloning to produce a baby. It also threatened to wreck the use of early-stage cloned...

In his 1950 science-fiction novel I, Robot, Isaac Asimov presented the Three Laws of Robotics: "1. A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law." The irrational fears people express today about cloning parallel those surrounding robotics half a century ago. So I would like to...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Reuters) - A Florida judge dismissed a petition to appoint a state guardian for allegedly cloned baby "Eve" on Wednesday after the company that says it cloned the child stated the infant was in Israel. Expressing skepticism that a cloned child even existed but concern for its welfare if it did, Juvenile Court Judge John Frusciante said his court had no jurisdiction in the case. Frusciante dismissed the private citizen's petition after Clonaid President Brigitte Boisselier testified to the court in Fort Lauderdale that the child and her mother were in Israel and the baby had never...

IT WILL horrify the French, put Daisy the cow out of a job, and bring the price of cheese crashing down. Scientists in New Zealand have cloned a herd of cows designed to produce genetically enhanced milk that almost turns itself into cheese. Cows have previously been genetically modified to produce medicinal proteins in their milk, but researchers have now created nine cows engineered to produce milk that can be turned into cheese far faster and more easily. The team led by Gotz Laible at AgResearch in Hamilton, New Zealand, engineered cow cells to overproduce milk proteins called caseins. This...

Reproductive cloning is a morally repellent practice that should -- and likely soon will -- be banned. This helps explain why so much attention has been paid to the Raelians, a Quebec-based UFO cult that claims to have produced the world's first cloned baby, "Eve." Last weekend, the Raelians announced the delivery of a second cloned baby, this time to a lesbian couple from the Netherlands. On Monday, the group declared that three more clones were due to be born in the next six weeks. Get out your light sabre: Apparently, we're facing a veritable attack of the clones. But...

Wednesday, 8 January, 2003, 18:12 GMT 'Clone baby' parents bar tests The Raelian sect believes humans were cloned by aliens The parents of a baby said to be the world's first human clone have suspended tests which could prove whether the claim is true. The Clonaid company said the parents had decided not to have the tests until they were guaranteed that the baby - nicknamed Eve - would not be taken away. I'm not advocating that a child be ripped from a mother's arms Lawyer Bernard Siegel As the controversy continues over the authentication of the claim, there have...

The leader of the Raelian cult, which claims to have created two infant clones, was a terrible husband and father and repeatedly unfaithful, his ex-wife told a French newspaper yesterday.His aunt added that whenever Rael, whose real name is Claude Vorilhon, spoke about the aliens who cloned him, his family would call him “cornichon”, a French word meaning both gherkin and nincompoop.The Raelians’ chief scientist, Brigitte Boisselier, claimed yesterday that three more cloned children would be born within a month. Scientists, however, remained sceptical about the two allegedly cloned babies already born.Rael said he had now instructed Mme Boisselier to...

FROM AUG. 2001: MIDI - SEND IN THE CLOWNS We’ll make them smart…right from the start We will make sure that each has a healthy heart Send in the clones Next thing you know…we’ll surely go To that bizarre island of Dr. Moreau Send in the clones…we need those clones Our Brave New World…oh, what a world Huxley had told us of what he knew would be unfurled I’ve seen the future and, friends, I can tell you I hurled Send in those clones…we need those clones It’s time to fear…it’s become clear Shelley was right and our own Frankenstein’s...

Resurrection of Zachary Wheeler (1971) Suspense/Horror The story of a mysterious clinic whose patients consist of "somas"--artificial people whose sole purpose is to hold human organs in their bodies for transplants. Senator Zachary Wheeler is brought to this clinic after a horrible car accident where he is mysteriously healed. A curious TV reporter seeks to find the sinister truth of this peculiar clinic whose prize patient is a U.S. Presidential candidate. ====================== I saw this black and white movie on television probably not long after it was introduced. It really was an amazing look into the future. Will we "create"...

Sex Secrets of the Clonaid Group developing on Drudge....developing..breaking..

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Applied Biosystems Group, the No. 1 maker of gene sequencing machines, said Friday it will lay off 9 percent of its work force, eliminating about 500 jobs. The company, based in Foster City, Calif., said would cut 400 regular jobs and 100 contract and temporary workers beginning next month, because it expects many sources of research funding to be canceled or delayed next year, including anticipated federal government grants. The company, whose machines helped decipher the genomes in humans and scores of other animals, plants and microbes,...

Rael, father of a science-oriented religious movement that espouses cloning, next to a model of the flying saucer he says he saw in 1973.Two years ago, a prosperous Israeli businessman was diagnosed with a terminal illness. The disease is atrophying his body so that, day by day, he is losing the ability to perform simple, routine functions. Concluding that a life dependent on others is not worth living, he stopped taking his medication. Fifty-eight years old and childless, he decided, when the end was near, that he wants to leave something of himself behind. He rapidly became obsessed with the...

<p>Dispatched on a rescue-and-capture mission, unmanned vehicles arrive at the scene in minutes, corner a potential suspect and await visual confirmation before proceeding. Star Wars 2020? It might be happening sooner than you think.</p> <p>Allen Moshfegh at the Office of Naval Research is the head of the Autonomous Intelligent Network and Systems (AINS), a program that aims to create an operational drone army by the year 2020.</p>

The first human clone 'due in December'Paris - The first human created by cloning is scheduled to be born in December, said controversial Italian doctor Severino Antinori in an interview with the French newspaper Liberation on Friday. Antinori said 50 couples unable to conceive because of masculine infertility had volunteered for his cloning programme. "I transferred 18 embryos created by cloning, and I obtained one pregnancy," he said. "The foetus has a good morphology." With the embryo created by using tissue from the father, the child will presumably be his exact genetic duplicate, and his twin, if male. At the...

Designing Trees The same, often controversial gene-tweaking techniques that brought uspest-resistant fruits and vegetables now have a new target: trees. By Naomi Lubick Image: Courtesy of S. MerkleUNTIL THE BLIGHT, majestic American Chestnut trees dominated many U.S. forests. This image was taken in 1910 in the Great Smokey Mountains of North Carolina. To gain an appreciation for the promise--and perils--of genetically modified trees, consider the case of the American chestnut. Few trees have had such a remarkable presence and impact on the American landscape and ecosystem as the chestnut. Mature trees grew to 100 feet tall and their trunks...

  An Old Dog No Longer Barks by Rex Reed Hold on to your No-Doz: Another Star Wars is here. Episode II-Attack of the Clones is as exciting as a rancid Yoo-Hoo. These horrors don't go away; they just keep coming back, like penicillin-resistant viruses. This $120 million installment (cheap by series standards) looks and sounds like the four that came before, except that it's noisier and stupider than the last-and twice as boring. From his secluded Skywalker Ranch in the California redwoods, George Lucas has built a billion-dollar empire putting comic books on film. Grown-ups with the arrested development...

Cells reprogram in 24 hoursErasing molecular memory of parents could shed light on clones.19 April 2002HELEN PEARSON An embryo deletes its parents mark early on. © GettyImages Cells naturally wipe out the mark of their parents in 24 hours, say cloning experts. Exactly how may begin to explain the way that animal clones and stem cells are reprogrammed.Not all genes are born equal. In mammals, some genes are imprinted - cells switch on only the copy inherited from mum or dad, not both.This sex stamp must be erased and rewritten in sperm and egg cells, however, so they are...

"...Where does (George) Lucas stand in this political polemic? "I'm more on the liberal side of things," he says. "I grew up in San Francisco in the '60s, and my positions are sort of shaped by that ... If you look back 30 years ago, there were certain issues with the Kennedys, with Richard Nixon, that focused my interest." Lucas' own geopolitics can sound pretty bleak: "All democracies turn into dictatorships—but not by coup. The people give their democracy to a dictator, whether it's Julius Caesar or Napoleon or Adolf Hitler. Ultimately, the general population goes along with the idea...