S. Korea unveils first dog clone

Attack of the clones! Haven't these people seen Cujo? Wait ... he wasn't a clone, was he? Never mind. S. Korea unveils first dog clone Some highlights ...

Scientists in South Korea have produced the first dog clones, they report in Nature magazine this week.

One of the puppies died soon after birth but the other, an Afghan hound named Snuppy, is still doing well after 16 weeks, the researchers say. Snuppy joins a host of other cloned animals including Dolly the sheep, CC the cat and Ralph the rat.

Snuppy? ... more ...

Snuppy, whose name stands for Seoul National University puppy, was made from a cell taken from the ear of a three-year-old male Afghan hound.

oh, ... more ...

Although many other animals have been successfully cloned, dogs are notoriously difficult: the South Korean team only obtained three pregnancies from more than 1,000 embryo transfers into 123 recipients.

And see, the above paragraph is where the problem is, especially when this process moves to humans, which it will. One thousand embryo "transfers" for one healthy clone? Of course, some people are concerned about the ethics. Quote!

"Canine cloning runs contrary to the Kennel Club's objective 'To promote in every way the general improvement of dogs'," Phil Buckley, spokesman for the Kennel Club told the BBC News website. "Cloning cannot be used to make improvements because the technique simply produces genetic replicas of existing dogs.

"Also, will these cloned dogs end up being used in the laboratory? That opens a whole new can of worms."

Cloned worms?!?!?! In the name of all that is good ... NOOO!!!

Oh, can of worms ... I guess we've crossed a threshold here when the only "ethical concern" comes from a Kennel Club representative when clearly science is preparing to create and destroy human embryos to serve those of us lucky enough to be born. Should we start a Kennel Club for humans?