Free Republic

Escaped self-cloning mutant crayfish created in experimental breeding programmes have invaded a Belgian cemetery. Hundreds of the duplicating crustaceans, which can dig down to up to a metre and are always female, pose a deadly threat to local biodiversity after colonising a historic Antwerp graveyard. "It's impossible to round up all of them. It's like trying to empty the ocean with a thimble," said Kevin Scheers, of the Flemish Institute for Nature and Woodland Research. Marbled crayfish, which travel across land and water at night and eat whatever they can, do not occur in nature and are banned by the...

British scientists have announced that they have successfully clone a dinosaur, according to a spokesman from Liverpool’s Jon Moore University... They’ve cloned an Aparosaurus by extracting DNA from a well-preserved fossil, then injected it into a fertile ostrich womb. The dinosaur, nicknamed “Spot” is currently being incubated at the university’s College of Veterinary Medicine. “Ostriches share a lot of genetic traits with dinosaurs,” said Dr. Gerrard Jones, a biology professor at LJMU and the project’s leading scientist. “Their eggshell microstructures are almost identical to those of the Apatosaurus. That’s why the cloning worked so perfectly.” Religious groups and animal rights...

South Korean customs authorities say they have successfully turned a group of cloned Labrador retrievers into world-class sniffer dogs. To create the ideal customs dogs, a team of Seoul National University scientists, led by researcher Lee Byung-Chun, cloned a successful Canadian sniffer dog in 2007. Lee was a former colleague of Hwang Woo-Suk, the scientist who was disgraced when his claims about his work with human stem cells were proved false. But Lee severed ties with Hwang in 2006, according to the Agence France-Presse. Seven cloned puppies were born, and six completed the 16-month training program to become sniffer dogs....

ISFAHAN, Iran – Iranian scientists have cloned a goat and plan future experiments they hope will lead to a treatment for stroke patients, the leader of the research said Wednesday. The female goat, named Hana, was born early Wednesday in the city of Isfahan in central Iran, said Dr. Mohammed Hossein Nasr e Isfahani, head of the Royan Research Institute. "With the birth of Hana, Iran is among five countries in the world cloning a baby goat," said Isfahani, an embryologist. In 2006 Iran became the first country in the Middle East to announce it had cloned a sheep. Two...

MYFOXPhoenix.com/Arizona Dept. of Public Safety Arizona Department of Public Safety Detectives have confiscated about 2,118 pounds of marijuana from a truck that appeared identical to a United Parcel Service truck. A suspect fled the scene when an officer and narcotics canine attempted to stop the vehicle, according to MYFOXPhoenix.com. A search of the truck yielded nearly $1.2 million worth of marijuana bundles typically transported by

Duane Kraemer approaches with pride the Angus bull eating hay behind a fence at Texas A&M University. As the veterinary surgeon draws near, the bull snorts and paws the ground. Healthy as he looks, many Americans would not want to see this bull become steak on their plate. His name, “86 squared”, hints at his origins as the clone of a bull called 86. The US Food and Drug Administration set off a debate across the food industry when it ruled in January that clones of cattle, pigs and goats were safe to eat. Since then the US Department of...

Having completed a years-long scientific review, the Food and Drug Administration is set to announce as early as next week that meat and milk from cloned farm animals and their offspring can start making their way toward supermarket shelves, sources in contact with the agency said yesterday. The decision would be a notable act of defiance against Congress, which last month passed appropriations legislation recommending that any such approval be delayed pending further studies. Moreover, the Senate version of the Farm bill, yet to be reconciled with the House version, contains stronger, binding language that would block FDA action on...

SEOUL, South Korea - While South Korea's most famous scientist was resigning Friday in disgrace after his university said he faked stem cell research, one of his greatest purported breakthroughs was romping in the snow. Snuppy, an Afghan hound that researcher Hwang Woo-suk said he cloned, was shown in photographs by South Korean media being led by a handler on a leash through the grounds of Seoul National University's animal hospital, where the dog is now kept. "Lonely Snuppy after professor Hwang leaves," Yonhap news agency wrote in one photo caption. Hwang unveiled Snuppy — named for Seoul National University...

TEHRAN, Iran - In less than two months, Iran hopes to celebrate the birth of cloned sheep, the first such attempt in the Middle East and part of the country's ambitions _ along with its nuclear and space programs _ to become a regional high-tech powerhouse. The cloning program has won backing from Iran's Muslim Shiite religious leaders, who have issued religious decrees authorizing animal cloning but banning human reproductive cloning. A majority of Iran's nearly 70 million people are Shiites. In contrast, Sunni Muslim religious leaders _ including senior clerics in Saudi Arabia _ have banned cloning altogether, even...

Fly results might benefit methods for cloning mammals. As if there weren't enough of them in the world already, scientists have succeeded in cloning flies. The identical fruitflies are the first insects ever cloned, says the Canadian team that created them. The question everyone asks, says group leader Vett Lloyd of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, is why anyone would want to clone flies in the first place. She hopes that the insects, which are very easy to experiment with, will help to fine-tune the cloning process in other animals and even in humans, where the technique is being...

Research is moving forward to create cloned children out of left-over body parts from aborted babies and 'spare' IVF embryos according to a recent article from the National Post. To those who have been following the reproductive technologies, this is not news. Chimeras, human-animal hybrids, have been created in the lab for years. Human DNA has been injected into cow and monkey ova and allowed to grow into embryos before being destroyed. Ova have been harvested from the ovaries of aborted girls and artificially brought to maturity and inseminated. Some countries outlaw this, others permit it as part of what...

LAFARGE, Wisc., Oct. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Today's statement of support for animal cloning by the F.D.A. was swiftly condemned by Organic Valley, one of the nation's foremost organic brands and the only one to be 100 percent farmer owned. "By allowing foods from cloned animals into the food system without proof of their long-term effects on human, animal and environmental health, the F.D.A. is not protecting the consumer. The F.D.A. is furthering their support of the abhorrent attempt by corporate interests to control the genes of our citizenry," warned George Siemon, CEO of Organic Valley. "American families should not be...

Organic Valley Blasts F.D.A. Support for Animal Cloning; Warns People are not Guinea Pigs Friday October 31, 7:46 am ET LAFARGE, Wisc., Oct. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Today's statement of support for animal cloning by the F.D.A. was swiftly condemned by Organic Valley, one of the nation's foremost organic brands and the only one to be 100 percent farmer owned. "By allowing foods from cloned animals into the food system without proof of their long-term effects on human, animal and environmental health, the F.D.A. is not protecting the consumer. The F.D.A. is furthering their support of the abhorrent attempt by corporate...

Rat Joins List of Cloned Animals Thu Sep 25, 4:53 PM ET By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It had to happen. Scientists have finally cloned a rat. A team of researchers at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in Jouy en Josas, France, and a company called GenOway said on Thursday they had cloned the favored laboratory animal for many researchers, and hope the technology will provide better animals for future research. "The rat is one of the most widely used animal models in scientific research," GenOway, a company that supplies genetically engineered cell...

British scientists say they have found new evidence to suggest that cloned animals age prematurely. Researchers at Cambridge University believe the cloning process damages the genetic mechanism which allows animals to grow normally. The research comes a day after scientists in Italy confirmed they had created the world's first cloned horse. The Italian scientists say they have already received requests to produce replicas of top thoroughbreds - a move which observers say could rattle the multi-million dollar racing industry.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida: The head of a group that claims to have produced the world's first human clone insisted under oath Wednesday that the baby exists and said the girl is in Israel, not the United States. Clonaid President Brigitte Boisselier also said she had only seen the child, nicknamed Baby Eve by the company, on videotape. Her testimony led a judge to throw out a guardianship petition involving the child. When Boisselier announced late last month that Clonaid had produced a healthy human clone, she promised that independent DNA testing would prove the claim in about 10 days. But...

FORT LAUDERDALE: An executive with the company that claims to have produced a human clone was subpoenaed to appear in court, and the company was ordered to disclose the whereabouts of the baby girl and her mother. The witness subpoena and summons were approved yesterday by a court at the request of attorney Bernard Siegel, who has filed a lawsuit asking the state to appoint a guardian for the child, the attorney said. The papers were delivered to Thomas Kaenzig, a Clonaid vice president, before he spoke at the Money World 2003 conference in Fort Lauderdale, Siegel said. If Kaenzig...

'Three more cloned babies on way' cult claims Three more cloned babies are to be born by the end of this month, the leaders of a religious cult are claiming. The Raelian sect say the world's second cloned baby, a girl, was born to a Dutch lesbian couple on Friday. The sect believes human life was created by extra-terrestrials. Brigitte Boisselier, a French chemist who heads Clonaid, an organisation linked to the Raelians, claimed last week they had overseen the birth of the first cloned baby, another girl called Eve, on Boxing Day. Dr Boisselier told BBC1's Breakfast With Frost:...