A two-decade study into cloning has revealed a fundamental flaw in the technology, demonstrating that repeated duplication leads to an accumulation of fatal genetic mutations. Researchers in Japan generated 1,206 cloned laboratory mice from a single female donor between 2005 and 2025. Initially, no outward signs of trouble were observed across the first 25 generations. […]
spoiler
DNA doesn’t like being photocopied for many generations, as there is no such thing as a perfect photocopy, and this probably won’t end well for the mouse.
Sad news for all our billionaires friends out there who were impatiently queuing to get their ticket for eternity, as this news means we’re not yet able to copy ourselves into an unlimited number of freshly cloned bodies. The good news being that all their money will buy them some real nice funerals, though.
We can already “print” or synthesize proteins with bench-top devices. It’s only a matter of time before we can do that to DNA, and then embryos.
We can already copy DNA with PCR (polymerase chain reaction), but creating it from scratch seems unnecessary. Embryos by comparison are infinitely more complex. We do have the technology to fertilize one egg with the genetic material of another, though, so maybe it’s not as far off as I’m imagining.
Oh yeah, I forgot about PCR! That’s even easier than protein synthesis. I’m more worried about brain orginoids than clones at this point though. Clones are so 2000 and late