Category Archives: Cloning

A robot that automates a common technique for animal cloning has been used to produce a litter of cloned pigs in China with a much higher success rate than human scientists.

The challenge: China is both the worlds biggest producer of pork and its largest consumer, so having ideal breeding stock animals that birthe large litters of quick-growing piglets is important for the nations economy and food security.

However, in 2018 and 2019, an epidemic of deadly African swine fever wiped out almost 50% of Chinas pig population. As a result, many farmers have had to import breeding pigs, and China is now eager for its pork industry to become almost entirely self-sufficient.

Manual animal cloning is a tedious, time-consuming process with a 10% success rate.

The idea: Instead of importing pigs, Chinese farmers could clone them, turning one strong breeder into a herd. The most common method for animal cloning is somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT).

First, a scientist removes the nucleus from an animals egg cell, which is then replaced with a nucleus taken from a regular body (or somatic) cell of the animal being cloned. The embryo with the transplanted nucleus is then implanted in a surrogate to develop like any other.

But this is a tedious, time-consuming process conducted under a microscope, and it only has a 10% success rate.

Robotic animal cloning: Researchers at Nankai University have now built a robot that can autonomously perform SCNT cloning. In March 2022, embryos created entirely by the system were used to produce a litter of seven cloned pigs, birthed by a surrogate mother.

Each step of the cloning process was automated, and no human operation was involved, researcher Liu Yaowei told the South China Morning Post.

Our AI-powered system reduces the cell damage caused by human hands.

The fact that such a tricky, complex process as animal cloning can be automated is remarkable enough, but the system is also far better at the process than human scientists, with a success rate of 27.5%.

Our AI-powered system can calculate the strain within a cell and direct the robot to use minimal force to complete the cloning process, which reduces the cell damage caused by human hands, Liu said.

Looking ahead: A peer-reviewed paper detailing the teams work will soon be published in the journal of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Liu told the South China Morning Post.

The groups immediate hope is that their tech could help Chinas pork industry become self-sufficient but it could have implications far beyond the nations pig farms.

If the cost of robotic animal cloning isnt prohibitive, cloning could be useful for researching new drugs, climate-proofing the food supply, protecting endangered species, or even (more speculatively) resurrecting extinct ones.

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Chinese robot clones pigs with no human help - Freethink

image:On the left, the high cloning efficiency buffalo fetal fibroblasts (BFFs) displayed high H3K9 acetylation, low H3K9 methylation companying with low heterochromatin protein 1 (HP1) expression, and robust glycolysis metabolism. On the right are low cloning efficiency BFFs, which chromatin state and metabolic characteristics are the opposite of the cells with high cloning efficiency. Regulating the metabolic pathway of buffalo fibroblasts with low cloning efficiency to glycolysis, the chromatin state of the cells can be shift to a chromatin state with high cloning efficiency. view more

Credit: Science China Press

Individual variation in fertility, growth and behavior characteristics is a common phenomenon observed in mammals. Among these individual variations, fertility variation attracts more people attention as it concerns with animal reproduction and species continuation. Fertility variation mainly displays as semen variation in fertilization ability and cell variation in efficiency of nuclear transfer (cloning). The individual variation in semen fertilization ability is easy to be understood as it can be linked to the sperm motility variation. However, the individual variation in somatic cell cloning efficiency is hardly to be linked with the visual phenotype of cells. Therefore, Prof. Deshun Shis group from State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Subtropical Agro-Bioresources, Guangxi University, is concentrating on this scientific question and a series of deep investigation was performed. They found that buffalo fetal fibroblasts (BFFs) from different individuals differed in their cloning efficiency, chromatin status, epigenetic modifications and glycolytic metabolism. BFFs with high cloning efficiency displayed robust energy metabolism, looser chromatin structure, low expression of heterochromatin protein 1 (HP1) and high acetylation of H3K9. More regions enriched with H3K9ac were found in BFFs with high cloning efficiency and these differential H3K9ac modification sites were mainly located in the region near to the upstream of genes related to the glycolytic metabolism by ChIP-sequencing analysis. Stronger enrichment signals, especially in critical genes related to glycolysis was also found in BFFs with high cloning efficiency by ATAC-seq profiling. Treatment of low cloning efficiency BFFs with PS48 (an inducer of glycolytic metabolic pathway) could result in a decrease in apoptosis rate, histone deacetylase activity and HP1 expression, increase in the intracellular lactate production, H3K9 acetylation and cloning efficiency. They well linked somatic cell cloning efficiency, chromatin openness, histone acetylation and glycolysis together, and confirmed that the individual variation in somatic cell cloning efficiency can be regulated by altering glycolytic metabolism. Not only their works will enhance the understanding of somatic cell reprogramming mechanism, but also provide a new route to improving the cloning efficiency. These works will be published in Science China-Life Sciences recently.

Science China Life Sciences

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

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Individual variation in buffalo somatic cell cloning efficiency is related to glycolytic metabolism and chromatin structure - EurekAlert

I am aware that a forest lies at the periphery of our immediate consciousness. It just looks a little different from the forests that we are used to, Sejal Mehta says, in her book, Superpowers on the Shore (May 2022; Penguin Random House India).

Mehta, a science communicator, is talking about the intertidal zone, the ever-shifting space along an ocean where the tide gushes in and out and where eccentric creatures live out their lives, some of them tinier than a fingernail. In her first pop science book for adults (she has previously written a series of wildlife-themed books for children), Mehta describes a world inhabited by creatures that could easily be the product of an active imagination. There are gender fluid clownfish; flatworms that engage in penis wars; mantis shrimp that smash their prey much like the Hulk might; sea anemones that can clone themselves; and cephalopods such as octopi and squid that come sheathed in invisibility cloaks.

In this small world are also big achievers. The cone snail produces one of the deadliest venoms in the world; certain limpets teeth, composed of chitin and goethite (an iron-based mineral), are among the strongest naturally occurring materials known to mankind.

Mehta was introduced to the world of intertidal zones four years ago, when she attended a shore walk with the citizen-science group Marine Life of Mumbai (MLoM). This group has been documenting the vast array of marine species that live in Mumbais intertidal zones.

Mehta fell in love with this world. Shed spent almost two decades writing about lush forests and river systems for publications such as Lonely Planet and Nature inFocus. Here was a multi-episode National Geographic-worthy documentary playing out right on her doorstep.

Turning the tide

Mehta, 43, who lives in Mumbai and is now a member of MLoM too, says the idea of superpowers took root very quickly. As we spoke about particular creatures, I would compare them with superheroes, or ninja assassins. Id put them down with a special mention of their arsenals.

Mehta has met most of the creatures featured in her book, which is divided into three broad sections. The first contains detailed descriptions of creatures and their special powers, under chapter titles such as Power of Invisibility (decorator crab, cephalopods), Power of Creation (squids, turtles), Assassins of the Intertidal (the cone snail, bobbit worm), and Defence Against the Dark Arts (Portuguese man o war, pufferfish).

A second section, presented as passages interspersed between the chapters, is a fictional narrative of life in the tidepools, from the point of view of the homely hermit crab (the creature who is most relatable to us, because they are such strugglers, laughs Mehta). The third section is a series of application letters from various creatures, to the democratic people of the marine realm, asking for membership to the shore superhero team.

Its an unusual approach, even for a work of pop science. But it succeeds in making this almost-alien world accessible to the reader, despite the necessary jargon that appears from time to time. Its an easy read. But it wasnt an easy book to write, she says. Sometimes a single sentence involved referring to multiple scientific papers. The research was very challenging, she says.

Superpowers on the Shore also contains illustrations of some of the creatures, drawn by visual science communicator Jessica Luis, who has worked on MLoM shore guides and on marine mammal identification charts in the past. Her background in marine ecology helped, as did her own past encounters with many of the creatures on the list, she says.

We decided that the illustrations didnt have to be entirely realistic, but had to offer a sense of the creatures worlds, and their unique powers and behaviours. The illustrations focus on shapes and movement, and are all in black-and-white.

Colour is one of the first things that strikes you when you see most marine creatures the Portuguese man o wars blue and purple, the glow of bioluminescence, bright green zoanthids, sea slugs in every possible hue, pink-striped porcelain crabs. The black-and-white, one hopes, will leads to an Aha! moment for readers who then get to meet these creatures in all their colourful glory, Luis says.

But you dont have to start with the intertidal pools or the book. Theres magic all around, Mehta says. You can look at your window sill or the path you run on Ive come to realise that every living thing around me, even the spiders in my house, are creatures with superpowers. Some, I just dont know about yet.

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Invisibility, cloning, Hulk-like strength: Meet superheroes of the shore - Hindustan Times

An all-female species of grasshopper in Australia that ditched reproductive sex in favour of self-cloning is doing just fine, thank you very much.

Scientists at the University of Melbourne did a deep dive on the overall well-being of the Warramaba virgo, a type of grasshopper that's been reproducing asexually for 250,000 years, in a phenomenon known as parthenogenesis.

The findings, they say, challenge our ideas about the advantages of sexual reproduction, which is widely viewed as a way of diversifying the gene pool and safeguarding against parasites, mutations and bad genes.

"So we were thinking, well, you know, would these parthenogens be loaded with parasites and sick with mutations?" biosciences professor Michael Kearney told As It Happens guest host Tom Harrington. "So we went to look at how well they're doing, basically. And we found they're doing really well. No problems."

The study by Kearney and his colleagues was published in the journal Science.

Parthenogenesis is a form of asexual reproduction in which an embryo develops without fertilization from sperm. It is extremely rare in the animal kingdom, though not unheard of. Kearney estimates it occurs in about one in 1,000 species.

Most species that do it are bugs or reptiles, though it has also been observed in some fish and amphibians. Mammals can't do it at all. On rare occasions, birds can adopt this technique when the females don't have access to males, though it tends to result in short-lived and unhealthy offspring.

But W. virgo has got it down to a science.

"It's evolved a way of getting rid of the males. It's actually tweaked its meiosis, which is the way the sex cells are produced, so that it it actually doubles the chromosomes," Kearney said. "It basically means perfect cloning. So they are able to just produce eggs that are all female, that are identical to themselves, with no males necessary."

And they really are identical, he said. A genetic examination of the population suggests they've all evolved from a single female, about quarter of a million years ago.

That female, Kearney said, was the product of hybridization, or cross-mating, between two similar grasshopper species. "It's like a horse and a donkey crossing to make a mule," he said.

But while a mule has advantages in strength and endurance over its predecessors, Kearney says these female grasshoppers don't seem to be any better or worse off than the species they came from.

The researchers examined 14 traits to measure their physical fitness, including how many eggs they lay, how long they take to mature, their heat tolerance and their resistance to water loss. Overall, the all-female grasshoppers squared up evenly against the other two species.

"There was no super power, but neither was there any evidence of a loss of fitness because of mutations or disease. So they were just somewhere in the middle, nothing particularly special," he said.

Dan Johnson, an environmental scientist at the University of Lethbridge and president of the Entomological Society of Alberta, says the study's findings are interesting, but not surprising.

"There are many species of insects that have gone for a long, long time [without sexual reproduction] and they're perfectly healthy," he said.

After all, he says, insects have been around for millions of years, predating even dinosaurs. As a result, they display an incredible diversity when it comes to their mating habits.

There are mites, for example, that can lay unfertilized eggs, which then become male offspring that can then mate with their mother. There are also grasshoppers in the Canadian Prairies that engage in group sex, with one female and up to seven males.

There may even be grasshoppers in Alberta that are parthenogenetic, just like W. virgo. Johnson says he and his colleagues have never seen a male three-lined shieldback in the province.

"But the weird thing is in B.C., males and females are all over the place. If you went out and collected 500, you probably have half and half male and female. But here in Alberta, only females," he said. "So we're wondering what's going on. At least I am."

So why do the Australian grasshoppers do it this way? Scientists don't know for sure. But there are some pretty big advantages to asexual reproduction.

"Imagine you've got a species that has half males, half females, and it switches over to having all females. That means that the reproductive rate doubles because there are twice as many individuals having babies," Kearney said. "So it is a massive advantage, in fact, to parthenogenesis, at least in the short term."

What's more, sexual reproduction has its disadvantages.

"Finding a mate takes time and energy and comes with an increased risk of predation," Ary Hoffman, a co-author of the study, said in a press release. "If we can do away with males and still have viable offspring and the species thrives, then why do we bother with sex at all?"

Written by Sheena Goodyear. Interview with Michael Kearney produced by Aloysius Wong.

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These grasshoppers haven't had sex in 250,000 years, and they're thriving - CBC.ca

Crystal Dynamics has been tight-lipped about Lady Thor, Marvels Avengers next playable hero. However, the studio revealed that shell be in the game by the end of the month, saying she will arrive in late June. A more specific date was not given nor were any pictures of the hero in action.

Crystal elaborated on this on its June update post. She will be fully voiced (although the actor hasnt been confirmed) and have her own gear, abilities, emotes, takedowns, nameplates, Hero Challenge Card, and a new chain of Heroic missions, all with cosmetics and lore items that describe how this Lady Thor came to the games world. She will even have Jane-specific remixes of some of Thors takedowns and emotes.

RELATED: Marvels Avengers Celebrates Ms. Marvel With Free Nameplates, Discounted Super Suits

The post then dove into some of Lady Thors abilities and once again stated that she will naturally echo the Odinsons. Crystal then named two her Intrinsic and Overcharge abilities All-Mothers Blessing and God Tempest, respectively but didnt go into detail on how they work. However, her Ultimate, the All-Weapon, will draw from the comics as she smites enemies with Undrjarn andMjlnir. Undrjarn was created from the shards ofMjlnir and was allegedly found in a recent datamine. Her other attacks are a mix of new and familiar moves.

There will be a deep dive of her moves in an upcoming gameplay video, trailer, live stream, and dev blog. But, again, Crystal did not provide concrete dates.

RELATED:Marvels Avengers Gives Thor a Cosmic Comic Suit

The post also briefly touched on whats in store beyond the next update. The studio is adding to games narrative through hero and villain-centric content. There will be a Warzone that will touch on what happened toM.O.D.O.K. after his Kree Sentinel was defeated. There will also be the Cloning Lab mode, endgame content that will reward players with powerful and exotic gear. Crystal did redesign Cloning Lab after it no longer met its standards and overarching villain-centric directive, but it said it believes these new changes will make for a much more satisfying and meaningful Omega Level Threat experience.

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Marvel's Avengers' Lady Thor Is Slated to Release Soon - ComingSoon.net

One of the thefts occurred between May 25 and June 1, when the plates were stolen from the vehicle whilst it was parked on Cornmore.

The second theftoccurred between 12pm and 1.30pm on June 2, when the plates were stolen from the vehicle whilst it was parked on New Road.

Police are now appealing for information and arekeen to hear from anyone who may have any information or that may have been in the area around the time of the incident and heard or seen anything suspicious.

A spokesman said: "We are also encouraging the community to call us on 101 if they see anyone acting suspiciously around a vehicle."

Number plate theft is often linked to cloned plate, or cloned vehicle, related crime.

READ MORE:Linda Johns missing from her home in Evesham

According to AutoTrader, number plate cloning, also known as car cloning or vehicle identity theft, is when someone copies a cars registration number and assigns it to another car.

Criminals often choose a vehicle with a clean history to replicate on their car.

Often, criminalsreplicate the number plate of a similar make, model and colour to make it difficult for the police to identify themand instead wrongly fine the actual owner of the car plates.

If you have information, you canlet the police know using the online Tell Us About form on http://www.westmercia.police.uk, quoting incident reference 00310_I_01062022 for the Cornmore theft and 00411_I_02062022 for the New Road theft.

READ MORE:Two Carrera bikes stolen from Queen Elizabeth Drive in Pershore

If you arent comfortable contacting the police directly, you can pass on information anonymously to the independent charity, Crimestoppers, by calling 0800 555 111 or by visiting their website: http://www.crimestoppers-uk.org.

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Number plates stolen from cars in Cornmore and New Road - Evesham Journal

Star Wars Celebration brought plenty of good news for the fanbase where Star Wars TV shows are concerned, whether it was the trailer for the upcoming live-action show Andor (2022), or confirmation that Ahsoka (2023) will be a live-action sequel toStar Wars: Rebels (2014).

But much to the surprise of fans, the first official trailer for Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 2 was also revealed, which gives us our first look at the return of Clone Force 99 and young Omega (Michelle Ang), who were the main heroes in the first season of the show on Disney + last year.

Related: Jon Favreau Will Usher Emilia Clarkes Return to Star Wars

Check out the official trailer for Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 2 below:

However, if Streaming Fall 2022 leaves you feeling slightly frustrated, dont worry, because the official release date for the show has finally been revealed by Disney. Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 2 will be premiering on Disney+ on Wednesday September 28, 2022.

The first season of the show premiered on May 4 last year, known also as Star Wars Day, so by the time the second season lands on Disney+, fans will have waited well over a year to find out where things will go next for Clone Force 99.

Related: Jude Law Will Star In New Official Star Wars Series

Star Wars: The Bad Batch reunited fans with a team of defected clones first introduced in the seventh and final season of beloved animated show Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) Echo, Wrecker, Crosshair, Tech, and Hunter, all of whom are voiced by Dee Bradley Baker.

The show follows the team in the wake of Order 66, as the Galactic Empire rises to power. When they learn what plans the Empire has for the galaxy, they decide to abandon their home in the cloning facilities on Kamino, taking with them a young female clone known as Omega.

Related: The Star Wars: Visions Episode That Deserves Its Own Movie

It is revealed that Omega is the sister of Boba Fett like him, she is the direct clone of source clone Jango Fett. However, where the team gains a new member, they lose one in Crosshair, who decides to remain loyal to the Empire, hunting his old teammates at every opportunity.

As per the official Star Wars website, heres the synopsis for Star Wars: The Bad Batch:

Star Wars: The Bad Batchfollows the elite and experimental clones of the Bad Batch (first introduced inStar Wars: The Clone Wars) and their young charge, Omega as they find their way in a rapidly changing galaxy in the immediate aftermath of the Clone War.

Related: A Recap of The Clone Wars and the Prequel Trilogy Before You Watch Obi-Wan Kenobi

The first season ends on a major cliffhanger. Following the destruction of the cloning facility on Kamino, Clone Force 99, along with Omega, go back on the run, while a somewhat conflicted Crosshair chooses to go about his separate ways.

However, we then see Kaminoan female doctor Nala Se (Gwendoline Yeo) taken to a new Imperial cloning facility at an unknown location, which has led to much speculation among Star Wars fans about the possibility of the show becoming connected to the widely hated sequel trilogy.

Related: Star Wars Publicly Defends Obi-Wan Kenobi Star From Racists

As the trailer for Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 2 reveals, we can expect to see much more action involving Clone Force 99 and Omega, while Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) appears to have a bigger presence this time, having only been teased briefly in the first season.

While Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) and Captain Rex (Dee Bradley Baker) make an appearance in the first season, it remains to be seen whether or not other Star Wars characters will show up. Heres to hoping well see Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein) and Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff).

Related: Which Star Wars TV Shows on Disney+ Are Canon?

Like the first season, Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 2 will consist of 16 episodes, with a new episode released each week following the premiere on September 28 (although it is not yet known how many episodes will be released on the premiere date).

There are many other Star Wars shows heading to Disney+. Andor will premiere on August 31, while a second season for anime anthology series Star Wars: Visions (2021) was recently confirmed. And given the shows success, Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022) will also get a second season.

Related: Star Wars Series Obi-Wan Kenobi Tops Mandalorian and Marvel

Other upcoming shows include The Mandalorian Season 3 (2023), Ahsoka, Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi (2022), and the recently announced Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (2023), which will be live action and will star A-list actor Jude Law.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 1 is now streaming on Disney+, along with many other canon and non-canon Star Wars TV shows.

Are you looking forward to The Bad Batch Season 2? Let us know in the comments down below!

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Release Date Revealed For 'Star Wars: The Bad Batch' Season 2 - Inside the Magic

Extinction is forever or is it? New advances in DNA technology and cell biology are enabling scientists to help species on the brink of extinction, and will soon allow recently extinct species to be brought back to life.

How close are we to resurrecting extinct species? That all depends on the DNA.

The process of bringing a species back to life is called de-extinction or resurrection biology. This cutting-edge research typically requires nearly complete DNA sequence information from the extinct species. With current technology, scientists can easily obtain this information from living organisms, frozen tissue samples and sometimes even preserved museum specimens.

A bigger challenge is ancient DNA from archaeological sites, samples frozen in permafrost and even some fossils. Nonetheless, scientists have successfully sequenced DNA that is more than half a million years old, as explained in Nature Reviews. Even with new collection technologies, under the best possible conditions, the limit of DNA survival is perhaps 1 million years. The last of the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, so Jurassic Park likely wont become a reality anytime soon.

The species seriously being considered for de-extinction include woolly mammoths (which went extinct 4,000 years ago), passenger pigeons (last seen around the year 1900), dodo birds, Carolina parakeets, saber-toothed tigers, gastric-brooding frogs, great auks, quaggas and giant tortoises.

As the journal Genes notes, a major goal of de-extinction is to bring back keystone species that played essential roles in shaping their ecosystems and allowed many other species to thrive.

Woolly mammoths once roamed through what we know as Europe, across Asia and into North America, according to Revive & Restore. Mammoths knocked down trees, ate grass and spread seeds with their dung. When they disappeared, biodiversity declined as the lush mammoth steppe was replaced with coniferous taiga forests and mossy tundra, which is now thawing due to climate change and releasing carbon into the atmosphere. This is having a negative impact on the biodiversity that the mammoths unknowingly helped to cultivate. Passenger pigeons played a similarly important role in shaping the deciduous forests of eastern North America.

By returning recently extinct animals to their natural habitats, scientists hope to repair some of the damage that humans have caused and restore entire ecosystems. Comparable efforts from recent times include the successful reintroduction of the California condor to the American west, wolves to Yellowstone National Park, black-footed ferrets to the US high plains, and beavers to much of Europe.

If there are well-preserved cells with intact nuclei, an animal can be cloned. The cells can be grown in a Petri dish under conditions that cause them to behave like embryonic cells instead of mature cells. A cells nucleus contains the genomic DNA, so an intact nucleus can be transferred into a donor egg thats had its nucleus removed. The egg can then be implanted into a surrogate mother and hopefully give rise to a healthy baby that can grow and reproduce naturally. The donor egg and surrogate mother would come from a closely related living species.

The first mammal was cloned from a non-extinct female sheep in 1997 at the University of Edinburgh. Finding the right conditions for cell growth can be a challenge, but the FDA now considers cloning a standard technique for livestock production.

The first extinct species to be cloned was the Pyrean ibex, according to National Geographic. Derived from a frozen skin sample, the cloned goat was born in 2003 and unfortunately died within a few minutes. Later that year, a healthy Javan banteng calf was cloned from a frozen skin sample, as reported by the Washington Post. While the banteng is endangered and not extinct, this success shows that de-extinction through cloning is absolutely possible.

The frozen banteng cells were obtained from the Frozen Zoo, which was started in 1972 by the San Diego Zoo. The Frozen Zoo now contains cryopreserved oocytes, sperm, embryos and other cell types from nearly 1,000 endangered or extinct species. The Frozen Zoo is just one of many frozen cell repositories around the world.

So, how close are we to resurrecting extinct species? Really, really close for species that have frozen cells.

For woolly mammoths and passenger pigeons, there are no well-preserved cells with intact nuclei. However, scientists do have nearly complete DNA sequence information that was acquired by sequencing many small pieces of DNA. Woolly mammoth DNA is 99.4% identical to the DNA of the living Asian elephant, according to the Mammoth Genome Project. Passenger pigeon DNA is 97% identical to the DNA of the living band-tailed pigeon, according to News from Science.

In cases where two species are closely related, many of the DNA sequence differences are inconsequential and dont affect the proteins produced. Accordingly, researchers arent trying to produce an animal thats 100% mammoth; theyre working to modify the DNA of Asian elephant cells to produce hybrid animals that have mammoth-like traits. These traits would include long shaggy fur, thick rolls of insulating body fat, and hemoglobin that can carry oxygen in sub-zero environments. However, the DNA differences that might contribute to mammoth-specific behaviors may be more difficult to identify.

Major advances in gene editing technology, including the CRISPR-Cas9 system, are allowing scientists to make targeted changes to the DNA inside cells. Once a cell is successfully modified, the nucleus would need to be transferred to a donor egg and implanted into a surrogate mother to develop into a healthy baby. Elephants have a two-year gestation period and dont reach sexual maturity for 15 years. Pigeons hatch after 18 days and reach sexual maturity in seven months.

With current technology and research, it could take 5-10 years to bring back a hybrid passenger pigeon, and at least 10 for a hybrid woolly mammoth.

Every day, an estimated 30 to 150 species disappear from the face of our planet. Many species on the brink of extinction could be helped by the same technologies being developed for de-extinction. Cloning can increase numbers, while gene editing technology can be used to reintroduce some of the genetic diversity that was present in museum specimens but lost when natural populations declined.

De-extinction is another example of how technology in this case biotechnology is being used to restore nature and counteract some of the harmful effects of human activity. For these efforts to be successful, humans must also work to prevent and reverse the causes of extinction: habitat destruction, climate change, pollution, overharvesting and more.

Are you interested in science and innovation? We are too. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery.

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How Close Are We to Resurrecting Extinct Species? - Now. Powered by Northrop Grumman.

Losing a pet can be difficult for people and for many it means parting with them forever.

But when Kelly Anderson from Austin, Texas lost her cat Chai she decided she didnt just want a replacement cat, she wanted the same cat.

Anderson gave genetics company 'ViaGen' US$40,000 (NZ$63,000) and a tissue sample to create a genetically identical cat, which she has named Belle.

Anderson and the cloned cat have become online sensations with over 35,000 followers on TikTok.

Along with the praise and online fame, Anderson has received criticism for spending so much money on cloning her cat but she says it is worth it to have her beloved Chai with her.

"I wouldn't have the social media accounts online if I couldn't take the heat so it's been worth every rude thing that someone has said to me," she told The Project

She says she had a bond with her original cat that couldn't be broken.

"It's a connection I can't really explain. I think the closest word is soulmate. We had a relationship like I haven't had with really anything or anyone in my life and because that was so strong and special, I decided to clone her."

The cat cloner said: "She [Belle] does look the same but she does not act the same at all. They had very different starts to life so it affected them dramatically."

Anderson also said if people are thinking about cloning their pet, it is important to have a clear head when making the decision.

"It's important to make sure you're not making a rash decision that might affect you negatively if you get the clone and are more sad by it than happy."

Cloning comes with a hefty price tag which Anderson thinks will prevent many people from cloning their furry friends.

"I think more people are becoming aware of it but unless the price tag goes down I don't think it's going to become a big trend."

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Texas woman who cloned her soulmate pet tells The Project why another cat just wouldn't do - Newshub

If you've just picked up some new storage for your PC, knowing how to clone a hard drive on Windows will make the process of transferring your data across a whole lot easier.

Whether you've just picked up one of the best external hard drives or have gone for an internal drive after figuring out the victor between SSD vs HDD, cloning a hard drive isn't as daunting as you may think it is.

Why is it better to clone your hard drive instead of just copying and pasting everything across? Well, for starters, simply dragging everything from one drive to another can lead to headaches like apps not being able to find program files, and would likely leave your new drive in an unorganized mess, too. Second, you may want to migrate your operating system to your new drive, making it the primary drive, while your older one serves as a storage location moving operating systems is complex, and therefore requires cloning rather than simple copy and pasting in order to work.

But whatever the reason for wanting to do it, here's how to clone a hard drive on Windows.

Software: although Windows contains a whole load of handy tools, especially in its latest iteration, Windows 11, a drive cloning utility isn't one of them. Fortunately, there's a plethora of useful and free apps that do the job effectively.

The software we would recommend using when cloning drives is Macrium Reflect Free, which, as its name suggests, doesn't cost a cent. This app offers all the basic functionality you'll need if your goal is to simply clone one hard drive to another, though there are a number of paid apps with more advanced features such as quicker cloning speeds, including O&O DiskImage and Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office.

But if you're only cloning a single drive one time, it's probably better to go with the free option, right?

Read on for detailed instructions regarding each step.

1. The first step is to ensure you have your new disk or drive installed in or connected to your computer. You can find out how to install and connect your drive using the manufacturer's instructions. If you're having problems seeing your drive, make sure you check out our troubleshooting guide on how to fix an external hard drive that won't show up.

2. Next, you'll need to install Macrium Reflect Free. Head to the download page and scroll toward the bottom to Reflect 8 Free. Click Download Free then follow the instructions.

3. Open the app, where you'll see the home page, along with a list of every available drive on your computer. Now, click the drive you want to clone, then click Clone this disk.

4. Next, click Select a disk to clone to, which will select where you would like your disk's contents to be cloned to, before clicking the destination disk in the pop-up window.

5. If the drive you're cloning has partitions, it's recommended to clone every partition without compressing anything. To do this, click Copy Partitions then Exact partition offset and length.

Note: if the drive you're cloning to is smaller than the drive you're cloning from, you'll need to either deselect partitions or allow the app to compress your partitions. This may result in issues if you're cloning your main drive containing your operating system, so you may want to consider getting a larger drive to clone to if this is the case.

It's also important to note that the drive you're cloning to will be completely formatted, so make sure there's nothing important on there before you begin the process.

6. Once you're happy with your selections, click Next to continue.

7. You'll now see a page that allows you to schedule the cloning process to run on a regular basis by clicking Add Schedule. If you just want to clone your drive a single time, however, just click Next to skip this page.

8. You'll now see confirmation of the process that's about to take place. Once you've read through and are happy with the information here, click Finish to head to the next step.

9. You'll now see a final confirmation page. Make sure both of the first two boxes are checked. The second box simply saves the configuration of the process to your computer, in case you want to run it again in the future. This will take up practically no space on your computer, so it won't do any harm to save it in case.

Once you're all set, click OK to continue to the final step.

10. You'll now see a pop-up which warns you that the data on the destination drive will be overwritten. If you're OK with this, check the box then click Continue. Now the magic will finally begin.

The process will take a while if your original drive contains a lot of data. It's best to not use your PC while it completes the process, since cloning a drive can be quite intensive, though you should keep an eye on it in case any errors occur. Of course, you need to make sure your PC remains powered on, and that both of your drives remain connected.

Once the wait is over, you should have two drives which are exact replicas of each other.

Now you're good to go, check out some other Windows guides, including how to change the Windows 11 Start menu back to Windows 10, how to install Android apps on Windows 11andhow to enable clipboard history on Windows.

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How to clone a hard drive on Windows - Tom's Guide