This paper is not meant to be a history lesson in cloning or to explain all the scientific terms that are related to cloning. Instead the purpose of this paper is to give a brief history of cloning and to discuss what cloning means in the world we live in today and what effect it could have on our lives. This paper is meant to allow a person to see the benefits of cloning and to show that the fears are unfounded, as based on history and facts. .
Cloning is the production of a group of genetically identical cells or organisms, all descended from a single individual. The members of a clone have precisely the same characteristics, except where mutation and environmentally caused developmental variation have occurred. The DNA is precisely the same and they are only differentiated by their experiences in which dictate their personality. There are some types of natural cloning those nature displays. Some animals have tremendous powers of Regeneration. If the body of certain starfishes is cut up into its five arms, each arm will regenerate a complete individual. Another type of asexual reproduction found in all animals, human beings included, is the formation of identical twins, triplets, and so on. Identical siblings constitute a clone. The growth of a tumor in the body of an individual is, in effect, the formation of a clone of malignant cells. Humans have learned from nature and started their cloning saga.
Cloning, a word that a few years ago was the subject of scientific novels and movies. That was all changed in 1997 when scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland produced Dolly. Dolly was a sheep and the first cloned mammal. Before Dolly, cloning had been studied since the 1950's. In 1952 the Institute of Cancer Research successfully cloned a leopard frog, by using an embryonic frog cell. John Gurdon of Cambridge University followed this in 1962 with a cloned toad, which lived to adulthood and was able to reproduce.