The Creepy, Surprisingly Routine Business of Animal Cloning | Hacker News Reader

The Creepy, Surprisingly Routine Business of Animal Cloning

theatlantic.com

44 pointsFinnLobsien28 comments

We obsess with fictional clones and beliefs they would be very identical to "us" when the reality is clones show epigenetic variability and are genetically clones, but display structural differences in form and colour and behaviour. Skin colour in multicoloured animals is determined by fetal positioning and exposure to outside forces. Identical twin Friesian calves don't have the same pelt patterns.

This scientist cloned fat levels in muscle flesh, not identical, but trending to a type. Exercise and diet would change how fat marbled meat presented.

With articles like this one a question always comes to my mind that I could google the answer to but then forget, again: What makes it so hard to clone just the organs of a body? The obvious benefits of this for saving millions of lives are there, so why isn't the technology available if a whole body can be cloned? Is there no genuinely applied research being done on it?

After digging a bit, it turns out that a concrete answer is a bit hard to find. There's a lot of discussion on the ethical details around cloning humans and human bodies, which is fair enough, but not much technical info on why a focus couldn't be made on just cloning parts of bodies. Specifically, the useful ones for the many thousands of people who die each year because they don't get replacement transplants on time to be saved from a medical emergency.

Edit: This article did however give some good answers, after first going all out on a dire description of future illegal organ donor markets.

"How would organ cloning work? Say you had a failing liver and you needed a replacement. Doctors couldn’t remove your liver and clone a new one and you couldn’t take The Island route (see Chapter 10.1007/978-3-662-43526-7_3) and use your clone’s organs—scientifically this might be feasible, but ethically it’s a no go. Instead, doctors would use stem cells. Stem cells are perfect for organ cloning because they can differentiate into more than 200 types of cells. Scientists extract these stem cells (Fig. 4.2) when an embryo consists of around 150 cells. Unfortunately, removing the stem cells effectively destroys the embryo, which is why many oppose this practice."

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7122979/

That some people should oppose destroying mere embryos with just 150 or so cells for a procedure that can save many many thousands of fully developed, real human lives is beyond stupid.

If you never watched the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, The Sixth Day, I would recommend it. It is stupid but also somewhat intelligent in it's "science run amok" plotline. Also, Arnold was great because now you have two of him!

It's simplistically a worse version of Total Recall, but I enjoyed it as well

Couldn’t this become dangerous for adaptability if done in massive quantities? Say for example cloning chickens for some traits, and eventually ending up with most chickens in the future having very little genetical variability?

Yes, and this is the story of the Cavendish Banana plant

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35131751h

https://time.com/5730790/banana-panama-disease/

https://archive.ph/IfCGa

Is there a difference between a clone and an identical twin (other than sharing a womb)?

A clone may be created without stem cells.

bloodwork on a clone might differ in antigens more than bloodwork between identical twins?

https://archive.ph/raQYl

Technology can copy the body, but not the soul. What moves us is never sameness—it’s uniqueness.

“Really and truly, a horse can be alive forever. Forever and ever.”

As humans could...

It would be staggering if the first human clone has not already been born. I would also be at least a little surprised if we don't discover that Elon Musk has cloned himself.

the thing is why would he do it ? it seems not that useful ?

Narcissism knows no bounds. If you can clone the most wonderful smart person in the world, why wouldn't you?

Or just in case he needs a highly compatible organ donor.

wild, unsupported, and non-serious speculation: organ/tissue harvesting

He's a pronatalist whose go-to pickup line is telling women that there's a moral imperative for more smart babies to be born, imbued with his magical genes. It's not a leap to think that he'd consider the babies to be even better if they weren't watered down with someone else's genes too...

I skimmed the article, searched for "human" and human cloning does get discussed at the end of the article.

Obviously a clone of someone will (should?) only look like the person, but could have a totally different personality due to a different upbringing and environment, but it seems people want to do it anyway...

Exactly. A clone might share the face, but it can never share the path. What makes someone who they are isn’t just DNA, but all the invisible things—memories, struggles, love, randomness. We’re not just born—we become.

This is a debatable position, but I think in general people significantly underestimate the role genetics play in defining our core personality traits and preferences.

While what makes someone who they are isn't just their DNA, it is a very significant part. I'd argue perhaps up to ~50% of our personality is shaped by our genetics. To your point our memories and experiences will obviously be different, but we have reason to believe how we behave in scenarios is very significantly influenced by our genetics.

The "separate identical twins" experiments are our closest evidence - which indicates that you'd get someone similar, but not identical. Just like identical twins, after all.

> I'd argue perhaps up to ~50% of our personality is shaped by our genetics.

Do you mean genetics, per se, or biology more generally like epigenetic factors and prenatal/early childhood development? If the latter, then I think 50% is rather low.

I wasn't specifically including epigenetic factors, but I'd agree that if you were to include prenatal conditions and early childhood there's very little left to be shaped by environmental factors. At least assuming the environment they grow up in is fairly typical and not extreme or traumatising.

I completely agree that genetics play a crucial role in shaping our personalities. Classic studies, like those involving twins, have shown that genetic factors can account for a significant portion of our personality and preferences—often estimated around 40% to 50%.

I’d like to add that genetics provide the “base layer” of our personality—traits like innate boldness or social tendencies. But it’s the life experiences, environment, and emotional journeys that layer on top like specific colors and textures on a canvas. For example, even two people with identical genetics can end up with very different behavioral patterns, values, or worldviews if they grow up in different environments (such as variations in upbringing, cultural context, or major life events). In other words, genetics and experience together shape who we are.

Here's the relevant Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture

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