Re-Pet in Effect

[Le Jacquelope]

For Sale: First Cloned Kitten

Fri Dec 24, 7:43 AM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California firm that earlier this year launched the world's first cat cloning service has announced its first sale: a cloned, male kitten named "Little Nicky."

Genetic Savings & Clone -- based in Sausalito, California, and financed by billionaire John Sperling -- announced that it had sold the kitten to a Texas woman for $50,000.

The cloned kitten is a genetic twin of "Nicky," a 17-year-old Maine Coone cat that had been kept as a pet by the woman until it died in September.

The client, identified only as "Julie," asked that the company not fully identify her since she feared being targeted by groups opposed to cloning.

"According to our client, Julie, 'Little Nicky,' the clone, is identical to 'Nicky,' her former cat," Ben Carlson, Vice-President of Genetic Savings & Clone, told NBC.

The Humane Society and other animal advocates have criticized pet cloning as potentially dangerous to the animals involved and wasteful, given the millions of dogs and cats that are destroyed each year in U.S. animal shelters.

Sperling, an Arizona entrepreneur who launched the for-profit University of Phoenix, underwrote the cloning of the first cat, CC, for Carbon Copy, who was born in 2001.

Genetic Savings & Clone runs a "PetBank" service allowing pet owners to send in a tissue sample for later cloning. The company says it expects to offer dog cloning in 2005. Sperling founded the company as part of a bid to clone his dog, Missy.

Dolly, a sheep cloned by Scottish researchers in 1996, was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell.

 

[MCunnilinguist]

I'd never pay that much for my pussy.

 

[GeorgeWBush]

For some reason i read this as cloned chicken.

 

[curious2c]

I think that what is known about cloning isn't enough at the present time...however, we need to continue working on this technology since it could have more effects for the good than for the bad.

In the end, fears of change are what is causing cloning to be viewed as bad. Just like Stem cell research and using those stem cells in research and producing cures for different ailments.

I understand why some fear these new sciences, but I have to hope that eventually they will be embraced instead of being disproved of.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

I'd never pay that much for my pussy.

 

[ubertroll]

I think it's a service people want, are willing to pay for, that also helps develop a science that could be used in the future to save lives [i.e. human organ generation].

I do think it would be proper of them to suggest matching-fund donations to animal welfare orgs like the ASPCA for people of means who are buying these 50k kitties.



[Incidentally, I would love, love, LOVE for these chaps to develop technology to bring back the Caspian Tiger. Largest of the big cats, it's almost certainly the most dangerous single land predator of the modern age, driven to extinction by humans]

 

[Epiphany]

I'm so vain, I bet I thought this thread was about me.

 

[Ham Murabi]

I think it's a service people want, are willing to pay for, that also helps develop a science that could be used in the future to save lives [i.e. human organ generation].

I do think it would be proper of them to suggest matching-fund donations to animal welfare orgs like the ASPCA for people of means who are buying these 50k kitties.

If you think this work would be useful, why do you suggest punishing the people who are funding it by doubling their costs?

 

[ubertroll]

If you think this work would be useful, why do you suggest punishing the people who are funding it by doubling their costs?

Um, I didn't. I suggested that if you've got a few millions lying around, and use 50k to get a cloned cat, you match that by donating 50k to the ASPCA. I don't suggest that the *researchers* be tossing out money left and right--they're a scientific endeavor, not a charitable one.

 

[Ham Murabi]

Um, I didn't. I suggested that if you've got a few millions lying around, and use 50k to get a cloned cat, you match that by donating 50k to the ASPCA. I don't suggest that the *researchers* be tossing out money left and right--they're a scientific endeavor, not a charitable one.

But that's exactly what you did. You have doubled the price for people who want to have the researchers work for then.

 

[ubertroll]

But that's exactly what you did. You have doubled the price for people who want to have the researchers work for then.

No, I have suggested that people buying a 50k cat also show some charity to cats that the shelters can't get people to take in for $15 in licenses and fees.

Since when does suggesting a donation equal a price increase?

Wow... you really really really want an argument. You poor bastard. No family in town for Christmas? Hoping that some bizarre form of human interaction by proxy will substitute for the empty void of lonliness you feel inside?

 

[MCunnilinguist]

Cloning a pet is like a "custom job", other than practise, little is being learned as cats have already been done.

 

[ubertroll]

Cloning a pet is like a "custom job", other than practise, little is being learned as cats have already been done.

Not true; they're developing new and more effective cloning techniques that can be translated to other organisms.

For instance, the team now works on a procedure that only transfers the clone-DNA to the new egg, rather than the entire nucleus of a cell from the animal being cloned.

 

[Ham Murabi]

No, I have suggested that people buying a 50k cat also show some charity to cats that the shelters can't get people to take in for $15 in licenses and fees.

Since when does suggesting a donation equal a price increase?

Wow... you really really really want an argument. You poor bastard. No family in town for Christmas? Hoping that some bizarre form of human interaction by proxy will substitute for the empty void of lonliness you feel inside?

Merry Christmas.

 

[ubertroll]

Merry Christmas.

Enjoy the birth of your false god, you idolotrous pagan.

 

[OneColdMonkey]

You know, I'm actually all for cloning. I think it makes a lot of sense to, say, be able to clone someone's body, only without a brain or central nervous system, for harvesting. It wouldn't have a soul... It's just flesh. Flesh that could save bodies that DO have souls.

EDIT- Also, I'd love to get my dog Rhino back. Best. Dog. Ever.

 

[RhumbRunner13]

Enjoy the birth of your false god, you idolotrous pagan.

Why do I get the feeling you're Jewish?

Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas, Jew boy!

Rhumb

 

[John Doe]

Enjoy the birth of your false god, you idolotrous pagan.

LOL

Oh, and about the cloning. Yeah, organ generation, good shit. Well, it will be anyway.

 

[Ham Murabi]

Enjoy the birth of your false god, you idolotrous pagan.

lol