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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

A dog lies unconscious on the operating table, as Woosuk Hwang gently lifts the puppy from its womb. While I watch, one of his researchers, David Kim, tells me about the original – the source of this puppy’s DNA.

He calls it the original, because the nearly born puppy is a clone [newscientist.com].

Hwang snips open the amniotic sac and the little fur ball slips out into the world. It’s black, wet – and motionless. An assistant wraps it in a towel, massages it gently – and it starts to yelp. Success!

This puppy is a sign of things to come for Hwang and his lab. For the past few years, the lab has worked on cloning domestic dogs. Now the researchers plan move on to saving their wild relatives. They want to rescue some of the world’s most endangered canids, including the Ethiopian wolf and the dhole, or Asiatic wild dog.

This has raised concerns among conservationists, not least because they fear cloning will be little more than a shiny distraction from wider efforts to preserve habitats and biodiversity.

Original Submission