Also it's possible that some stuff was genetically engineered and looks freaky. There have been news stories about embryos made from cow and human DNA, for example, but the claim is that these are stopped before they develop beyond a certain point. Who knows how far the unethical experimentation has been allowed to progress with such stuff in reality.
Before people start saying "oh no she's a nutcase" read it and weep:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/371378.stm
ACT said it had no intention of attempting to use the human cloning procedure to start a pregnancy - its aim was "therapeutic cloning" not "reproductive cloning", it said.
That time maybe. Also they say that the embryo doesn't have cow DNA, but it would have cow dna in the mitochondria in the cells.
G-d only knows how far this stuff goes.
I am pro-science but human life needs to be respected more than that.
Rubystars, I'm disappointed. I think your comments are ill-informed and based on paranoia rather than fact.
There have been news stories about embryos made from cow and human DNA, for example, but the claim is that these are stopped before they develop beyond a certain point.
The claim? They are "claiming" or simply informing us about it because that is true! Harvesting the stem cells from an embryo destroys the embryo so that it can no longer be carried to term if implanted into a surrogate.
Btw, this study is from 1999, which was BEFORE the Bush ban on creating new embryonic stem cell lines, just for reference. So it was completely legal and justified research.
Who knows how far the unethical experimentation has been allowed to progress with such stuff in reality.
I don't see that this study was unethical, nor that unethical experimentation is allowed by US law in scientific research. Institutions like Advanced Cell technology, major universities, hospitals, research institutes, etc obey the guidelines set out by US law for ethics in research because 1. the vast majority of scientists (if not all of them - there's never been a poll as far as I know) agree that ethical guidelines are important to put limitations in science and ensure that only humane research is conducted, and 2. these researchers will be denied funding and lose their jobs if they don't follow these guidelines (and possibly face legal prosecution as well).
ACT said it had no intention of attempting to use the human cloning procedure to start a pregnancy - its aim was "therapeutic cloning" not "reproductive cloning", it said.
That time maybe. Also they say that the embryo doesn't have cow DNA, but it would have cow dna in the mitochondria in the cells.
Human cloning is illegal. That they have no intention to do it, is quite likely. I see no reason to think otherwise, especially based on this article.
They say the embryo doesn't have cow DNA because it doesn't - for this procedure to work, the cow's egg cell must first be denucleated.
It does not have cow dna in the cells, it would only have cow
mitochondrial DNA which is something different than chromosomal DNA, so it doesn't make sense to say it would have cow dna in the cells. It does not. And it's very clear that this procedure was done in order to harvest human stem cells from the embryo, so they do not let this thing grow beyond the pre-implantation stage of development (it is grown 12 days).
Not only would it be unethical and against the law to implant a created embryo like this into a surrogate mother in order to try to carry it to term as a "clone," (why would they do that with a cow egg cell rather than a human egg cell?) it would also be very likely to fail (the Italians who were trying to clone humans after other countries banned it failed again and again) and even if it is born it is likely to have health complications. So I see less than a reasonable explanation for why they would even try to do this especially when overtly going out of their way to clarify to the public that that is not what they're doing. (ie
The company said it had released news of the discovery to try to allay fears over the artificial conception of life.
So, at the time, they didn't even need to report any of the then- as-yet-unpublished work they were doing but did so anyway for public benefit). (and perhaps to scoop their rivals)