Clones, and Embryo development in microgravity

rosborne,

Speaking of cloning, what happened to the Raelians?
Have their cloning techniques been duely noted in the same archives alongside that of "Cold Fusion"?

Here are a couple of links discussing the "stem cells" that play an essential role in cloning:

http://www.news.wisc.edu/packages/stemcells/

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/october18/stem_cells-101800.html

The former is a little more informative but it seems that researchers are just as much in the dark about what causes this differentiation in the very young embryonic cells, as are we. Inherently it does seem that some sort of chemical or physical phenomena might trigger this development of specialized cells.
There might be an elegant explanation but more likely it is something like the Kreb's cycle for cellular energy production.

I did come across an interesting article in this April's Scientific American: page 30 entitled "Ma's Eyes, Not Her Ways" about cloning. The following is a web site that relates some of the article if you are interested:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?colID=5&articleID=000DE213-6B0F-1E61-A98A809EC5880105

The article mentions epigenetics which is poorly understood for now but that deals with the differing phenotypes resulting from exposure to different environments and the turning on or off of some genes, as you mentioned in your post, for various reasons. I have been trying to get more info on epigenetics the last week or so but have achieved less than satisfactory results. If you come across anything I'd appreciate any info.

This article does mention the reason for differing fur coloration in cloned cats (especially calico). It seems "...- a calico's spots result from the random migration of pigment-carrying cells during development."

A side bar next to the article informs us that "Dolly" the cloned sheep only lived to half the normal life span of a "normal" sheep.
She had to be euthanized because of an infection that is common in cloned animals. She also suffered from chronic arthritis, another "seemingly common affliction of clones."

Hmmmm.. It's never simple is it?

I personally feel therapeutic cloning of needed organs has much more promise at this point then going for a whole individual. That, of course, is another ball of wax. (Michael Shermer expounds on the ethics of cloning humans in his "Skeptic" column in this same issue page 38. His view in a nutshell: its no big deal.

JM

P.S. If micro-gravity has an effect on this embryonic development, how does this affect some mammals that are able to counter the effects of gravity such as whales?

Whales and gravity
Hi JM,

Whales can achieve neutral buoyancy in water, but they can not counter the effects of gravity. Even when a whale or fish has achieved neutral buoyancy, its tissues, and internal environment still feel the effects of gravity. Likewise, an embryo developing in its reproductive system would feel the effects as well.

Nothing which exists within a gravitational field can counter the effect of that field. If we even had an inkling of how to do something like this, we would have access to the greatest scientific knowledge ever achieved on this planet.

Best Regards,

Good hypothesis should be tested through delicate experiments.

BTW, multiple phenotypes appear for a genotype, then it leads to the fact that the selective pressure to a genotype must be diluted to some extent.

We can change the direction of the gravity field by changing the position of our body. Gymnastics and carnvil rides make rapid changes as far as our tissues are concerned. In the ISS = international space station or the orbiting space station, the effects of gravity are counterd effectively, except for brief spikes of inertia type gravity experiened when we accellerate our bodies with respect to the space station. I don't think our tissues can detect the gyroscopic or corolis effect unless the station is rotated to produce artificial gravity. As far as I can recall this has been tested only once when Mir tumbled out of control.

My guess is cloning brilliant people will result in a small increase in average intellegence, with rather rare side effects. In my opinion, genes are only 1/3 of the result; enviornment 1/3 and pre-existance of our spirit the other 1/3 as taught by the Mormons = The Church of Jesus Christ Of Latter- day Saints. Neil

Here is an animation of the x-inactivation process that produces the mosaic coat color in calico cats:

Demonstration of X-Inactivation

Gravity is one of the factors that can initiate the cell specialization process: