Surrogate clone mother Bessie, an Iowa farm cow, is pregnant. But she's not having a cow. Inside her uterus is an endangered species called an Asian gaur, a heavily muscled, humpbacked, ox-like animal native to the bamboo jungles of India and Burma. The embryonic gaur, Noah, due to be born next month, was cloned from a single skin cell taken from a dead gaur, researchers report in a paper in the latest issue of the journal Cloning, to be released this week. It is the first endangered species ever to be cloned, and the first cloned animal to gestate in the womb of another species.
Is this a new era in wildlife conservation? (Already, the Massachusetts scientists who created Noah are laying plans to clone endangered giant pandas.) Or are we bringing on Jurassic Park?
posted by jhiggy
on Oct 9, 2000 -
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