Wednesday, January 28, 2009

$155,000 Doggie Mulligan


Monday night cloned dog Sir Lancelot Encore arrived on an American Airlines flight from Korea. Lancelot is a $155,000 cloning effort of BioArts and Dr. Hwang Woo-suk, a scientist with South Korea’s Sooam Biotech Research Foundation. Serial entrepreneur, Ed Otto, won the cloning in an auction and he couldn't be happier to have a copy of his beloved Lancy.

I'm all for pushing the limits of doggie science but the Boston Herald article kind of makes it sound like whipping up a Korean egg Turducken. I guess that makes Woo-suk an Iron Chef contnender.
To create Lancelot Encore, Woo-suk took an egg from what Hawthorne called "an indigenous Korean dog" resembling a bloodhound, replaced the egg’s innards with the late Lancelot’s DNA, then implanted the egg in a second Korean dog.
Were there any doubt, Nina Otto said, "we could have the puppy’s DNA checked. But I believe in people."

Of course, clones are always evil and inferior to their originals. But you don't have to take my word for it. Check out this blog post on the history of evil clones. Good luck Ed.

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