About six months ago I wrote an article entitled "Cloning of Humans - How About Your Loved Ones?" in which I suggested that scientists will soon be able to clone deceased loved ones. To be sure, they will not be identical copies of the original human but would share the same genetic make-up. The article is available at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2008/05/cloning-of-huma.html. Now scientists are suggesting that cloning of humans will take place in the next few years, although early suggestions have more of a historic and scientific justification.
Last week in Nature, scientists reported major progress in sequencing the genome of woolly mammoths. They reconstructed it from two fossilized hair samples. One was 20,000 years old; the other was 65,000 years old. Now, according to Nicholas Wade of the New York Times, biologists are discussing "how to modify the DNA in an elephant's egg so that after each round of changes it would progressively resemble the DNA in a mammoth egg. The final-stage egg could then be brought to term in an elephant mother."
Wade does not stop with woolly mammoths. He then writes:
The full genome of the Neanderthal, an ancient human species probably driven to extinction by the first modern humans that entered Europe some 45,000 years ago, is expected to be recovered shortly. If the mammoth can be resurrected, the same would be technically possible for Neanderthals.
You can read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/science/20mammoth.html?_r=1.
NOTE: The New York Times often removes articles a few days after they are published. The article is available as I write these words but may disappear without warning.
Another interesting article is available at http://www.neanderthal-man.com.
Would the the scientists stop at Neanderthals? How about a modern human, a recently deceased person?
The moral and religious implications are mind-numbing.
