Here we go again!

Yep another ethically debatable topic which has been thrown around the world with the first cloned animal (i think), was that ‘Dolly’. Okay thats wrong I just found this:

Dolly the sheep may have been the world’s most famous clone, but she was not the first. Cloning creates a genetically identical copy of an animal or plant. Many animals – including frogs, mice, sheep, and cows – had been cloned before Dolly. Plants are often cloned – when you take a cutting, you are producing a clone. Human identical twins are also clones.

Anyways leaving that aside, the question is – Is animal cloning okay, especially as it is leading towards the idea of Human Cloning! Well my opinion is my opinion but its somthing to think about…

 

The researchers, led by Hwang Woo-suk, insist they cloned an Afghan hound, a resplendent supermodel in a world of mutts, only to help investigate human disease, including the possibility of cloning stem cells for treatment purposes.

But others immediately renewed calls for a global ban on human reproductive cloning before the technology moves any farther.

"Successful cloning of an increasing number of species confirms the general impression that it would be possible to clone any mammalian species, including humans," said Ian Wilmut, a reproductive biologist at the University of Edinburgh who produced the first cloned mammal, Dolly the sheep, from an adult cell nearly a decade ago.

 Read more from Yahoo!

The Mesa Police Department is looking to add some primal instinct to its SWAT team. And to do that, it’s looking to a monkey.

“Everybody laughs about it until they really start thinking about it,” said Mesa Officer Sean Truelove, who builds and operates tactical robots for the suburban Phoenix SWAT team. “It would change the way we do business.”

Truelove is spearheading the department’s request to purchase and train a capuchin monkey, considered the second smartest primate to the chimpanzee. The department is seeking about $100,000 in federal grant money to put the idea to use in Mesa SWAT operations.

The monkey, which costs $15,000, is what Truelove envisions as the ultimate SWAT reconnaissance tool.

Since 1979, capuchin monkeys have been trained to be companions for people who are quadriplegics by performing daily tasks, such as serving food, opening and closing doors, turning lights on and off, retrieving objects and brushing hair.

Truelove hopes the same training could prepare a monkey for special-ops intelligence.

Weighing only 3 to 8 pounds with tiny humanlike hands and puzzle-solving skills, Truelove said it could unlock doors, search buildings and find suicide victims on command. Dressed in a Kevlar vest, video camera and two-way radio, the small monkey would be able to get into places no officer or robot could go.

Related Links:
Yahoo! News [ article ]
Phonenix Police Department [ website ]