Cloning is the process of using one organism's DNA to create another organism exactly the same. This process is very controversial and I will be writing about some of the views that people have on this subject. Cloning, like everything, has pros and cons.
The benefits of cloning range from making copies of those who have deceased to better engineering offspring in humans and animals. Cloning also provides a better way of curing diseases such as aids, cancers, etc. At the moment the agricultural industry demands nuclear transfer to provide better livestock. Also, cloning could be use to increase numbers of animals on the endangered species list. Biological proteins would be able to be produced to cure people with diseases like diabetes, Parkinson's and Cystic Fibrosis. Pigs could be cloned to produce organs that would not be rejected by humans. Cloning could give couples who would like children, but could not have any, a chance to have them. This process would also let single women have a child without using in-vitro fertilisation or artificial insemination. Cloning could also make a copy of a deceased child for the parents. Also it would be a very useful tool for historians as people such as Hitler would be able to be recreated and studied to find out what their motivations were.
Besides from all these good points cloning also has bad points. The biggest problem with cloning on a large scale is the lack of genetic diversity. If everyone has the same genetic material, what happens if we lose the ability to clone? We would have to resort to natural reproduction, causing us to inbreed, which will cause many problems. Religious people are completely against cloning. They generally say that scientists are not respecting the fact that humans have souls and we would be taking the work of God into our own hands.
Dolly the sheep was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell. The process of cloning used to do this is called Nuclear Transfer. This is done by transferring the information from the nucleus of a cell. The cloning of Dolly shows that cloning is very risky in these early stages. It took the scientists who produced Dolly 277 tries to get it right. And all the way along they produced lambs with abnormalities.
Amazingly, the first attempts at artificial cloning were as early as the beginning of this century. Adolph Eduard Driesch could let the eggs of a sea urchin develop into the two-blastomere stage. Then he separated it by shaking it in a flask and allowing them to grow. The cells developed into dwarf sea urchins. Driesch could not explain his experiments and gave up embryology for philosophy. The first implantation of a nucleus into an egg cell occurred in 1952 by Robert Briggs and ...
In today's society, we are faced with or placed in many unpredictable and stressful situations. However, many of us manage to properly analyze the situations and maintain our sanity, experiencing only a mild form of , if any. Others may encounter similar situations and become mentally depressed. Some reasons for being depressed are normal, such as...
One of the most controversial areas associated with the global problem of deforestation is the Pacific Northwest of the US. The problem can be broken down into several issues that all tie in together. These include the near extinction of the Northern Spotted Owl, the "business" aspect of logging versus the environmental aspect, and the role of the...
has been a reoccurring phenomenon for centuries. Man has only started to realize how much of the worlds weather is effected by it. The term refers to an irregular warming of the seas surface. During the last 40 years there have been 10 significant occurrences. Most affecting the coast of South America. Water temperatures increase along the...
Physics 009 Professor Arns The human population is currently using up its fossil fuel supplies at staggering rates. Before long we will be forced to turn somewhere else for energy. There are many possibilities such as hydroelectric energy, nuclear energy, wind energy, solar energy and geothermal energy to name a few. Each one of these choices h...
Hormonal Growth of Male Reproductive Function To complete this worksheet, select: Module: Continuity Activity: Animations Title: Hormonal Growth of Male Reproductive Function Introduction 1. What organs are involved in hormonal control of male reproductive functions? Testis, hypothalamus, an anterior pituitary. Hormonal Control...