schu

Whole brain transplant! Now that is something that would sell to everyone over 50. Will it take 20 years for the clone to grow to adult size? If it does we need to get my clone started pretty soon. I may not last another 20 years.

Demosthenes

yes, but we need to know the growth factors necessary to get the whole actual organ, otherwise, we would just be cloning the organ's cells which then sits there and do nothing but metabolize. The growth factors can be thought as messages guiding the cells to form the full organ which is a three dimensional structure that can be high complex such as the liver or simple like the heart. We can grow skin with ease because it's largely two dimensional(hence we can just put the cells in a dish and let them do their work) and requires little to get it going. However when we try to recreate something like a ear, we end up having to use a 3D scaffolding to get something looking like an ear.

Viti

It seems to me, that a child conceived the old fashioned way would be more psychologically "valuable" (for lack of a better term) because it shares traits of both parents. If one parent had no physiological connection to a child would they then reject it as not being "theirs"?

I have read that adopted children are more often sent to counseling, etc because the non-natural parents don't recognize "normal" problems that may be different than those they experienced (ie: a stubborn streak may be seen as a emotional problem by more passive adoptive parents)

Demosthenes

I was thinking that a single parent having a cloned child might find it more valuable than the usual child. What about this case, suppose two parents have a convienient child, which is a mixture of their genes just for the old sake of increasing the genetic pool and then each of them have a cloned child which then makes a total of three children in the family. That would lead to interesting situations. If reproductive cloning is ever going to be legalized, then it'll be interesting to establish studies about such situations. It almost makes me consider having a psychological degree.

Viti

Thanks for the interesting ideas to ponder, Demosthenes. It's nice to meet you BTW.

Is it true than hypothetically only females can be cloned?

Demosthenes

You might want to read this short story about such technology

The Extra

Demosthenes

It's my honor to meet you too

I'll have to read up about this, what I know is, right now it's easier to clone females, but it should be possible to clone males as well. I think the difficulty stems from that the male requires more than the females to turn out male. After all all embryos start out as females, then when the syr gene kick in the case of embryos that are destined to become male, they then metamorphsis into a full fledged male fetuses.

Totalitarianist

Uhh......according to a qualified authority interviewed on the American television channel called "CNN", it is actually easier to clone a male. I was surprised by this, for I had a view similar to the view that you have regarding this, which is manifest in the above quotation..

crocodile deathroll

Identical twins have disproved the Catholic Theological theory of a soul because if a unique soul originates at the point of conception then there is a further week to go before the embyo divides. Would that mean identical twins share the same soul?

As for the cloned girl I think I will just reserve judgement on that until there is some genetic testing to prove it.

Demosthenes

Hmm, that's interesting to know, like I said, I have to check up on the information.