For representational purposes

DEHRADUN: The Special Task Force (STF) of the Uttarakhand police has arrested three persons for allegedly cloning ATM cards of many people and withdrawing Rs 37 lakh fraudulently from their accounts.

Rambir, Jagmohan and Sunil, who hail from Haryana, were arrested from Kolhapur in Maharashtra and brought here this evening on transit remand, STF SSP Ridhim Agarwal told reporters here.

They will be produced in a court tomorrow, she added.

Agarwal said the accused withdrew the money from the accounts of the people here last month by stealing their ATM pins and other data by fitting skimming devices and cameras at two ATMs and preparing over one hundred clones of the ATM cards.

They first did a recce of the unguarded ATMs in the city and then fitted two of them with the skimming devices and cameras to copy ATM cards of the people, she said.

The accused also jammed the keypads of all neighbouring ATMs using feviquick so that most people came to the ones fitted with the skimmer devices, the SSP said.

Agharwal said 97 cases of fraudulent withdrawals of Rs 37 lakh were registered at different police stations in the city.

A co-accused woman, Anil Kumari, had been arrested in connection with the fraud, earlier, she said.

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Three arrested in Uttarakhand for withdrawing Rs 37 lakh by cloning ATM cards - The New Indian Express

Written by Chandan Haygunde , Sushant Kulkarni | Pune | Published:August 17, 2017 8:08 am Officials of the Cyber Crime Cell with the arrested accused.

THE Cyber Crime Cell of the Pune City Police has arrested a Nigerian man who is allegedly the key accused in a racket to clone debit and credit cards. Police have identified the accused as Eremhen Smart (33), a resident of Supragiri College area in Bengaluru. Police have also arrested his alleged aide Irshad Sattar Solanki (28), a resident of Bandrekar Wadi in Jogeshwari, Mumbai.

Last month, police had arrested three Nigerian men identified as Ogbehase Fortune, Bashar Dakin Gari Usman and Ifeanyi Mike Bbaeze while investigating a case registered with the Khadki police station, in which Rs 67,000 was withdrawn from a persons bank account without his knowledge. While some money was withdrawn from an ATM, the rest of the money was transferred to another bank account.

A team led by Inspector Manish Zende of the Cyber Crime Cell zeroed in on a person seen in the camera footage from the ATM kiosk. Police also got details of the account to which the money was transferred, and it was revealed that the account had been used to withdraw cash from other ATM kiosks.

Following leads obtained during the investigation, police arrested Nigerian national Fortune from Pimple Gurav, and his alleged aides Usman and Mbaeze. Police also recovered eight cell phones, 20 debit cards and eight blocked cards that had been cloned, Internet dongles, pen drives and a laptop from the trio.

Soon, police launched a search for the key accused Smart who was found to be changing his locations frequently. On August 10, police laid a trap and arrested Smart in Bengaluru. They recovered four cell phones, two laptops and Rs 1.65 lakh in cash from him.

On August 14, police arrested Smarts aide Irshad Solanki, who allegedly helped him withdraw money from ATMs and arranged bank accounts, in which the money was transferred using cloned debit and credit cards.

A court has remanded the duo to police custody till August 17 for further investigation.

We are now searching for four more persons, all Nigerian nationals, involved in this racket. We are also looking for a Mumbai-based person who helped the accused commit the crimes, said Deputy Commissioner of Police, Cyber Crime Cell, Sudhir Hiremath, during a press conference on Wednesday.

Hiremath said that the same gang of Nigerians had committed 11 crimes in Bengaluru and four in Pune. The four cases in Pune are registered at police stations in Khadki, Chinchwad and Hinjewadi

The investigation revealed that Smart ordered ATM card readers and debit card writer machines online and used them to clone the debit and credit cards.

Police said the accused used skimmer, an electronic device that steals the information or identity of the card. Skimmers are mounted in front of the slot in ATM machines where the card is inserted. So, while the user thinks he is inserting the card in the slot, the card is also passing through the skimmer and details of the debit or credit card is being stolen.

The accused then used pinhole or spy cameras installed in ATMs to learn the customers PIN number, said police, adding that at times, they also stood behind the customer when the PIN was being typed. The stolen information is then written on other cards and the card is cloned. The customer gets to know of the fraud only when the money is withdrawn, said police. However, police have not recovered any skimmer from Smart and the other accused arrested in the case. Police suspect that the accused have destroyed the skimmers.

The investigation has revealed that the gang had obtained information about several debit and credit cards in Pune, Mumbai, Bengaluru, parts of Tamil Nadu and Goa, said police. The accused allegedly made cloned cards and used it to withdraw and transfer money to different bank accounts. Key accused is a science graduate

DCP Hiremath said Smart, the key accused, is a Computer Science graduate who had come to India on a medical visa in 2014. He extended his visa later, but it expired in 2016. He was arrested by Bengaluru police in January, but was released on bail. According to police, Smart enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, and he also used to send some money to Nigeria through middlemen.

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Cloning of debit, credit cards: Key accused held, search on for 4 ... - The Indian Express

August 16, 2017 by Lisa Zyga feature Schematic of the experimental setup, in which complementary properties x and y are jointly measured. Credit: Thekkadath et al. 2017 American Physical Society

(Phys.org)In quantum mechanics, it's impossible to precisely and simultaneously measure the complementary properties (such as the position and momentum) of a quantum state. Now in a new study, physicists have cloned quantum states and demonstrated that, because the clones are entangled, it's possible to precisely and simultaneously measure the complementary properties of the clones. These measurements, in turn, reveal the state of the input quantum system.

The ability to determine the complementary properties of quantum states in this way not only has implications for understanding fundamental quantum physics, but also has potential applications for quantum computing, quantum cryptography, and other technologies.

The physicists, Guillame S. Thekkadath and coauthors at the University of Ottawa, Ontario, have published a paper on determining complementary properties of quantum clones in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters.

As the physicists explain, in the classical world it's possible to simultaneously measure a system's complementary states with exact precision, and doing so reveals the system's state. But as Heisenberg theoretically proposed in 1927 when he was beginning to develop his famous uncertainty principle, any measurement made on a quantum system induces a disturbance on that system.

This disturbance is largest when measuring complementary properties. For instance, measuring the position of a particle will disturb its momentum, changing its quantum state. These joint measurements have intrigued physicists ever since the time of Heisenberg.

As a way around the difficulty of performing joint measurements, physicists have recently investigated the possibility of making a copy of a quantum system, and then independently measuring one property on each copy of the system. Since the measurements are performed separately, they would not be expected to disturb each other, yet they would still reveal information about the original quantum system because the copies share the same properties as the original.

This strategy immediately encounters another quantum restriction: due to the no-cloning theorem, it's impossible to make a perfect copy of a quantum state. So instead, the physicists in the new study investigated the closest quantum analog to copying, which is optimal cloning. The parts of the clones' states that share the exact same properties as those of the input state are called "twins."

Whereas theoretical perfect copies of a quantum state are uncorrelated, the twins are entangled. The physicists showed that, as a consequence of this entanglement, independently measuring the complementary properties on each twin is equivalent to simultaneously measuring the complementary properties of the input state. This leads to the main result of the new study: that simultaneously measuring the complementary properties of twins gives the state (technically, the wave function) of the original quantum system.

"In quantum mechanics, measurements disturb the state of the system being measured," Thekkadath told Phys.org. "This is a hurdle physicists face when trying to characterize quantum systems such as single photons. In the past, physicists successfully used very gentle measurements (known as weak measurements) to circumvent this disturbance.

"As such, our work is not the first to determine complementary properties of a quantum system. However, we've shown that a different strategy can be used. It is based on a rather nave idea. Suppose we want to measure the position and momentum of a particle. Knowing that these measurements will disturb the particle's state, can we first copy the particle, and measure position on one copy and momentum on the other? This was our initial motivation. But it turns out that copying alone is not enough. The measured copies must also be entangled for this strategy to work.

"This is what we showed experimentally. Instead of determining the position and momentum of a particle, we determined complementary polarization properties of single photons. You would intuitively expect this strategy to fail due to the no-cloning theorem. However, we showed that is not the case, and this is the greatest significance of our result: measuring complementary properties of the twins directly reveals the quantum state of the copied system."

As the physicists explain, one of the most important aspects of the demonstration is working around the limitations of the no-cloning theorem.

"In our daily lives, information is often copied, such as when we photocopy a document, or when DNA is replicated in our bodies," Thekkadath explained. "However, at a quantum level, information cannot be copied without introducing some noise or imperfections. We know this because of a mathematical result known as the no-cloning theorem. This has not stopped physicists from trying. They developed strategies, known as optimal cloning, that minimize the amount of noise introduced by the copying process. In our work, we go one step further. We showed that it is possible to eliminate this noise from our measurements on the copies using a clever trick that was theoretically proposed by Holger Hofmann in 2012. Our results do not violate the no-cloning theorem since we never physically produce perfect copies: we only replicate the measurement results one would get with perfect copies."

In their experiments, the physicists demonstrated the new method using photonic twins, but they expect that the ability to make precise, simultaneous measurements of complementary properties on twins can also be implemented with quantum computers. This could lead to many practical applications, such as providing an efficient method to directly measure high-dimensional quantum states, which are used in quantum computing and quantum cryptography.

"Determining the state of a system is an important task in physics," Thekkadath said. "Once a state is determined, everything about that system is known. This knowledge can then be used to, for example, predict measurement outcomes and verify that an experiment is working as intended. This verification is especially important when complicated states are produced, such as the ones needed in quantum computers or quantum cryptography.

"Typically, quantum states are determined tomographically, much like how the brain is imaged in a CAT scan. This approach has the limitation that the state is always globally reconstructed. In contrast, our method determines the value of quantum states at any desired point, providing a more efficient and direct method than conventional methods for state determination.

"We experimentally demonstrated our method using single photons. But, our strategy is also applicable in a variety of other systems. For instance, it can be implemented in a quantum computer by using only a single quantum logic gate. We anticipate that our method could be used to efficiently characterize complicated quantum states inside a quantum computer."

Explore further: Blind quantum computing for everyone

More information: G. S. Thekkadath, R. Y. Saaltink, L. Giner, and J. S. Lundeen. "Determining Complementary Properties with Quantum Clones." Physical Review Letters. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.050405, Also at arXiv:1701.04095 [quant-ph]

2017 Phys.org

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-So semantics is determining the limits of knowledge now? This is akin to the silly notion that sentience is needed to collapse the waveform.

"Once a state is determined, everything about that system is known."

-So everything CAN be known about something, which says that there are no limits to what we can know, which says that kant was indeed farting in the wind.

Too bad noumenon passed on before he was able to experience this greatest of disappointments.

Does this buy us any thing as far as entropic uncertainty relations? Nounmenon is sort of dead, but just because we can isolate transactable phenomenalism of sensory somatic integration, its projection still lags the immersiveness of the now. It depends on how you define "Itself." You cannot undermine the illusion of vantage, or non-hermitian difference for any measure. You do not state another's dependence. Yet as soon as we interact, we can talk about the correlates of one another's time dependence, no matter how obvious. We can steer experiments close to trivial initial conditions, but we have yet to expand them all for equivalence. Interpretation open. It remains existential, with near misses. Thekkadath, is being misquoted here. Entanglement is the most that can be known. We cannot measure states, but we can choose to agree, for all intensive purposes, determinable difference for a given effective theory. If it all shared in/distinguishables, what would we have to talk about?

There are fancier ways of sending barely detectable light, specific to location, that don't require encryption, but could theoretically be unfolded, if you knew exactly when to expect them and where they were going.

-Yeah youre the guy who likes to post while stoned out of his gourd arent you? Prose poems are not rational discourse FYI-

Isn't this a sort of catastrophic development? My understanding was that the uncertainty principle is not the expression of experimental difficulties but rather an actual limitation on the total amount of information in a quantum system.

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Original post:

Physicists measure complementary properties using quantum clones - Phys.Org

NEW DELHI: A Nigerian man has been arrested for cloning debit cards of over 100 people and withdrawing money fraudulently from their accounts. The victims had swiped their cards at ATMs in upscale south Delhi colonies.

The man identified as Kingsley had a unique modus operandi. Police said he would identify an ATM kiosk that didn't have a security guard around. He would go inside, rip open the card swiping slot of the machine and place a scanner behind it. Black tape would hold the device in place. Next, Kingsley would place a camera somewhere on the machine so that its focus would be on the keypad.

Whenever an ATM user swiped his card, the scanner would capture the details while the camera would record the PIN as the customer keyed it in. Once the customer stepped out, Kingsley would go inside, fetch the card reader and camera, and clone the card with the details. Then he would swipe the cloned card at other ATMs and withdraw money. In this way, customer after customer fell victim to Kingsley's fraud.

Until one day, a woman who operated an ATM near Hari Nagar found a large transaction done from her card long after she had withdrawn money. She immediately reported the matter to the police, who then obtained footage of CCTV cameras installed nearby.

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Nigerian held for duping Delhiites by cloning cards at ATMs - Times of India

A 37-year-old Ghana national was arrested for allegedly cloning debit cards and fraudulently withdrawing money from ATMs, the police said today.

The accused, Kingsley Boafo, was arrested on August 12 near HDFC Bank ATM, located on Main Najafgarh Road in Uttam Nagar. He has been staying in the country even after his visa had expired, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southwest) Surender Kumar.

He had come to Mumbai from Ghana in July 2015 in connection with his garment business. In October that year, he shifted to Delhi and continued the business of exporting ready-made clothes to his country, the police said.

With a desire to earn more in a short period of time, he used to browse the Internet and found ways to clone ATM cards.

He bought devices online to clone ATM cards, the police said.

Boafo surveyed the ATMs that did not have security guards and through a skimmer placed in the card reader slot of the machines he would copy details of cards inserted in the slot, the police said, adding the data was downloaded to a laptop and then transferred to a Magnetic Strip Reader/Writer (MSR).

Blank debit cards were swiped through the MSR and these cloned cards were used to withdraw money from the ATMs fraudulently, they said.

Boafo was helped by one Issac, an African, in preparing cloned ATM cards. The duo deleted the stolen data from their devices soon after withdrawing money as the ATM cards, whose data they fraudulently obtained, were blocked by card holders, the police said.

The accused was in Mumbai for a couple of months this year and had returned to Delhi in the last week of July. It is suspected that he committed similar offences in Mumbai also, they said, adding police are on the lookout for Issac.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)

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Ghana national held for withdrawing money by cloning ATM cards - Daily News & Analysis

NEW DELHI: A Nigerian man has been arrested for cloning debit cards of over 100 people and withdrawing money fraudulently from their accounts. The victims had swiped their cards at ATMs in upscale south Delhi colonies.

The man identified as Kingsley had a unique modus operandi. Police said he would identify an ATM kiosk that didn't have a security guard around. He would go inside, rip open the card swiping slot of the machine and place a scanner behind it. Black tape would hold the device in place. Next, Kingsley would place a camera somewhere on the machine so that its focus would be on the keypad.

Whenever an ATM user swiped his card, the scanner would capture the details while the camera would record the PIN as the customer keyed it in. Once the customer stepped out, Kingsley would go inside, fetch the card reader and camera, and clone the card with the details. Then he would swipe the cloned card at other ATMs and withdraw money. In this way, customer after customer fell victim to Kingsley's fraud.

Until one day, a woman who operated an ATM near Hari Nagar found a large transaction done from her card long after she had withdrawn money. She immediately reported the matter to the police, who then obtained footage of CCTV cameras installed nearby.

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Nigerian held for duping 100 by cloning cards - Times of India

Hwang Woo-suk, a South Korean stem cell scientist who caused a major stir in the scientific community for academic fraud in 2005, has recently lost a legal battle over the rights to a technique critical to re-creating the woolly mammoth.

According to local reports Tuesday, Hwang had filed a criminal complaint against Park Se-pil of Jeju National University and his research colleagues, accusing them of embezzlement and attempted blackmail.

However, the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors Office said it did not find sufficient evidence of the claims against Park and his team, closing the case that had been open for years.

The plan was to replicate the mammoth cells in a lab. From the copied cells, researchers would extract the nucleus, which contains the animals genetic information. The nucleus would then be inserted into the eggs of female elephants, the closest living relatives to the now-extinct animal.

Hwangs mammoth cloning project had garnered international attention at the time, even prompting National Geographic to air a detailed documentary on the Korean scientist and his work in 2013.

However, Hwang and his Russian research partners ran into technological hurdles even before the cloning process could begin. For years, the team continuously failed to artificially cultivate the mammoth cells in the lab.

In 2015, Hwang recruited the help of Park and his team, who claimed they were able to successfully cultivate the mammoth cells needed for the nucleus transplant, based on the samples provided by Hwang.

Hwang and Park ended up clashing over the ownership of the cell cultivation technology. Hwang argued that Parks work constitutes a part of his own research and that he thus possesses the sole rights related to all the related experimental methods.

Meanwhile, Park claimed Hwang provided the mammoth cells without prior conditions and the research should be considered a collaborative effort, as his teams cell cultivation method plays a critical role.

According to records, Park refused to hand over his work to Hwang without signing proper terms of agreement, stating that he would rather dispose of the cultivated mammoth cells than freely pass them on to Hwang.

Hwang then sued Park and his team on embezzlement and attempted blackmail. However, the prosecution decided not to pursue the charges of the alleged offenses earlier this month.

The recent investigation has also prompted new allegations that Hwang illegally imported the mammoth samples into Korea without duly reporting to local authorities. Hwang has denied such allegations to the prosecution, according to local reports.

Hwang Woo-suk, 64, is a former professor at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Seoul National University. He was placed at the center of one of the worlds biggest scientific scandals in 2005 for fabricating evidence he had successfully cloned human embryos and yielded stem cell lines from them.

Recently, the disgraced scientist rose to the domestic spotlight for being a close collaborator to Sunchon National University professor Park Ki-young, who was recently appointed as the new chief of the Science, Technology and Innovation Office at Koreas Ministry of Science and ICT.

However, Park, who had been a co-author of Hwangs fraudulent research paper in 2005, resigned from her post last week after the local science community and politicians fiercely opposed her appointment, citing ethical lapses.

By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)

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Disgraced Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk loses legal battle over ... - The Korea Herald

Updated August 15, 2017 16:45:25

Police are urging people to use the 'tap and go' chip on their bank cards in order to protect themselves from fraud through "ghost" terminals.

Detectives from the NSW fraud squad are investigating a series of fraudulent ATM withdrawals across Sydney's south-west using "cloned" credit and debit cards.

Cloned cards are made by swiping the magnetic strip data and PIN from legitimate cards and then transferring the information to a plastic card with a magnetic strip, often a cheap store loyalty card.

"For a cloned card to be used in an ATM they need to have two pieces of information," Acting Superintendent Matt Craft said.

"They need to have the information on the magnetic strip and your PIN if they don't have your PIN they can't make the transaction.

"So it's about reducing the opportunity for criminal syndicates to get access to your PIN by covering it and making sure people can't see you enter your PIN."

Superintendent Craft said criminal syndicates obtained data from card's magnetic strips using a skimming device attached to an ATM or EFTPOS terminal, or they used so-called "ghost" terminals.

He said magnetic strips were "old technology" and customers should rely on their card's secure chip instead.

"It is very difficult for individuals when they're conducting transactions to identify a device that's been placed on an ATM that shouldn't be there or indeed a ghost terminal," he said.

"Often ghost terminals, which are used to capture your data, look very much like the original device.

"You need to be very cautious about using those devices and wherever you can, you should use the chip and tap that's the most secure way."

The prevalence of card cloning in Australia is much lower than overseas, Superintendent Craft said, but it has risen 13 per cent in the past year.

EFTPOS terminals in taxis, restaurants and small businesses, or skimming devices placed on ATMs, were the most common culprits for card skimming and cloning.

The fraud squad has released CCTV footage of a man who is believed to have used a cloned card to steal several hundred dollars in cash.

The man stole the money from several ATMs at Peakhurst and Roselands in Sydney's southwest on June 19.

He is described as Caucasian, aged in his 30s or 40s with short brown hair and a full beard.

He can be seen wearing a black T-shirt with a yellow and white print on the back, black jeans and white sneakers.

He was also wearing a wrist brace or bandage on his right hand.

Topics: police, consumer-protection, fraud-and-corporate-crime, nsw

First posted August 15, 2017 16:42:55

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Using 'tap and go' will protect against fraud through 'ghost' EFTPOS terminals, police say - ABC Online

If we are asked to sell out, then we gladly will Rebecca Biscuit and Louise Mothersole in DollyWould. Photograph: The Other Richard

The theatrical double-act Sh!t Theatre got their name as a joke. Founders Louise Mothersole and Rebecca Biscuit heard the sort of work they do performance art combined with theatrical improvisation described as just shit theatre. But the self-deprecating designation caused problems for broadcasters. The first time we ever appeared on radio, remembers Mothersole, it was to talk about a show called Sh!t Theatre Presents Sh!t Theatre, and we were told that we couldnt say the name of the company or the production. Which obviously made marketing it quite hard.

The duo have since won a Fringe First award at Edinburgh and they received Arts Council funding for their latest project, DollyWould, which is one of the standout shows at this years fringe. Applications for public funding must be supported by a mission statement, which, the women admit, was difficult to write in support of DollyWould. Having previously made shows that were documentary based and political Guinea Pigs on Trial concerned medical research, while Job Seekers Anonymous was about the benefits system they wanted to create a piece that was pure fun, exploring their joint obsession with Dolly Parton, who they admire for her musical theatricality and consider a lesbian icon.

The shows framing device is an entertaining variation on a verbatim musical, with Mothersole and Biscuit duetting a cappella answers from Parton interviews, including a 1977 American TV encounter with Barbara Walters, in which the performer, not yet having honed her hokey-jokey media persona, was startlingly unguarded about her career, marriage and body.

The last subject prompts the performers, at one point in DollyWould, to cut two circles in their T-shirts, exposing nipples and areolas for much of the show. In a culture where female nudity on stage has to be carefully negotiated and justified, was this a hard moment to agree? Not at all, they say together, before Biscuit continues: At some level, a show about Dolly Parton is going to be about breasts. But one of the rules we set ourselves was that the word breasts would never actually be spoken. So the idea is that they are just literally out there. Mothersole adds: And were not actually topless were still wearing tops so it doesnt feel as exposing as you might think.

This partial nudity is ended when each of the women dons one large fake bouncy breast that covers their torso. They came up with such props during the rehearsal period, but admit to spending a lot of money on devices that are never used. A large model of a mouse with an ear growing out of its back a reference to a briefly famous experiment in the cloning of human organs is stored in London, having been dropped from the show before they travelled north.

Although they have never previously gone so flat out for jokes, DollyWould also has more typically journalistic sequences: featuring the history of the first cloned sheep, named Dolly after the singer, and the macabre Body Farm, an FBI facility for investigating the decomposition of bodies, which incongruously neighbours the performers theme park Dollywood, with surprisingly similar memorabilia on sale in both gift shops.

At one point in the show, Mothersole and Biscuit, who met in the improv group Alphabetties, tell the audience that they split up last year, but were reunited through the singer whose biggest hits include the song D.I.V.O.R.C.E. Thats all true, says Biscuit. She and Mothersole, their relationship fractured by creative disagreements, moved out of the north London apartment block referenced in their 2016 show, Letters to Windsor House, which explored the law relating to opening correspondence sent to previous occupants of an address.

The trip to Dollywood was the first time we really got back together, says Mothersole. DollyWould is their eighth joint appearance at the fringe, having started at the free non-ticketed festival, before slowly graduating to their current peak-time (9.15pm) slot at Summerhall. Performing on the fringe is notoriously expensive in the early years, they once shared the bedroom of a relative who was a student in the city with seven other performers and, even now, August on the fringe is economically daunting. You end up losing money, says Biscuit, but, if it works, exposure in Edinburgh gets you bookings elsewhere. (DollyWould and Letters to Windsor House already have post-Edinburgh dates around the UK.)

Sh!t Theatre recently received ACE funding for a 2018 show, which they expect to bring to Edinburgh. Noting that the Arts Council is funded by donations from the National Lottery, they came up with an idea for a show that would use a grant from the cultural funding body to buy Lottery tickets, returning any winnings to their patron.

After talking to the Arts Council and lawyers, says Biscuit, it turned out that we wouldnt legally be allowed to use a funding grant in that way. So were going to do something more general about money and wealth. Mothersole adds that it will probably be in a very different format to anything weve done before a sort of gameshow, with lots of audience participation.

One of their early ideas was to perform the show only on Wednesday and Saturday nights, coinciding with the Lottery draws, but that would have the effect of making an Edinburgh residency even less economic, although they hope to come to Scotland every August, unless lucrative commercial offers intervene.

Weve already made the moral decision over that, says Mothersole. If we are asked to sell out, then we gladly will. But, until then, well go on being performance artists.

DollyWould is at Summerhall in Edinburgh, to 27 August. Box office: 0131 560 1580. Then on tour.

Go here to read the rest:

DollyWould: Sh!t Theatre's fringe tribute to the country singer and the cloned sheep - The Guardian

INDIANAPOLIS (WTHR) - Many schools and companies across the country use a key card entry system to give employees access to work buildings. We have them here at WTHR. It's a pretty common security strategy.

However, one local security expert said a $30 tool can put a company's security at risk. A few inches and a couple seconds, and your identity can be stolen--at least your key card identity.

Armando Perez, the President and General Manager of Hoosier Security says key cards are still the most common way companies allow entry for their employees. Key cards are supposed to be secure, but retailers overseas are threatening that security with a fairly cheap device.

Selling for about $30 online, card copiers are designed to steal your information. Schools can be especially susceptible.

"These copying devices are so inexpensive now, students can get their hands on them, and there could be all kinds of repercussions there," said Perez. "I don't really want to go into giving anybody any ideas about it, but the people who need to solve the problem are aware of this."

Perez said there's really no regulatory method for stopping the production of these card copiers overseas. He said it's up to companies to upgrade their key cards or scanning equipment, which can be costly.

Since you need to be six inches away from someone to copy their entry card, Perez said it likely won't be a stranger on the street, but could very well be an unsuspecting co-worker. That's why it's hard to catch the copier.

"If somebody from research gets the credentials of someone in accounting, they can now have access to all of the accounting information in the business. Nobody would ever know because it's still a valid credential."

As I test, I let him try to clone my entry card to WTHR.

Fortunately, the device wasn't able to clone my card due to the high frequency it emits. But Perez said other schools and companies may be running lower frequencies. Additionally, he warned better, more expensive copiers may still clone my card.

A carbon fiber wallet, which is built to block the frequency signal, can help, but doesn't make it completely preventable. They come at a hefty price - $150 - and a lot of people don't keep key cards in their wallet.

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'Card cloning' device puts key card entry at risk - WTHR

Recent headlines have heralded the arrival of gene-edited piglets free of viruses that could stand in the way of safe transplantation of porcine organs into humans. The fact is that such attempts at xenotransplantation are nothing new, and more significantly, that the researchers success is questionable, for both technical and ethical reasons.

Drawings of human-animal hybrids, or chimeras, date back to prehistoric times who can forget the bird-headed man in the French Lascaux cave or the ancient Egyptian deities with human heads on animal bodies such as the Great Sphinx?

Great Sphinx (IAN BARKER)

According to the NIHs A Brief History of Clinical Xenotransplantation, the first attempts to intermingle humans and other species actually began back in the 16th century with xenotransfusions, blood transfusions from animals to humans. By the 19th century, doctors were attempting interspecies skin transplantations using both furless creatures such as frogs who were sometimes skinned alive during the process as well as furry creatures such as sheep, rabbits, dogs, cats, rats, chickens, and pigeons. The first pig-to-human corneal transplant was attempted in 1838. None of these early efforts were believed to be very successful, and it would not have occurred to many at the time that these experiments gave no consideration whatsoever to the suffering of the animals involved. (Heres an even more thorough history of xenotransplantation if youre interested.)

Theres a chronic shortage of human organs available for transplants. Dr. David Klassen, chief medical officer at the United Network for Organ Sharing, tells New York Times that last years 33,600 organ transplants in the U.S. left 116,800 patients still on waiting lists. 22 Americans waiting for organs die each day according to Science. Hence the continued keen interested in xenotransplantation.

Some suggest, however, that with a better, simpler and more ethical solution already available, this may actually reflect the eagerness of scientists to do science more than it does a genuine desire for an answer to a problem. As bioethicist L. Syd M Johnson tells Big Think, The shortage of transplantable organs is a very real problem. Other countries have had great success increasing donations by doing simple things like making everyone a donor, unless they explicitly opt-out. Social engineering is a low-tech solution to the organ shortage, and much safer, easier, and cheaper than the high tech genetic engineering being done to possibly make xenotransplantation possible.

(ELI KRISTMAN)

One of the major stumbling blocks in the transplantation of pig organs which may in other ways be human-compatible are PERVs, an (unfortunate) acronym for porcine endogenous retroviruses. PERVs are gamma retroviruses, genetic remnants of ancient viral infections, and theyre woven into the pig genome. There are multiple types of PERV, but its know that PERV-A and PERV-B, at least, can transfer zoonotic microorganisms infections into human cells that have been combined, in vitro, with pig cells.

The team behind the new research, led by geneticist George Church of Harvard and affiliated with the Broad Institute, one of the patent holders of CRISPR-Cas9 and colleague Luhan Yang, had demonstrated in 2015 that they could inactivate PERVs at all of their 62 sites in the pig genome in an immortalized cell line, and thus prevent those cells from passing them to human cells.

Background: pig chromosomes, foreground: Cas9 (WYSS INSTITUTE)

Now theyve gone the next step, using CRISPR-Cas9 to modify the pig genome and clone actual PERV-inactivated piglets. Church claims the first pig-to-human xenotransplant can happen within two years. Some observers consider this prediction wishful thinking.

First off, its impossible to know if inactivating PERVs is all that needs to be done to make porcine organs safe for humans. Scientists already know that pig genes will need to be modified so they dont provoke rejection in humans, and theyll also have to insert other genes to avoid toxic blood interactions. And then there are the things we dont yet know about.

For one thing, its not entirely clear that PERVs are even really the issue. Cardiac transplant surgeon Muhammad Mohiuddin, whos working with United therapeutics to develop implantable porcine hearts tells Science, At this moment, I dont think we are very worried about PERV. Transplant immunologistDavid Cooper says, If this is required, it will add to the time before pigs can be used for transplants in patients in desperate need. And it will add to the cost of providing pigs for the initial clinical trials.

And then there are the considerable ethical issues, on both the human and animal sides.

Johnson reminds us, In past experiments with xenotransplantation, the human recipients of animal organs have all died, some from hyperacute rejection, which results in rapid death, and many others more slowly. People waiting for lifesaving organs are vulnerable and desperate exactly the kinds of people we should be concerned about using as subjects in exceptionally risky experiments.

Another issue to consider is financial. What were talking about here is growing human-compatible organs in genetically modified pigs. Those organs are not going to be free says Johnson. There will be patents. The organs will be commercially grown in for-profit businesses. There are already economic issues related to access to organ transplantation. What happens to patients who cant pay the price? What effect might commercially grown organs have on organ donation? Will potential organ donors be dis-incentivized to donate?

As far as the animals go, the same long-term concerns hold true. The study itself is also a textbook case of what this research is like for the animals involved. The piglets were carried by 17 sows, into each of whom were implanted200-300 cloned embryos. There were initially 37 PERV-inactive piglets, of which 15 piglets remain alive, and the oldest healthy animals are 4-month old. First off, this means 22 piglets died, with only 15 surviving, a less-than-half success rate for the few embryos that resulted in pregnancy. Of the 15 survivors, 4 of the healthiest are said to be 4 months old, but what about the other 11? What condition are they in?

Johnson points out, Cloning is an expensive and inefficient method of reproduction, with a high failure rate, and its very costly in terms of animal welfare. Before we get to the point where we can use pigs as living organ farms, many, many animals will be sacrificed not just pigs, but also the animals first used to test the transplants. Traditionally, the initial experimental organ recipients have been nonhuman primates.

Are pigs sentient?This one jumped off a truck en route to a slaughterhouse. (ZO JOHNSON-BERMAN)

When one balances how little effort has been expended encouraging organ donation and how much money, effort, and likely animal suffering has been invested in scientific research, the Church teams announcement of their PERV-inactive piglets seems like considerably less than the joyous news its often breathlessly characterized as being. And when one then considers just how much remains unknown about the dangers of xenotransplantation, the new study is perhaps as much a warning as it is a game-changing breakthrough.

The rest is here:

CRISPR-Cleaned Piglets Have Been Cloned for Organ Donation - Big Think

(CNN) -- Here's some background information aboutcloning, a process of creating an identical copy of an original.

Facts: Reproductive Cloning is the process of making a full living copy of an organism. Reproductive cloning of animals transplants nuclei from body cells into eggs that have had their nucleus removed. That egg is then stimulated to divide using an electrical charge and is implanted into the uterus of a female.

Therapeutic Cloningis the process where nuclear transplantation of a patient's own cells makes an oocyte from which immune-compatible cells (especiallystem cells) can be derived for transplant. These cells are stimulated to divide and are grown in a Petri dish rather than in the uterus.

Timeline: 1952 - Scientists demonstrate they can remove the nucleus from a frog's egg, replace it with the nucleus of an embryonic frog cell, and get the egg to develop into a tadpole.

1975 -Scientists get tadpoles after transferring cell nuclei from adult frogs.

1986 -Sheep cloned by nuclear transfer from embryonic cells.

February 22, 1997 -Scientists reveal Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be cloned from cells of an adult animal. She was actually born on July 5, 1996.

1998 -More than 50 mice are reported cloned from a single mouse over several generations. Eight calves are cloned from a cow.

2000 -Pigs and goats are reported cloned from adult cells.

2001 -Advanced Cell Technology of Worcester, Massachusetts, says it produced a six-cell cloned human embryo, in research aimed at harvesting stem cells.

2001 -Five bulls are cloned from a champion bull, Full Flush.

2002 -Rabbits and a kitten are reported cloned from adult cells.

December 27, 2002 - Clonaid claims to produce first human clone, a baby girl, Eve.

January 23, 2003 -Clonaid claims to have cloned the first baby boy. The baby was allegedly cloned from tissue taken from the Japanese couple's comatose 2-year-old boy, who was killed in an accident in 2001. Clonaid has never provided physical evidence of the cloning.

February 14, 2003 -The Roslin Institute confirms that Dolly, the world's first cloned mammal, was euthanized after being diagnosed with progressive lung disease. She was 6 years old.

May 4, 2003 -The first mule is cloned at the University of Idaho, named Idaho Gem.

June 9, 2003 -Researchers Gordon Woods and Dirk Vanderwall from the University of Idaho and Ken White from Utah State University claim to have cloned a second mule.

August 6, 2003 -Italian scientists at the Laboratory of Reproductive Technology in Cremona, Italy, say they have created the world's first cloned horse, Prometea, from an adult cell taken from the horse who gave birth to her.

September 25, 2003 -French scientists at the National Institute of Agricultural Research at Joy en Josas, France, become the first to clone rats.

February 12, 2004 -South Korean researchers report they have created human embryos through cloning and extracted embryonic stem cells. Findings by a team of researchers were presented to South Korean scientists and describe in detail the process of how to create human embryos by cloning. The report says the scientists used eggs donated by Korean women. An investigative panel concludes in 2006 that South Korean scientist Woo Suk Hwang's human stem cell cloning research was faked.

August 3, 2005 -South Korean researchers announce they have successfully cloned a dog, an Afghan hound named Snuppy.

December 8, 2008-April 4, 2009 -Five cloned puppies from Trakr, a German Shepherd Sept.11 Ground Zero rescue dog, are born.

May 2009 -Clone of Tailor Fit, a two-time quarter horse world champion, is born, one of several cloned horses born that year.

September 29, 2011 -At South Korea's Incheon Airport, seven "super clone" sniffer-dogs are dispatched to detect contraband luggage. They are all golden Labrador Retrievers that are genetically identical to "Chase," who was the top drug detention canine until he retired in 2007.

May 15, 2013 -Oregon Health & Science University researchers report in the journal Cell that they have created embryonic stem cells through cloning. Shoukhrat Mitalipov and the biologistsproduced human embryos using skin cells, and then used the embryos to produce stem cell lines.

April 2014 -For the first time,cloning technologies have been used to generate stem cells that are genetically matched to adult patients.Researchers put the nucleus of an adult skin cell inside an egg, and that reconstructed egg went through the initial stages of embryonic development, according to research published this month.

The-CNN-Wire & 2017 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.

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Fast facts about cloning - WPSD Local 6: Your news, weather, and sports authority - WPSD Local 6

Beijing biotech lab Sinogene say they have successfully cloned a genetically-modified dog for medical research, and now plan to use the same technology to create "superdogs" for Chinese police.

The beagle puppy named Longlong, born in May, is a clone of a gene-edited beagle called Apple.

These two dogs are 99.9 per cent the same. We've observed their personality and appearance, even their facial expressions are identical. As you can see they're both very naughty and active. Even the way they walk, how they move around, says Mi Jidong, Sinogene General Manager.

Two other clone puppies Nuonuo and Qiqi followed Longlong in June. All were born from surrogate mothers in the lab.

Apple, the original beagle, was genetically modified last year using a gene-editing tool known as CRISPR/Cas9.

Clone puppies Nuonuo and Qiqi were born in May.

Its been more than 20 years since the first mammal, a sheep named Dolly, was cloned in 1996. Since then other animals, including horses and pigs, have since been cloned. The first dog, however, was only duplicated in 2005.

Dogs are extremely difficult to work with. Some cells are very complex and difficult to clone. Also its extremely hard for a dog embryo to survive in lab conditions, its very vulnerable, explains Mr Mi.

Another reason the cloning of dogs may be more difficult is that the animal is more genetically similar to humans than other animals. Approximately 400 out of 900 genetic illnesses in dogs are similar to human diseases.

Its for this reason that Apple, Longlong and his fellow-clones will be used primarily for medical research.

It's the first step in our future development to delve further into modifying dogs for medical research, says Mr Mi.

Apple was gene-edited to have several times higher levels of blood lipid a trait associated with high cholesterol. Sinogene say theyre cooperating with other labs in China to study gene-based diseases including heart disease and diabetes and develop medicines.

Scientist Mi Jidong plays with Sinogene's cloned puppies from a gene-edited beagle.

But thats not the only focus of the lab. Sinogene will also be using the same gene-editing and cloning technique to create super dogs for the police force as early as next year.

Were also exploring how we can use genetic modification and cloning to improve the specific qualities of different working dogs. For example to improve their stamina, their intelligence to make it easier to train them And also give them a better sense of smell, says Mr Mi.

China currently imports many of its police, search and rescue dogs. Mr Mi believes Sinogenes work could save money and improve the quality of Chinas police dog pack.

But the work has been condemned as cruel by animal welfare groups operating in China.

Cloning has many problems. Large numbers of animals are used as donors and surrogates. But the success rate is very small. So its a huge waste of animal life, says Peter Li, China Policy specialist at Humane Society International, and Associate Professor of East Asian Politics at the University of Houston-Downtown.

He says money would be better spent caring for Chinas millions of unwanted dogs.

I think this super dog work is suspect. Dogs are already very intelligent. We know that cloned dogs have health issues, they dont live long. It is a huge waste of public resources to clone dogs for the police force, says Professor Li.

Beijing-based animal rights activist Mary Peng believes medical testing on animals needs to be better regulated

Animal welfare activist and founder of Chinas first international animal hospital in Beijing, Mary Peng, says she doesnt feel animal medical testing should stop but says labs need to be better regulated. Cloning is really just another form of breeding, says Ms Peng. But I share concerns of how the animals are treated.

She says though China has progressed rapidly in recent years when it comes to the treatment and general attitude towards animals, protective laws lag behind international standards.

China is having the worlds biggest love affair with their pets in the history of the world, she says, but this is all very new, less than 25 years old maybe.

And this experimentation, medical research etc, are also really new industries for China, Ms Peng says. And Im not sure that the laws and regulations about how the animals are treated while theyre in these labs have been fully developed.

But Professor Li says the labs work also raises larger ethical questions. If we see cloned animals as a testing object, I wonder how soon this work will be applied to humans. If we have this level of audacity, this level of recklessness as a standard, then many other test labs will do things that should be stopped.

Sinogene scientist works with dog cells in their Beijing lab

Retired Tsinghua University artificial intelligence and ethics expert Professor Zhao Nanyuan dismisses the criticism of animal rights groups as foreign and irrelevant, saying Chinas scientific progress outweighs the cost.

To see human-animal relations as an ethical question is a concept borrowed from Western religion. In Chinese ethics we dont have this.

He says many in China, like him, will focus on the long-term benefit, rather than the individual treatment of an animal or embryo.

In China we have less problems developing genetically modified technology. Im pretty sure other countries will be behind China when it comes to human genetic research because of their concerns."

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China's cloning of genetically modified dogs for research raises concerns - SBS

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Here is the original post:

Orphan Black is ending, but how far has human cloning come? - The Verge

MUMBAI: Bank account holders in Nalasopara are waking up to debit card cloning in the past few days, with over 50 customers losing around Rs 10 lakh to the fraud.

Nalasopara police in the west and Tuling police station in the east have registered cases of skimming (card cloning) between August 2 to 8. In most cases, victims received SMSes of cash withdrawals though they didn't withdraw money from an ATM and had their cards with them. While cases under section 420 (cheating) of the IPC and sections 65(d) and 66(k) of the Information Technology Act have been registered against unknown persons, police suspect the withdrawals were done from outside Maharashtra.

In Nalasopara, on August 4, businessman Ravindra Dhimre (51) was woken up by an SMS at midnight. He was shocked to learn Rs 70,000 was withdrawn from his Union Bank account. Dhimre rushed to look for his debit card which he found was intact in his wallet. Dhimre then approached the police.

In the next few days, around 40 victims approached police with similar complaints, with cash involved varying from Rs 7,000 to Rs 70,000. The total amount lost to skimming so far in Nalasopara (West) alone is to Rs 8.01lakh.

In Nalasopara (East), a 46-year-old man lost Rs 20,000 to skimming. The victim received an SMS of the withdrawal.He was in possession of his debit card and had not made any withdrawals in the past few days. Investigating officer N K Patil said so far around 15 victims have approached the police, adding most victims lost money between August 2 to 8.

See the original post here:

Over 50 Nalasopara residents lose Rs 10 lakh to debit card cloning - Times of India

In a scientific first, researchers have created piglets that could possibly one day provide organs for human transplants. Though the science is still early, it's a big step forward in the quest to use pig organs to help the hundreds of thousands of people every year who await organ transplants.

In a report published Thursday in the journal Science , scientists from Harvard University, the biotech company eGenesis and several other institutions were able to use gene editing and cloning to create virus-free piglets that could potentially be used in the future for human organ transplants. As the New York Times reports , researchers have wanted to explore using pigs as organ sources in the past, but plans were thwarted by the fear that viruses from the pigs, called retroviruses, could infect humans through the transplants.

In the new report, scientists detail how they took pig cells and edited them using the gene-editing technology CRISPR-Cas9 to target and hinder their virus-related DNA. They then cloned those edited cells and developed an embryo. Those embryos were implanted into sows and then became piglets.

As STAT reports, out of 37 piglets, all were born without retroviruses. Not all were brought to term, and some were killed so the scientists could check how their organs were developing, but today, 15 piglets are still alive.

Study author George Church, a geneticist at Harvard and founder of eGenesis, told the Times he thinks that pig-to-human transplants could happen within two years. However, other researchers argue that it could be years before scientists even know if pig organ transplants are safe.

[ New York Times]

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Scientists are Getting Closer To Using Pig Organs For Human Transplants - TIME

Guilty until proven innocent?

The Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce (VACC) is this week shining a light on the most heinous practice of number-plate cloning, which it claims has left numerous car dealers fighting traffic infringement penalties.

In one case, the VACC says, a Licensed Motor Car Trader was fined over $16,000 for a single incidence of number plate cloning.

The process of cloning a number plate is said to be as simple as spying a vehicle of identical model and colour, noting its number plate, and reproducing it as easily as printing a mocked-up copy or hand-drawing it.

VACC Executive Director, Geoff Gwilym, says that while any motorist can be a victim, it is car dealers a group the VACC represents most likely to be targeted.

Criminals go online, or drive past a dealership, and note the registration of a particular vehicle. They then get these plates copied and go driving all over town in a similar vehicle, accumulating speeding and red light fines, CityLink tolls and parking infringements, all while the original vehicle has been on the dealers lot, Gwilym says.

He said that unsold, registered vehicles sitting on dealer lots are a popular target because offenders can use the cars number plate details for sometime without the crime being detected.

Victims of this crime often dont know anything about it until a fine arrives in the mail. By this time, the penalty may be considerable. Several dealer members have reported fines in the thousands of dollars.

So far, Gwilym says, victims have been told to prove their innocence in court, and authorities have revealed no plans to combat the issue.

Anyone receiving a suspect fine should challenge the decision. Those affected can request of Civic Compliance that they issue photographs of the alleged offence. This can be used in creating a defence. Importantly, bring the indiscretion to the attention of Civic Compliance as soon as possible and build a case.

The VACC has proposed a barcoded sticker, placed on the inside surface of a vehicles windscreens, would be harder to replicate and thus a possible solution to ruling out victim as perpetrator.

VACC calls on the appropriate authorities to investigate all possible solutions to this wide-spread crime that potentially could affect every motorist in Australia, said Mr Gwilym.

CarAdvice has contacted VicRoads, Victoria Police and Civic Compliance for comment, and will update this story if a response is forthcoming.

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VACC warns of number-plate cloning scam, motorists left to prove innocence - CarAdvice

You just bought a brand new shiny SSD and want to throw it into your aging mid-tower PC. But wait, the horror of having to reinstall Windows again and all of your applications begins to set in. If you dont want to deal with the hassle of reinstalling Windows, you can use a simple cloning utility to clone your old drive to your new SSD. Weve rounded up three free cloning utilities that are easy to use so you dont have to go through the effort of reinstalling your OS and applications all over again.

Note: Before you attempt to clone your hard drive or SSD, w e highly recommend backing up all your data first. In addition, make sure the drive you are cloning to has enough storage space to take all the cloned data. For instance, you wouldn't want to try and clone a 2TB HDD on to a 256GB SSD now would you?

The first data copying method we'll go over pertains to Samsung Data Migration. So make sure you plop that new Samsung SSD in along with your old OS drive you want to clone from.

Note: You will need a Samsung SSD installed on your machine for this software to work.

Step 1: Download the installer from http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/samsungssd/downloads.html

Step 2: Run the installer and click "I accept" at the end of it to agree to the terms and conditions.

Step 3: Once the software is installed, it will launch and ask if you if you want to update to the latest version. Click on Update and you will begin downloading the newest patches for it.

Step 4: After the update is complete the software will have you install patches and will have you agree to the Samsung terms and conditions again.

Step 5: From this window, you will select the Source Disk and Target Disk . The Target Disk must be a Samsung SSD , but the Source Disk can be any C: Drive you currently have your OS on . Once youve selected your disks, you can start cloning by clicking Start and the cloning process will begin. Note: Leave your computer alone while you're cloning the OS, as you may corrupt the clone if other processes are being run at the same time. This goes for the other cloning utilities as well.

After the software is done cloning, you can shut down your PC and boot from your newly-cloned SSD.

The second method we will discuss uses the program Macrium Reflect and will work with any drive, regardless of brand. So before you begin, make sure you plop in that new drive along with your old drive you want to clone from.

Step 1: Go to the free version of Macrium here.

Step 2: Click on the download button in the Macrium Reflect Download Agent and then run the softwares installer.

Note: Make sure to read the fine print throughout the installation process to not install any adware. Cnet's Download.com has become infamous for sneaking it in (Here are some general tips to avoiding installing malware/adware).

Step 3: Open up the software and click on Clone this disk Once you do this the software will let you choose which disks you want as your source and target disks. When you have selected your disks, click next to start cloning your drive.

Macrium Reflect useful tips:

Creating bootable rescue media: Macrium Reflect can also help you make bootable rescue media. This tool is located under Other Tasks. We always recommend making recovery media, just in case your hard drive or SSD fails on you.

Creating an image of your hard drives: Under Backup Tasks, you can also create a disk image of your hard drive or SSD too.

These are but three cloning tools, there are many others such as Seagate's DiscWizard ( for Seagate drives) along with other free storage cloning tools such as G-Parted and Clonezilla.

Read the original here:

How to clone a hard drive or SSD - PC Gamer

Two identical Crestview Genetics Arabian horse clones stand at a ranch in Lujn, Argentina.

Santa Anita Park, in the Los Angeles suburb of Arcadia, is the racetrack where a bay-colored horse named Seabiscuit became a national hero some 80 years ago. Today, about 14,000 people still show up on a typical racing day to watch the thoroughbreds. Punters wagered more than $660 million here last year. Even on a Thursday afternoon, the park, nicknamed the Great Race Place, is bustling.

The steady parade of debutantes in towering hats offers a reminder that horse racing remains a bit outside of time, a world unto itself. Tradition and lineage are of tremendous value. The multibillion-dollar market for racehorse breeding is strictly controlled, especially in the U.S., where racing organizations adhere closely to rules that havent changed much since Seabiscuits day. The American Quarter Horse Association, the U.S. Trotting Association, and the Jockey Club are among the groups that have banned even artificial insemination in the breeding process. You can guess how they feel about cloning.

I dont see this breed registry doing it, says Jockey Club spokesman Bob Curran Jr. Can that clone possibly be better than the original? Its unlikely. In some quarters, however, the old guard has less say in the matter.

The first cloned horse was born in 2003, and a small group of companies is now cranking them out. Clones have already flooded the world of polo, where multiple copies of a champion often battle on the same field. The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association lets the genetic duplicates compete in barrel racing and donkey racing events. And the International Equestrian Federation, the global governing body for equestrian sports, has sanctioned clones for Olympic events. Until recently, it didnt even require owners to disclose that little detail. We dont see it as relevant, says federation veterinary director Goran Akerstrom.

So far, the big winner in the great clone race has been Alan Meeker, chief executive officer of Crestview Genetics. Since 2010 the 52-year-old Texas oil heir has created close to 100 horse clones valued at $500,000 to $800,000 each, depending on how long the companys raised them. The clones have sired more than 375 foals, colts, and fillies priced at $50,000 to $250,000. Crestview, started in 2009 with about $20 million from Meeker and Argentine Adolfo Cambiaso, the worlds leading polo star, splits its 45 staffers between Texas and the polo hub of Buenos Aires. Meeker says the company is profitable, is worth about $75 million, and has settled the debate between nature and nurture: To say that you can get the same DNA and you cant get the same results, weve debunked that completely.

Until recently, Crestview licensed its cloning technique, the one that yielded Dolly the sheep back in 1996, from ViaGen LC, which does a brisk business cloning livestock and pets. That meant harvesting ovaries from slaughterhouse horses, injecting the desired DNA, then implanting the fertilized embryos in surrogate mothers, typically trying several times to produce one clone.

In late 2015, Crestview worked out its own way to remove embryos from a living horse and quickly implant them in another. Meeker says that gives the company a 90 percent chance the surrogate mothers system will accept the clone embryo and produce a healthy clone. Last October, Cambiaso won a polo match riding a succession of six clones of his late champion, Cuartetera. Now that Crestview has cloned more than two dozen Cuarteteras, such feats are starting to become routine.

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Unlike with polo horses, uniform excellence isnt the ideal for racehorses, says Ernie Bailey, a genetics professor at the University of Kentucky. The old-school breeders try to mate speedsters with mares they think will produce even faster horses. Let that beautiful alchemy of Mother Nature see if you get a winner, says Seabiscuit author Laura Hillenbrand. I dont want another Seabiscuit. Hes enough. Besides, even genetic twins can be noticeably different depending on which genes happen to be expressed, meaning switched on, says Doug Antczak, a veterinary scientist at Cornell University.

Meeker says his team is working on decoding the mysteries of gene expression and on extrapolating its work with horses to advance human stem cell research. Hes making himself the first test subject for a possible genetic cure for Type 1 diabetes, which hes aiming to make available to the public for $10 million per patient at a clinic in the Bahamas by the end of next year. What do the old-timers back at Santa Anita Park think about his work with horses? In the tunnel between races, a mustachioed jockey looks up from texting and answers questions about horse clones by spitting in the dirt. His trainer laughs. But the question is serious.

BOTTOM LINE - Since 2010, Crestview Genetics has created about 100 horse clones for polo, and Olympic equestrian events are fair game, too.

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Horse Clones Start Heading to the Races - Bloomberg

Pictures have been revealed on Facebook of a modified Franken-Fiat modified to look like a Porsche 911.

This magnificent project is apparently the result of someone in Greece with too much time on their hands. Given the state of the country's economy over the last few years, the price of a brand new Porsche 911 would probably get you the country's national bank.

While Porsche is exploring the limits of taste with its range of supersized sporting SUVs, the German manufacturer has yet to dip a toe in the small car waters, unlike its more premium competitor Aston Martin, which brought us the Toyota iQ-based Cygnet back in 2012.

The Fiat 500 base car is a decent choice, given that both it and the Porsche 911 have engines mounted in the back of the car, but in many ways any of the similarities end there.

You might also imagine that the creator of this entrancing automotive drag act might have picked a better end product than the visually challenging 1998-2004 996 model of 911, but looking at what they've done, such discussions are probably moot.

At any rate, feast your eyes on thisvehicular delight we can't seem to tear ours away.

Source:How Not to Design a CarFacebook page

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Porsche 911-Look Fiat 500 Is Like A Cloning Experiment Gone Wrong - Motor1.com