We’ve all thought about a clone of ourselves before. Someone that could do stuff for us, the way we would want it to be done, someone who we could ask very personal questions to, or just someone we could prank our friends with.
As fun of an idea it may sound, scientists and researchers are looking into transforming cloning humans into a reality. Let’s dig deeper.
What is Cloning?
Cloning is the process of producing genetically identical individuals of an organism. Mother nature has already figured out a way to do it, with many species of trees and plants. This is done through something called asexual reproduction, where offsprings arise from a single organism.
A question someone may ask is: “Why don’t all living things just clone themselves, instead of having trouble finding partners? Wouldn’t it be more efficient?” If you think about it, evolution is based on the mixing of two different genetic heritages, where the stronger characteristics survive. Without normal sexual reproduction, there would be no evolution, therefore, no progress.
Why should we clone ourselves?
Leaving aside the comfort aspect, which is not achievable due to ethical problems, clones could be used in long term missions in space, once we will have the capabilities of building powerful and long-lasting spaceships. Other than that, the other possible uses of cloning are full of controversies and ethical issues, so we haven’t come to a conclusion
Uses of cloning
Cloning has excessive usages in various fields, such as medicine, agriculture, biology, etc.
For instance, cloning could be used to clone endangered species, organ transplants, and possibly, immortality. The question is if you were cloned, would it really be you?
How cloning works
In 1996, cloning was revolutionized, when Ian Wilmut, at the Roslin Institute in Scotland, successfully cloned a sheep, named Dolly. Dolly was, in fact, the first animal to have ever been cloned.
Wilmut and his colleagues transplanted a nucleus from a mammary gland cell of a Finn Dorsett sheep into the enucleated egg of a Scottish blackface ewe. The nucleus-egg combination was stimulated with electricity to fuse the two and to stimulate cell division. The new cell divided and was placed in the uterus of a blackface ewe to develop. Dolly was born months later.
Dolly was shown to be genetically identical to the Finn Dorsett mammary cells and not to the blackface ewe, which clearly demonstrated that she was a successful clone (it took 276 attempts before the experiment was successful). Dolly has since grown and reproduced, a not-so-typical “and they lived happily ever after” scenario, but still valid.
Conclusion
Cloning will probably help us reach some state of immortality in the future, however, ethically speaking, machines and IA are, in our opinion, a better option.
Sources: wikipedia.com, britannica.com, learn.genetics.utah.ed, digitaltrends.com, science.howstuffworks.com
