] People who hope cloning will resurrect a pet will be
] disappointed, said Duane Kraemer, one of A&M's animal
] cloning experts. Experts say environment is as important
] as genes in determining a cat's personality. And as far
] as appearance, having the same DNA as another calico cat
] doesn't always produce the same coat pattern.

People are paying thousands to have their pet's DNA frozen so they can clone it when the techniques are perfected... Pet Cemetery anyone?

I think that this mostly demonstrates that people still do not understand what cloning is. I don't think this is likely to be commonplace outside of pet breeding circles.

[Actually, Wired came out with an article in the past few years about people who freeze bits of skin from their loved ones in hopes that when cloning gets big, they can have their dead loved on back. Its really sketchy, not to mention, due to different environments, the person wouldn't be an exact replica of the original. -Nanochick]

CNN.com - Copied cat hardly resembles original - Jan. 22, 2003

] It is a freakish, doped-up, mutant clone which hasn't had
] sex for thousands of years - and the strain may be about
] to tell on the nation's fruitbowl favourite. Scientists
] based in France have warned that, without radical and
] swift action, in 10 years' time we really could have no
] bananas.

Bananas don't really reproduce and apparently have been maintained by human farmers for 10,000 years. They face destruction from fungus. Other stories in the news today indicate that a sequencing effort is underway.

The Guardian | Yes - in 10 years we may have no bananas

] "All over the world, molecular biologists are tinkering
] with DNA to find ways to improve the quality of wine.
] Already they can do wonders, conjuring up rare but
] desirable flavours and aromas, and adding body and
] complexity to bog-standard plonk. Gene technology can
] also eliminate the spoilage compounds that can make wine
] taste like sweaty socks, and even get rid of those
] nasties that give you a bad head in the morning."

Hacking Yeast

] "By redesigning the shell of Ebola, Purdue University
] researchers have transformed the feared virus into a
] benevolent workhorse for gene therapy."

This is very cool research going on. This is where therapy for human disease is heading...taking things such as viruses and turning them into therapies. Its definitly exciting.

Purdue works to transform Ebola virus from killer to healer

"Writing in the advanced online edition of Nature magazine, Stanford University scientists Christopher D. Snow and Vijay S. Pande describe how they, with the help of 30,000 personal computers, successfully simulated part of the complex folding process that a typical protein molecule undergoes to achieve its unique, three-dimensional shape."

ScienceDaily Magazine -- Folding@home Scientists Report First Distributed Computing Success

"As chairwoman of the inaugural IEEE Computer Society Bioinformatics Conference, held at Stanford University last week, Markstein is trying to recruit the leading minds of computer science into what she calls "the industrial revolution of biology," an anticipated period of discovery resulting from the analysis of genomic information. "

Biology Seeks a Few Good Geeks

"Can a band of biologists who share data freely out-innovate the corporate researchers who hoard it? "

Werd!

Open-Source Bio

"In the Brave New World, erotic sexual activity is encouraged and freely practised but completely divorced from the process of reproduction. Huxley wrote his novel in 1932, before the contraceptive pill had arrived. By the 1970s, however, sex and reproduction had branched into two separate realms, thanks, in large part, to the pill. It is also interesting to note that the pill made its debut at about the same time that researchers first began to use artificial insemination on a wide scale. While the pill revolutionised sex, removing it from the process of reproduction, artificial insemination, then later in vitro fertilisation, egg donation, surrogacy and, soon, cloning further separate the components of reproduction from the biological act of mating. The artificial womb completes the process. "

See, I think we need artifical wombs, but not for these reasons. We need artifical wombs so that when babies are born prematurely, they still have a chance to develop and live.

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | The end of pregnancy