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This article from New Scientist recommends two science fiction novels: "The Power" by Naomi Alderman and "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro. "The Power" explores a world where young women develop the ability to generate electricity, leading to a shift in global power dynamics and raising questions about the nature of power. "Never Let Me Go" is set in an alternate reality where human cloning is common, and follows the lives of children who are destined to become organ donors. Both novels offer thought-provoking perspectives on societal issues and the consequences of scientific advancements. [Extracted from the article]

A healthy rhesus monkey has been successfully cloned from fetal cells, but cloning an adult human would be much more difficult. The cloned monkey was born in China in July 2020 and has reached the age of 3 without any health issues. However, cloning primates remains challenging, and creating a clone of an adult human may not be technically possible, in addition to ethical and legal concerns. Cloning animals has had mixed results, with some species being more successful than others. The main obstacle is the addition of epigenetic markers to DNA as cells develop, which can cause problems when cloning adult cells. While this advancement in primate cloning is significant, the researchers do not intend to pursue human cloning due to ethical reasons. The purpose of cloning primates is to advance research in fields such as cognitive and biomedicine. [Extracted from the article]

This article presents information on the book "Genome War," by Jamie Shreeve. On the surface, it looked like a dry and somewhat technical report on stem cells. The guidelines for research on embryonic stem cells issued by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in April took meticulous care to address a kind of experimentation that sounds more like science fiction than science. Already, researchers have created monkeys with brains that are partially human, mice with functioning human photoreceptor cells in their retinas and sheep with organs that are up to 40 per cent human.

Reports on the birth of the first human clone Eve under the supervision of a U.S.-based company named Clonaid, set up by Raelians. Difficulty involved in cloning; Doubt regarding the safety involved in human cloning; Verification method of knowing whether a baby is a clone or not.

The article presents the author's views on human cloning, wherein he argues the dangers of the misguided human reproductive cloning.

The author explores ethical concerns regarding the research discussed in the October 8, 2011 issue, involving the therapeutic cloning of human embryonic stem cells at The New York Stem Cell Foundation Laboratory.

Two letters to the editor are presented in response to an article that appeared in the August 4, 2007 issue which discussed cloning and reproduction.

This article reports that researcher Chris Shaw and his colleagues at King's College London, England, said that it might be possible to derive stem cells from embryos cloned using rabbit eggs. One team, led by Hui-Zhen Sheng at the Shanghai Second Medical University in China, claims to have already succeeded in taking embryonic stem cells from such rabbit-human "embryos." But now Bob Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Massachusetts, has raised doubts about the procedure, since no one has been able to replicate Sheng's results.

This article reports that the ethical concerns of a different kind are jeopardising plans for a World Stem Cell Hub to share lines of human embryonic stem cells (ESCs). Plans for the hub were unveiled last month by Woo Suk Hwang of Seoul National University in South Korea, who shot to fame through his work on deriving human ESCs from cloned embryos. Hwang rejected the accusation. But now his main U.S. collaborator, Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh, says he will no longer work with Hwang, after reviewing new evidence on the source of the eggs.

Great Britain has granted its first licence allowing scientists to try to clone human cells for research. The decision was broadly welcomed, but a few vocal critics denounced the plans as both unethical and unnecessary. In 2001 Great Britain decided to allow therapeutic cloning—producing embryonic stem cells from cloned human embryos— but each research proposal must be individually approved. Now Miodrag Stojkovic of the University of Newcastle and Alison Murdoch at the Newcastle Fertility Centre at Life have been granted an initial one-year licence. INSET: MAKING CLONES.

Human cloning is finally here. But while the Korean team has overcome some technical obstacles, the political barriers to realising cloning's medical potential remain. Many people object to the idea of any human cloning research, even for medical reasons, claiming it will inevitably open the door to reproductive cloning or, more generally, that experimenting with embryos is immoral. But, cloning promises such great benefits that it would be immoral not to do it. The therapeutic promise of human cloning lies in embryonic stem cells, or ES cells. Although research is likely to be the first beneficiary of human cloning, the most exciting developments will come as "therapeutic" cloning—ways to repair or cure diseased organs or repair genetic defects.

When the birth of the first cloned animal, Dolly the sheep, was announced in 1997, the question in many people's minds was if people could be cloned too. Seven years later, Dolly's creator, Ian Wilmut is planning to attempt human cloning. He argues in that stem cells taken from cloned human embryos could be of enormous benefit for medical research, as well as providing a means of treating disease. Most controversially, he argues that cloning techniques could be combined with genetic engineering to cure hereditary diseases. The potential benefits are so great, Wilmut says, that "it would be immoral not to do it." INSET: DO WE NOW HAVE A RECIPE FOR CREATING CLONED BABIES?.

This article presents several news items related to science as of November 01, 2003. Wildfires raging in California have scorched forests, burned homes and led to deaths of at least 14 people. But they are a flicker compared with the conflagrations that have already swept the Earth in 2003, which is shaping up to be one of the worst years for fires in recent history. Meetings of the United Nation's legal committee have been packed to the rafters as it once again considers a worldwide ban on human cloning. All countries support a ban on human reproductive cloning, the creation of babies genetically identical to their parent. China is scaling new heights in science. Hard on the heels of its successful manned space mission come statistics showing it to be the world's third biggest spender in science and technology. A new finch-like bird is identified for the first time in eastern Venezuela and within two years its habitat has been destroyed to make way for a hydroelectric dam.

Describes the meeting of Italian fertility specialist Severino Antinori, his colleagues and scientists at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington in August 2001 regarding human cloning. Benefits of therapeutic cloning; Animal cloners criticized by scientist Panayiotis Zavos; Reasons for not using cloning technology on humans; Causes of cloning difficulties.

The article discusses challenges and controversy surrounding cloning efforts since the 1997 creation of the cloned sheep Dolly, and introduces an article in the issue on an apparent breakthrough in human cloning techniques.

The article presents quotes from several international scientists concerning human cloning and stem cell medicine including Shinya Yamanaka from Kyoto University in Japan, Advanced Cell Technology chief scientific officer Robert Lanza from the U.S., and Keisuke Kaji of the University of Edinburgh in Great Britain.

The article discusses issues surrounding human cloning as of February 2014, including plans by scientist Severino Antinonri to use cloning to help infertile couples and a report that biologists are turning mature animal cells into something like totipotent stem cells.

The article looks at a report published in "Cell" by researcher Shoukhrat Mitalipov and team on the cloning of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) from skin cells fused with donated human eggs, a technique similar to that used in the cloning of the Dolly sheep. The effectiveness of the team's hESCs is also compared with induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells).

The article cites a report in a 2011 issue of the journal "Nature" regarding research by Dieter Egli and Scott Noggle of the New York Stem Cell Foundation Laboratory in New York City and colleagues who cloned the world's first human embryonic stem cells (hESCs).

The article profiles the process of human egg donation for scientific purposes and its effects on women. The author, a member of the group Hands Off Our Ovaries, touches on a wide range of issues, including the cultivation of pluripotent stems cells from human skin cells in November 2007, the physiological risks from invasive medical procedures, and the ethical aspects of human cloning.

A letter to the editor is presented in response to Hugh McLachlan's article about the legalization of human cloning which appeared in a previous issue.

A letter to the editor is presented in response to an article about human cloning which appeared in the July 21, 2007 issue.

A letter to the editor regarding an article on human cloning by Hugh McLachlan in the July 21, 2007 issue is presented.

Letters to the editor and a response by the author are presented in response to the article about human cloning by Hugh McLachlan in a previous issue.

A letter to the editor is presented which discusses an article on human cloning written by Hugh McLachlan.

The author offers an editorial that explains his arguments for legalizing human cloning. He outlines the arguments against cloning and why none of them hold weight in other areas of reproduction. He also talks about the benefits of cloning and scenarios in which individuals would want it as an option.

The article reports that scientists have been able to extract stem cells from cloned monkey embryos, suggesting that human therapeutic cloning is moving closer to realization. The breakthrough was announced by Shoukhrat Mitalipov on June 18, 2007, at a meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research in Cairns, Queensland, Australia.

The article focuses on Dolly, the sheep that was created genetically from a single cell by cloning and discusses the possibilities that human cloning has to offer. It presents the process of how Dolly was created and then implanted into the womb of a surrogate sheep. The future of human cloning and its potential is discussed.

This article reports that disgraced scientist Woo Suk Hwang will resume research at a privately funded lab in Seoul, Korea, in August 2006. On June 28, 2006, his lawyer Geon Haeng Lee told reporters that Hwang will be working on animal rather than human clones, and will be joined by up to 30 former associates. The news met with a mixed reaction, as Hwang has been accused of research fraud and buying women's eggs in breach of bioethics rules. Six days after announcing his return, Hwang told a Seoul court that he had ordered subordinates to falsify data on cloned embryonic stem cells, but stressed that he believed his co-researchers shared the blame for the fraud.

The article presents information related to South Korean cloning researcher Woo Suk Hwang. On May 12, 2006 he was indicted on charges of fraud, embezzlement and violating Korea's bioethics law. The charges follow revelations that Hwang's team fabricated evidence for having created cloned human embryonic stem cells, and breached ethical guidelines in obtaining human eggs for the project. Hwang had maintained the scientific fraud was perpetrated by a junior on his team, Sun Jong Kim, who then worked at MizMedi Hospital in Seoul.

This article reports that South Korean cloning researcher Woo Suk Hwang faked all his research on cloned human stem cells. He is now facing a criminal investigation for fraud. Besides the already discredited May 2005 paper in which he and his team said they created 11 stem cell lines tailored to individual patients, an investigative panel from Seoul National University found no evidence that he created the first human embryonic stem cell line from a cloned embryo, as he claimed in the year 2004. Both studies were initially hailed as huge breakthroughs in stem-cell science. There was vindication for some of his work, though. DNA tests commissioned by the panel in its month-long investigation showed that the world's first cloned dog--an Afghan hound called Snuppy created by Hwang and published in the periodical "Nature"--was not an impostor.

The article reports on the controversies related to therapeutic cloning claimed by South Korean scientist Woo Suk Hwang. It reports that on December 26, 2005 investigators at Seoul National University (SNU) in South Korea said they could find no evidence that the cloning team led by Woo Suk Hwang produced any lines of embryonic stem cells tailored to individual patients. In a paper published in the periodical "Science" in May 2005, Hwang had claimed to have made 11 patient-specific cell lines, requiring an average of only 17 human egg cells to derive each line. Investigators are looking into an earlier paper, in which Hwang's team described the first ever cloned human embryonic stem cells. If both papers were found to contain fabricated evidence, it would be a body blow for the prospects of human therapeutic cloning.

The article reports on the impact of injecting embryonic stem cells (ESCs) into two-week-old mouse fetuses. When human ESCs were injected into the brains of two-week-old mouse fetuses, they developed and functioned like normal mouse cells. They were not rejected by the mouse's immune system, and even grew to the same size as mouse cells. The finding that human ESCs can fit in so well in their new home is encouraging news for researchers hoping to use them to treat neurological diseases. It also lessens ethical concerns about inadvertently creating animals with part-human brains when therapies are tested.

This article presents information on several developments in the field of medical technology in Singapore. Biotech firms increasingly see Singapore as the main gateway into the Asian market. Human embryonic stem cell company ES Cell International has created a "beating heart" from cardiac tissue derived from stem cells. Eighty per cent of Singaporeans are short-sighted, compared with only a quarter of people in the U.S. and Europe. No doubt spurred on by this, a Singapore firm has developed a non-surgical treatment for mild myopia.

The article reports that a Chicago, Illinois, team is claiming an easier route to embryonic stem cells (ESCs). With great fanfare a South Korean team announced last week that it had used therapeutic cloning to create human embryonic stem cells that were genetically matched to specific people. Another team headed by Yuri Verlinsky of the Reproductive Genetics Institute, based in Chicago, claims to have produced patient-matched embryonic stem cells without resorting to therapeutic cloning. While ESCs show great promise for treating many diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes and Parkinson's, non-matching ESCs would be rejected by patients' immune systems unless they take immunosuppressant drugs.

The article offers information on research related to embryonic stem cells (ESCs). Last week, patients started calling a lab in Great Britain to ask about stem cell treatments, after scientists there announced they had cloned a human embryo in an attempt to create ESCs. Woo Suk Hwang from South Korea and his colleagues produced 11 ESC lines containing DNA from adult cells taken from patients. Their work proves beyond doubt that therapeutic cloning can be used to produce ESCs that are a genetic match for people of any age or sex. The hope now is that ESCs can be turned into specialised cells for repairing damage in a wide range of tissues.

The article informs that one of the hurdles to using human embryonic stem cells to treat disease has been overcome. Now, Paul De Sousa and his team at the Roslin Institute in Scotland, where Dolly the sheep was cloned, have produced what they say are the first animal-free ESCs. Another team led by Carlos Simón of the IVI Foundation in Valencia, Spain, announced in Edinburgh that they have used very similar techniques to generate two new cultures of human embryonic stem cells. The only difference was that Simón's team grew the stem cells on human placental skin-like cells rather than the foreskin cells used by De Sousa.

The article focuses on the question whether or not to allow human embryos to be cloned for research. According to the author, that is precisely the question governments might have to wrestle with before deciding whether or not to allow human embryos to be cloned for research. At least, they will if they have any intention of honouring a proposed U.N. declaration on human cloning that was approved last Friday by the U.N.'s Legal Committee. It still has to go before the General Assembly. The declaration is the latest chapter in a three-year saga that began with the goal of banning the creation of cloned babies worldwide. But some countries wanted the ban to extend to all forms of human cloning, including for research. Others wanted to keep this option.

The article focuses on issues related to human cloning. The United Nation's (UN) member states backed an Italian plan to draft a political declaration on human cloning, a document with zero legal clout. UN members could have simply signed up to a ban on cloned babies, but the rot set in when an alliance of countries led by the Catholic nations and the U.S. decided that they wanted to ban medical applications too, so-called therapeutic cloning. Great Britain argued that a convention should ban the creation of cloned babies but let countries decide for themselves on the question of therapeutic cloning.

This article reports that universities and biotechnology companies are already jostling for a share of the$ 3 billion that California will put into stem cell research over the next 10 years. On November 02, 59 per cent of voters in the state backed Proposition 71, which authorises the sale of tax-free bonds by the state government to provide$ 295 million a year for 10 years for research on adult, umbilical and embryonic stem cells. That figure dwarfs the$ 215 million spent on stem cell research by the National Institutes of Health last year, of which only$ 25 million went into experiments on the handful of embryonic stem cell lines approved for federally funded research. At least part of the Californian money will be used to set up a new research institute called the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, but many of the specifics have yet to be decided. Critics claim the initiative could end up costing the state$ 6 billion overall, but supporters are delighted.

The article presents information on Brazil which has sent an unmanned rocket into space for the first time on October, from its Alcantara Launch Center. Talks on whether the United Nations (UN) should ban human cloning looked likely to end in an impasse for the third time, with countries divided over the issue of therapeutic cloning. A UN ban on therapeutic cloning would be largely symbolic, as many countries including Great Britain would not sign up. The man, in his early 20s, has not received a blood transfusion or given blood, nor has Ireland ever lived in Great Britain. Almost 350 tonnes of high explosives are missing from a military facility in Iraq that was supposed to have been guarded by U.S. forces.

This article focuses on research, according to which stem cells can help treat diseases by releasing growth factors, not just by replacing diseased tissue. A team at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York has shown that injecting embryonic stem cells into female mice before they become pregnant partially corrects a genetic heart defect in their offspring. Some researchers suspect stem cells help treat heart attacks by secreting growth factors.

In a bizarre experiment, cells from dead children and a dead man have been cloned by fusing them with cow eggs stripped of their DNA. One of the resulting embryos grew to the 64-cell stage, Panos Zavos of the Andrology Institute of America claimed at a press conference in London on Tuesday. Zavos said that studying hybrid embryos will help pave the way for creating cloned babies using human eggs. Cows have been cloned from two-day-old hunks of beef, so it might be possible to clone people using cells from corpses. Also, several groups have created cloned embryos by fusing human cells with empty animal eggs, the first in 1996.

When a young researcher recently took a closer look at embryonic stem cells, he made an astonishing finding: according to his results, the vigorously growing cells he was looking at should have been dead or dying. Scientists had tested the embryonic stem cells for the presence of enzymes called caspases, proteins that chew up the cell from within. Their presence is usually considered a sure sign that cells are undergoing programmed suicide, or apoptosis — the body's way of getting rid of damaged or redundant cells. Although the cells had high levels of caspase activity, few of them were actually dying. Researcher speculates that the process of self-renewal may have evolved alongside cell death, and some of the processes may be the same.

The article presents news related to the field of science. Former Superman actor Christopher Reeve attacks the influence of religion on stem cell research in the U.S. Brigitte Boisselier of Clonaid, the organisation linked to the Raelian sect, after the birth of a mouse with two mothers. Clonaid claims to have created human clones but has never provided any proof. Salt Lake City resident Isabelle Leota and her husband, who are on Atkins diet, were kicked out of local buffet restaurant after eating only meat.

There are varied reactions to the new from South Korea on cloning human embryos. Some have welcomed the study as the breakthrough that will finally unlock the awesome medical potential of embryonic stem cells. Others are outraged, arguing that it will encourage reproductive cloning and lead to a world in which human embryos are routinely destroyed to supply "spare part" tissues. In reality, neither side provides an adequate lens through which to judge an advance that is richer in shades of grey than black and white. Though scientists still justify the research by talking of tissues that are tailor-made for patients from individually cloned embryos, many stem-cell researchers have moved beyond this early model, believing it will be impractical or even unnecessary.

In London, England last Saturday, Panayiotis Zavos of the Andrology Institute of America in Lexington, Kentucky was the one trying to grab the headlines. He told reporters that his team had transferred a four-cell cloned embryo to a woman, but that it was too soon to know if she was pregnant. Zavos claimed the embryo was created by fusing an egg from the woman with a skin cell from her infertile partner. Zavos would not say where the transfer took place but instead he was breaking no laws. Most mainstream scientists regard attempts to clone humans as utterly unethical because of the high risk of abnormalities, and many think it would be unacceptable even if the technique were safe.

The position of U.S. President George W. Bush administration on human cloning could not be clearer. Scientists, via sympathetic senators, have managed to thwart any legislation that would prevent the second form of cloning, because they see therapeutic promise from stem cells derived from cloned embryos. But the White House has said no to any legislation that does not say no to all forms of cloning. Foiled at the national level, the administration has taken its problem to the U.N. With the help of Costa Rica, it proposed an international convention against human cloning.

The threat posed by would-be baby cloners is too serious to be ignored. The worst thing one can do is be complacent, says leading stem cell scientist Alan Trounson. If the American fertility doctor Panayiotis Zavos is to be believed, he is just weeks away from implanting the first cloned human embryo in the womb of a surrogate mother. Sooner or later someone with the necessary skills and resources will be attracted by money or fame to demonstrate that reproductive cloning is feasible. The U.S. and the Vatican, want a global ban on both therapeutic and reproductive cloning, while others want to ban only reproductive cloning.