Human cloning now very close to reality. Unfortunately, the discussion on cloning has been influenced by misleading media reports from the very beginning.

negative attitude towards human cloning- more a consequence of the breathtaking novelty of cloning than any real undesirable consequences. With sensible regulation, the benefits of human cloning would far outweigh the disadvantages. If the public imposed a complete ban on human cloning, it would be a sad episode in human history. This essay discusses both the benefits and perceived negative effects of human cloning.

In fact, a clone is simply an identical twin of another person, delayed in time. Human clones will be ordinary human beings, just like you or me, not zombies at all. They will be carried by an ordinary woman for 9 months, they will be born and will be brought up in the family, like any other child. It will take them 18 years to come of age, just like everyone else.

Consequently, clone The twin will be several decades younger than its original, so there is no danger of people confusing the clone twin with the original. Just like identical twins, the clone and the DNA donor will have different fingerprints.

The clone will not inherit any of the original individual's memories. Thanks to all these differences, a clone is not a photocopy or double of a person, but simply a younger identical twin. human clones will have the same legal rights and obligations as any other person. The clones will be human beings in the fullest sense. You will not be allowed to keep a clone as a slave. Human slavery was banned in the United States in 1865.

It should be emphasized that human cloning should be carried out on an individual voluntary basis. A living person who is planned to be cloned will have to give his consent to this. Likewise, a woman who will bear a twin clone and then raise this child must act voluntarily. No other scenario is conceivable for a free democratic country. Since cloning requires a woman to carry a child, there is no danger of evil scientists creating thousands of clones in secret laboratories. Cloning will be done only at the request and with the participation of ordinary people as additional alternative for reproduction.

Many people ask: Why clone a person?

There are at least two good reasons: to enable families to conceive twin children of prominent personalities, and to allow childless couples to have children.

As we live in a free society, we must also ask ourselves, “Are negative consequences really so inevitable that we should be prohibited from doing this by adults who act voluntarily?” We will see that, on the whole, the negative consequences are not so insurmountable. Where certain abuses are foreseen, they can be prevented through narrowly targeted laws and regulations, which will be discussed below.

Cultural and economic significance cloning Clint Eastwood would be awesome!

Cloning exceptional individuals

Outstanding people are valuable in many ways, both culturally and financially. For example, in the US, movie stars and sports stars are often worth hundreds of millions of dollars. let's consider specific example Clint Eastwood. His films have brought in several billion dollars over 30 years. Today he is 67 years old and is nearing the end of his acting and directing career. He is one of the most popular living movie stars. As Richard Schickel said in his essay on Eastwood, "For actors, more than anyone else, genetics is destiny." The cultural and economic implications of cloning Clint Eastwood would be enormous. Tens of millions of fans would be delighted. Besides, it could be done in a very appropriate way. He certainly has the financial resources to pay for this procedure. His new wife is now of childbearing age, and could easily bear and give birth to a child who would be brought up in their family. If the Eastwood family thought they wanted to do it, why should the government ban it? Why should this be a crime?

The same reasoning applies to sports stars. For example, they suggested cloning Michael Jordan, a super basketball player. Of course, this should only be done with the approval of Mr. Jordan and the woman, preferably married, who wishes to raise the child. Millions of basketball fans would love to hear about the successful cloning of Michael Jordan. There would also be widespread interest and much incentive to clone other major figures in the sport, such as Wilt Chamberlain, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, the last big league baseball player since personal account over 400 points. Of course, we will have to wait about 20 years for the twins of these great men of the sport to come of age. In addition, there is always the possibility that the athlete's twin may not be interested in sports. However, given the opportunities for them to earn millions of dollars, this does not seem very likely.

Why shouldn't you also allow cloning prominent intellectuals and scientists such as science fiction visionary Arthur S. Clarke, Dr. Jonas Salk, the inventor of the polio vaccine, and even Dr. Jan Wilmuth himself?

Wilmut will definitely win the Nobel Prize in Medicine/Physiology. Indeed, it would be worthwhile to clone each of the Nobel laureates for the future contribution that their twins could potentially make to science.

Again, this is a decision that is made by the individuals directly involved: the DNA donor, the woman who will bear the child, and her husband who will help raise the child.

Cloning is reasonable even in the case of mere mortals. The concept of exceptional people is not limited to movie stars and Nobel Prize winners. We all know people we respect and admire. Sometimes we say to ourselves, I wish there were more people like this in the world!

Human cloning allows us to go beyond this kind of empty thinking. Suppose old Uncle Max is a fine man who is treated with love and respect in society and in the family. His niece and her husband decide that they would like to have a child just like Uncle Max. He is flattered and agreed let yourself be cloned. Why should the U.S. Congress, in its infinite wisdom, intervene and declare Uncle Max and his niece to be criminals who should be arrested by the reproductive police and put in jail? Where are the harmful consequences for themselves and for society? Why should it be a crime?

What can we expect from human clones? The answer emerges from the study of conventional identical twins. In appearance, the clone almost completely repeats the original individual, has almost the same height and build. For famous supermodels and movie stars, this may be the most important quality. Identical twins have a 70% correlation in intelligence and a 50% correlation in traits. This means that if you clone an outstanding scientist, then his twin clone may actually be even smarter than the original scientist! And if the clone of Elizabeth Taylor will have a slightly different character, does it matter? At present, we cannot say with certainty what percentage of twins of outstanding people will make equal contributions to science. However, if cloning is banned, we will never know. Decisiveness and energy are undoubtedly important characteristics of many prominent people. And they seem to be heavily influenced by genetics. If it turns out that clones of prominent people do not live up to the reputation of their predecessors, then the incentive to clone people will weaken. Then we will see that people, being informed, will want to clone less often.

Objections raised against human cloning

Some politicians in the United States are now proposing to save us from all the misfortunes associated with human cloning through a complete legal ban. Interestingly, upon closer inspection, no serious problems actually exist. In the few cases where abuse is possible, it can be prevented through narrow legislation. And there is nothing related to human cloning per se that would justify its criminalization. The only objection that remains as a result of the analysis is that cloning technology is not yet perfect. But this is a justification for further research, not for a ban.

The only objection that remains as a result of the analysis is that cloning technology is not yet perfect. But this is a justification for further research, not for a ban.

Number of fantastic and absurd objections against human cloning just amazing. This shows a fundamental lack of understanding of this concept by the general public. Instead of pandering to fears that come from ignorance, politicians should undertake a program to create a sober understanding of the issue in the public.

If US legislators are foolish enough to make human cloning a crime, there's a good chance the Supreme Court will declare it unconstitutional. Even if he does not do this, the Americans will still have the opportunity to fly to free country to carry out this procedure.

Let's look in detail at some of the major objections to human cloning that people have. The very thought of it is unnatural and disgusting.

Creating another person with the same genetic code would violate human dignity and uniqueness.

These arguments are nullified by the existence of 150 million people in the world today whose genetic code is not unique. I'm talking about natural identical twins, which are born on average 1 time in 67 births.

Natural twins are much more similar than clone twins, since natural twins are exactly the same age, while a clone twin and a DNA donor will usually have a few decades difference in age. Are natural twins or triplets disgusting? Do twins violate human dignity? Of course not.

This backlash in many cases is simply the result of misinformation and confusion surrounding the notion of a human clone. But if you find cloning disgusting, then by all means don't do it! Even if many people still find the idea of ​​human cloning disgusting, this is not a sufficient reason for a ban.

In the name of individual freedom, many activities are permitted in this world that people find disgusting. For example, many people find nose earrings and gender reassignment surgery disgusting. But they are not prohibited, as we value freedom of choice. There is a view that victimless crimes should not be considered crimes. And who would be the victim in the case of human cloning? It's hard to believe that clones would consider themselves victims just because they have the same genetic code as someone else. After all, millions of identical twins do not consider themselves victims. It is also difficult to see how society as a whole could suffer from human cloning. On the contrary, a clone should probably think of himself as someone special, and all the more so if he is the twin of an outstanding person. They will also have the advantage of knowing from the very beginning of life what they are capable of. So where is the problem? Cloning would reduce genetic diversity, making us more vulnerable to epidemics and the like.

This objection is based on unwarranted extreme extrapolation. There are more than 5 billion people on this planet. Obviously, human cloning will be done on a very modest scale due to the perceived cost of the procedure. In addition, most women still do not want to be mothers of twin clones. It will take many decades before the total number of human clones reaches at least 1 million people worldwide. Percentage-wise, this would represent a microscopic fraction of the total population and would have no impact on the genetic diversity of humans. We will also discuss further how human cloning will help us make up for lost genetic diversity. If in some distant future human cloning will become widespread, then some restrictions on such activities might be justified. However, keep in mind that even if one clone of every human on the planet were created, there would be little to no reduction in genetic diversity, since we would still have 5 billion genetically different individuals. This could lead to the creation of monster humans or freaks. .

Human cloning is not the same as human genetic engineering. In cloning, DNA is copied, resulting in another person, an exact twin of an existing individual and therefore not a monster or freak. Genetic engineering, on the other hand, would involve the modification of human DNA, as a result of which a person could appear, unlike any other that previously existed. This could conceivably lead to the creation of very unusual people, even monsters. Human genetic engineering, while having great positive potential, is indeed a very risky undertaking and should only be carried out with the greatest care and supervision. Cloning is safe and trite compared to genetic engineering. If you are afraid of human cloning, then human genetic engineering should simply terrify you. Dictators can use cloning for evil.

There is a possibility that unscrupulous dictators such as Fidel Castro or Saddam Hussein may try to perpetuate their power by creating clones of themselves and passing power to them when they die. There is also the possibility that such people may try to create a super army of thousands of clones of Arnold Schwarzenegger or the like. These possibilities cannot be discounted. However, it is important to understand that laws passed in the US and other democratic countries cannot control the behavior of rogue dictators in totalitarian countries. A ban on human cloning in the US or Europe will not stop cloning in Iraq. And if Saddam Hussein wants to clone himself, no amount of military intervention can stop him. The evil in these scenarios does not come from cloning per se, but from dictatorships. The proper solution would be a worldwide ban on dictators, but this is of course unlikely to materialize. The technology is not perfect, it can lead to fetal death.

No sphere of human activity is free from accidental death. Human cloning is no exception. Some of the other sheep cloned at Roslyn were stillborn. AT this moment Mammalian cloning technology is in the experimental stage and the success rate is still low. Judging by additional experiments on higher mammals, it can be foreseen that the cloning procedure will be improved to the point where the risk of miscarriage or death of the child will be the same as for other births.

Thirty thousand people died on the Oregon Trail. Forty thousand die in the US every year in car accidents. There are also many fatal plane crashes, hundreds of people and dozens of children die in each accident. Every year many adults and children choke on chicken bones and die. However, we don't think about banning cars, planes, or fried chicken because the benefits outweigh the risks. If airplanes were invented now instead of 90 years ago, I'm afraid there would be serious proposals to ban airplanes because of the risk of injury and loss of life. It would be absurd to ban new technological advances just because they are not perfectly safe to begin with. Millionaires will clone yourself just to get organs for transplant.

This is one of the most absurd of all statements about cloning. A human clone is a human being. In a free society, you cannot force another human being to give you one of his internal organs. Also, in no way can you kill another person to get one of their organs. Already existing laws prevent such abuses. Note also that if your twin clone is injured in an accident, you may be asked to donate one of your kidneys to keep the clone alive! If the organ donor is still a child, society may wish to intervene and announce that it is forbidden. In reality, removing any organ from a child, clone or not, for transplantation into another person is a highly controversial practice that should be strictly regulated.

Many legitimate future applications cloning technologies find themselves in the areas of organ transplants, skin grafts for fire victims, and the like. In these cases, the cloning of a whole person would not be required, but only the use of the same nuclear transfer technology to grow new tissues or organs for medical purposes.

Do we really need 200 clones of Sophia Loren or Cindia Crawford?

Perhaps not, and it is unlikely that it will. (However, the idea of ​​reproducing beautiful women wouldn't seem so bad to most men.) If we're talking about cloning a living person and consent is required, as it should be by law, extremely it is unlikely that a person will agree to the creation of 200 clones. A person will probably approve of creating no more than 1 or 2 clones of themselves. Also remember that human clones cannot be mass-produced in a laboratory. Each of them must be borne in due time by a woman, as well as any other child. How do critics of cloning imagine that 200 women can be persuaded to bear these 200 identical babies? If we're really worried that it's possible, society might just ban the creation of more than 2 clones of the same person, rather than cloning altogether.

If we're talking about cloning someone who is now dead, a more distant possibility, then it's a question of limitation. number of twin clones becomes a reasonable topic for reflection and debate. And we will have plenty of time for these debates. Of course, if there are simply several individuals with the same appearance, such as triplets or "quads", this does not necessarily lead to the degradation of the human essence of these people.

Religious leaders discredit themselves when they propose to imprison people they cannot convince.

This is tantamount to taking on the role of God.

The Bible and the sacred texts of other major religions do not explicitly prohibit human cloning. Therefore, religious opposition to human cloning is not well founded. However, there are many people who think that human cloning is "wrong" for religious reasons. These people, of course, should not be involved in cloning. Religious leaders who believe that human cloning is "wrong" have been given the right to preach their faith and convince anyone they can convince. But they discredit themselves when they propose to imprison people they cannot convince. Jesus never promoted force to force people to live according to Christian beliefs. The imposition of religious beliefs through laws is a very pathetic idea, and moreover, it is a violation of the US constitution.

Unlike abortion, which involves ending the life of the fetus, cloning involves creating a new life. Therefore, opposition to human cloning is not based on established moral principles. It can also be argued that if God didn't want us to clone mammals and humans, he wouldn't have created Dr. Wilmut. Please stay true to your views and faith, but don't tell me what to do with my DNA! Personally, I would not want to clone myself, but free people should be free in their choice and not be forced by society.

The accusation of playing the role of God is a vague but constantly repeated criticism. We hear it every time when a new serious achievement appears in medicine. At one time, birth control with contraceptives, in vitro fertilization, and heart transplants were criticized on the same grounds. God often does wonderful things that we should try to imitate. If playing the role of God in human cloning could have bad consequences, critics must determine exactly what bad consequences that could be. So far they haven't.

Desirable government regulation

Human cloning is a new and unexplored legal field that will definitely require some legislative regulation to prevent abuse. Here are some suggestions as to what moderate laws would seem desirable.

Human clones should officially have the same legal rights and responsibilities as any other human being. Humans will not have the right to keep a human clone in the wine cellar for spare parts for their bodies, any more than they can with identical twins. It is a crime to mistreat any human being, whether or not their genetic code is unique.

The currently living person should not clone without his written consent. Any person is automatically given ownership of his genetic code and the right to dispose of it at his own discretion; the code must remain under his control. A person should be allowed to determine at will whether he wants to be allowed to clone himself after death, and under what conditions. We may wish to prohibit the cloning of minors, as they have not yet reached the maturity to make this kind of decision.

Human clones should only be conceived and born by an adult woman acting of her own free will, without coercion. Growing a human fetus outside a woman's body, such as in laboratory machines, should be prohibited. At the moment, there is no technology for artificially growing a fetus, but Japanese researchers are working on it.

There is reason to believe that the predisposition to violence and murder is genetically predetermined. Cloning of convicted murderers and other violent criminals should be prohibited. Cloning Charles Manson shouldn't be legal. There are enough criminals in the world without their artificial creation. The ban should certainly extend to the famous mass murderers of the past, such as Hitler, Lenin and Stalin, looking forward to the day when this will be possible.

Cloning the dead

An interesting but little-known fact about Dr. Wilmut's cloning procedure is that it is done with frozen rather than fresh cells. (This information is obtained directly from Jan Wilmuth by Dr. Patrick Dixon.) This means that the DNA donor, whether animal or human, does not need to be alive when cloning is performed. If a human tissue sample is frozen properly, a human could be cloned long after death. In the case of people who have already died and whose tissue has not been frozen, cloning becomes more difficult, and today's technology does not allow this. However, it would be very bold for any biologist to say that this is impossible. Let's now look into the near future and think about the possibilities that will open up if science can develop a method for obtaining a clone from the DNA of an already deceased creature.

All human tissues contain DNA and can potentially be a source for cloning. The list of tissues includes human hair, bones and teeth. Unfortunately, DNA begins to slowly decompose a few weeks after death, destroying segments of the genetic code. After 60 million years, only short fragments of dinosaur DNA have survived, so the chances of Jurassic Park being realized are slim. However, there is a good chance of recovering the DNA sequence from human tissue samples, as significantly less time has passed.

Think of the genetic code as a book from which paragraphs or pages are randomly deleted over time. If we only have one copy of a book, the full text cannot be recovered. Luckily we have more than one copy. There may be many thousands of cells in a bone or tissue sample, each with its own copy of the DNA code.

It is like having thousands of copies of the same book. If page 239 is removed from one book, that page may be intact in another, so by combining information from many cells, the original genetic code can be reconstructed exactly. Another encouraging factor is that only a small percentage of the three billion characters of the human genetic code is responsible for individual differences.

For example, the genetic codes of chimpanzees and humans are actually 99% the same. This means that less than 1% of the code will have to be restored, i.e. only the part that determines the individual differences between people. Of course, all this is beyond today's technology, but it is fundamentally feasible.

Bunches of hair of many famous people of the past have been preserved. The list of these people includes Isaac Newton, George Washington, Napoleon, Beethoven, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and John Lennon. For example, not so long ago, a chemical analysis of several hairs of Isaac Newton was carried out. They were found to contain high levels of arsenic due to his chemical experiments.

Until now, curls of hair were just extravagant rarities. With human cloning already on the verge of reality, they are now taking on a much greater significance. It is possible that the great men of the past could be cloned from samples of their hair, tissues or bones. Albert Einstein's brain is preserved in a special vessel. We know the location of the bones of many other famous people, such as Abraham Lincoln, Leonardo da Vinci, Eva Peron. We should take appropriate measures, legislative if necessary, to ensure that tissue samples of prominent people of the past are properly preserved from destruction. Cryogenic storage of these samples would be desirable to prevent further damage to the DNA.

The prospect of cloning prominent people of the past is an extremely exciting possibility, and justifies the most intense research efforts. Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein are two of the greatest scientists of all time. Imagine the potential for scientific progress if these two scientists could be cloned and trained in the 21st century!

Given the dependence of the individual on the cultural environment, the Newton clone would have been brought up in England, and the Einstein clone would no doubt have been brought up in a Jewish family, possibly real descendants of Einstein. As with clones of movie stars and athletes, there is no guarantee that their twins will necessarily want to study physics. Instead, in their new life, they may find some other field of science more interesting, such as artificial intelligence or genetic engineering. Assuming they are born around the same time, it would be possible for Newton's and Einstein's twin clones to cooperate in scientific work! What scientific wonders could these two great minds discover by working together?

One can also imagine that the great political leaders of the past could be cloned from a tuft of hair or from leftover bones. Names that come to mind are Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy. There is some evidence that leadership tendencies are genetically determined. Of course, a person's life experience leaves a big imprint on his personality, interests and aspirations. However, it does not seem improbable that some of the twins of these great men might also wish to enter the path of politics and reach its heights, just as the children of politicians sometimes repeat the careers of their fathers. How incredibly exciting it would be to witness the next century's presidential race between Abraham Lincoln's twin and Franklin Roosevelt's non-paraplegic twin! Who would win the rivalry between the twin clones of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan? Will Winston Churchill be re-elected as Prime Minister of the UK, or will he find himself out of work in the supposedly peaceful environment of the 21st century? Maybe instead he would have become an outstanding television commentator and writer.

There would also be enormous interest and benefit from cloning the great figures of the sport the past, such as Jim Thorpe, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth and Geese Owens. The 2032 Olympics could be a sensation if clones of Jim Thorpe and Geese Owens were to compete against each other.

The same technology that would clone Adolf Hitler can be used to clone Anne Frank!

Another opportunity provided by human cloning, may consist in the partial correction of the injustices of the past. Perhaps the many millions of victims of the Nazi concentration camps could be cloned to restore lost genetic branches. The same technology that would clone Adolf Hitler can be used to clone Anne Frank! Human cloning would have been the first proposal of the world Jewish community as a constructive response to the Holocaust. There remains a serious concern in Russia about the impoverishment of the gene pool caused by Stalin's mass executions of the best and brightest members of society. In a limited sense, cloning could give a chance for a new life to the people of the past, whose lives were unjustly and prematurely cut short.

What about DNA from Egyptian mummies? Perhaps the ancient Egyptians were wiser than we might think when it comes to preserving their bodies after death. The whole mummy of Ramses II lies in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo in excellent condition. Ramses II is a pharaoh mentioned in the Old Testament. Human cloning technology would allow a modern Egyptian woman to give birth to the twin of a great historical figure. Who wouldn't be in awe of seeing the living embodiment of Ramses II and hearing the same voice that spoke to Moses over three millennia ago?

Summing up

Clearly, human cloning has enormous potential benefits and several possible negative consequences. As with many scientific achievements of the past, such as airplanes and computers, the only threat is that of our own narrow mental self-satisfaction. Human clones can make a great contribution to scientific progress and cultural development. In certain cases, where possible abuses are foreseen, they can be prevented with the help of narrowly focused specialized legislation. With a modicum of common sense and reasonable regulation, human cloning is not something to be feared. We should look forward to it with excitement and support scientific research that will speed up cloning.

Exceptional people are among the world's greatest treasures. Human cloning will allow us to preserve, and eventually even restore, these treasures.

Since the invention of the term "clone" in 1963, genetic engineering has experienced several colossal leaps: we have learned how to extract genes, developed the polymerase chain reaction method, deciphered the human genome, and cloned a number of mammals. And yet, in humans, the evolution of cloning stopped. What ethical, religious and technological challenges did she face? T&P looked into the history of making genetic copies to understand why we haven't cloned ourselves yet.

The word "cloning" (English "cloning") comes from the ancient Greek word "κλών" - "twig, offspring." This term describes whole line a variety of processes that allow you to create a genetic copy of a biological organism or part of it. Appearance Such a copy may differ from the original, but from the point of view of DNA, it is always completely identical to it: the blood type, tissue properties, the sum of qualities and predispositions remain the same as in the first case.

The history of cloning began more than a hundred years ago, in 1901, when the German embryologist Hans Spemann managed to split a two-cell salamander embryo in half, and grow a full-fledged organism from each half. So scientists became aware that in the early stages of development, the necessary amount of information contains each cell of the embryo. A year later, another specialist, US geneticist Walter Sutton, suggested that this information is in the cell nucleus. Hans Spemann took this information into account and 12 years later, in 1914, he successfully conducted an experiment on transplanting a nucleus from one cell to another, and after another 24 years, in 1938, he suggested that the nucleus could be transplanted into a nuclear-free egg.

Then the development of cloning practically stopped, and only in 1958, the British biologist John Gurdon managed to successfully clone the clawed frog. To do this, he used intact nuclei of somatic (not involved in reproduction) cells of the tadpole organism. In 1963, another biologist, John Haldane, first used the term "clone" to describe Gurdon's work. At the same time, the Chinese embryologist Tong Dizhou conducted an experiment on transferring the DNA of an adult male carp into a female egg and received a viable fish, and at the same time the title of "father of Chinese cloning." After that, several successful experiments were carried out on the cloning of living organisms: a carrot grown from an isolated cell (1964), mice (1979), a sheep whose organisms were created from embryonic cells (1984), two cows "born" from differentiated cells from a one-week-old embryo and fetal cells (1986), two more sheep named Megan and Morag (1995), and finally Dolly (1996). And yet, for scientists, Dolly has become more of a question than an answer to a question.

Medical problems: abnormalities and "old" telomeres

It is Dolly who today holds the title of the most famous clone in the history of the discipline. After all, it was created on the basis of the genetic material of an adult, and not a fetus or embryo, like its predecessors and predecessors. However, the source of DNA, according to the assumption of a number of scientists, became a problem for the cloned sheep. The ends of the chromosomes in Dolly's body - telomeres - turned out to be as short as those of her nuclear donor - an adult sheep. For the length of these fragments in the body, a specific enzyme, telomerase, is responsible. In the case of an adult mammalian organism, it is most often active only in germ and stem cells, as well as in lymphocyte cells at the time of the immune response. In tissues consisting of such material, the chromosomes are constantly lengthened, but in all the rest they are shortened after each division. When the chromosomes reach a critical length, the cell stops dividing. That is why telomerase is considered one of the main intracellular mechanisms that regulates the lifespan of cells.

Today it is impossible to say for sure whether Dolly's "old" chromosomes caused her early death for sheep. She lived for 6.5 years, which is slightly more than half the usual life expectancy for this species.

Specialists had to euthanize Dolly because she developed virus-induced adenomatosis (benign tumors) of the lungs and severe arthritis. Ordinary sheep also often suffer from these diseases, but more often at the end of life, so it is obviously impossible to exclude the effect of Dolly's telomere length on tissue degradation. Scientists who wanted to test the hypothesis about the "old" telomeres of cloned living beings failed to confirm it: the artificial "aging" of young calf cell nuclei by long-term cultivation in a test tube after the birth of its clones gave a completely opposite result: the length of telomeres in the chromosomes of newborn calves is strongly increased and even surpassed the normal values.

Cloned animals may have shorter telomeres than their normal counterparts, but that's not the only problem. Most of the mammalian embryos obtained by cloning die. The moment of birth is also critical. Newborn clones often suffer from gigantism, die from respiratory distress, defects in the development of the kidneys, liver, heart, brain, and the absence of white blood cells in the blood. If the animal still survives, it is not uncommon for it to develop other anomalies in old age: for example, cloned mice often become obese in old age. However, the offspring of cloned warm-blooded creatures do not inherit the defects of their physiology. This suggests that the changes in DNA and chromatin that can occur during transplantation of the donor nucleus are reversible and are erased when the genome passes through the germline: a series of cell generations from the primary germ cells of the embryo to the reproductive products of the adult organism.

Social aspect: how to socialize a clone

Cloning does not allow you to completely repeat the consciousness of a person, because not everything in the process of its formation is due to genetics. That is why there can be no question of the complete identity of the donor and cloned personality, and therefore the practical value of cloning is actually much lower than how science fiction writers and directors traditionally see it in their minds. And yet, today, in any case, it remains unclear how to create a place for a cloned person in society. What name should he have? How to formalize paternity, motherhood, marriage in his case? How to solve legal issues of property and inheritance? Obviously, the reconstruction of a person on the basis of donor genetic material would require the emergence of a special social and legal niche. Its emergence would change the landscape of the familiar system of family and social relations much more than, for example, the registration of same-sex marriages.

Religious aspect: man in the role of God

Representatives of major religions and confessions oppose human cloning. Pope John Paul II, who was the primate of the Roman Catholic Church from 1978 to 2005, formulated its position as follows: “The path indicated by Christ is the path of respect for man, and any research should have the goal of knowing him in his truth, so that later to serve it, not to manipulate it according to a design that is sometimes arrogantly considered better than the design of the Creator himself. For a Christian, the mystery of being is so deep that it is inexhaustible for human knowledge. But the man who, with the arrogance of Prometheus, elevates himself to the arbiter between good and evil, turns progress into his own absolute ideal and is subsequently crushed by it. The past century, with its ideologies that sadly mark its tragic history, and the wars that have torn it, stands before the eyes of all as a demonstration of the result of such arrogance.

Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Alexy II, who held this post from 1990 to 2008, opposed experiments to genetically recreate a person even more harshly. “Human cloning is an immoral, insane act leading to the destruction of the human personality, challenging its Creator,” the patriarch said. The 14th Dalai Lama was also wary of human genetic experiments. “As for cloning, as a scientific experiment, it makes sense if it benefits a specific person, but if it is used all the time, there is nothing good in it,” said the Buddhist high priest.

The fears of believers and ministers of the church are caused not only by the fact that in such experiments a person goes beyond the traditional ways of reproducing his species and, in fact, takes on the role of God, but also by the fact that even within the framework of one attempt to clone tissues using embryonic cells, several embryos must be created, most of which will die or be killed. Unlike the process of cloning, which is predictably not mentioned in the Bible, there is information about the origin of human life in the canonical Christian texts. David's Psalm 139:13-16 says, "For You formed my inward parts and knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You because I am wonderfully made. Wonderful are Thy works, and my soul is fully aware of this. My bones were not hidden from Thee, when I was formed in secret, formed in the depths of the womb. My fetus has been seen by Your eyes; in Your book are written all the days appointed for me, when none of them were yet. Theologians traditionally interpret this statement as an indication that the soul of a person does not arise at the moment of his birth, but earlier: between conception and birth. Because of this, the destruction or death of the embryo can be considered as murder, and this is contrary to one of the biblical commandments: "Thou shalt not kill."

Clone use: recreate organs, not people

Cloning of human biological material in the coming decades, however, may still be useful and finally lose its "criminal" mystical and ethical component. Modern technologies The storage of cord blood allows stem cells to be taken from it to create organs for transplantation. Such organs are ideal for a person, because they carry his own genetic material and are not rejected by the body. At the same time, for such a procedure there is no need to recreate the embryo. Experiments for the development of such technology have already been carried out: in 2006, British scientists managed to grow a small liver from cord blood cells of a baby conceived and born in the usual way. This happened a few months after his birth. The organ turned out to be small: only 2 cm in diameter, but its tissues were in order.

However, the more well-known forms of therapeutic cloning today involve the creation of a blastocyst: an early-stage embryo of about 100 cells. In perspective, blastocysts are, of course, human, so their use is often as controversial as cloning to produce a living human. This is partly why today all forms of cloning, including therapeutic ones, are officially banned in many countries. Reproduction of human biomaterial for therapeutic purposes is only permitted in the US, India, the UK and parts of Australia. Cord blood preservation technologies are used frequently today, but so far scientists are considering it only as a potential tool for combating type 1 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and not as a possible resource for creating organs for transplantation.

In this article, we will look at programs that will help you quickly clone (copy) HDD to another hard drive. Such knowledge will be useful to any owner of a computer or laptop.

Upgrading a computer or laptop often involves replacing hard drive to a larger and faster one. At the same time, users are faced with the problem of transferring information from the installed media to a new one, because in order to reinstall the system, drivers and desired applications, you have to spend a lot of time.

It is much easier in this situation to carry out full or partial cloning of an HDD or SSD using one of the specialized programs. Setting up and working with them do not require special knowledge, and the time spent on the cloning process is an order of magnitude less than on installing the OS and setting up.

Copying a hard drive in Acronis True Image

One of the functions of this useful program- disk cloning, which, by the way, can be configured very finely depending on the tasks of a particular user. To avoid possible errors during the operation, you do not need to use Acronis True Image from under a running OS - it is recommended to launch the application using the boot disk. Therefore, you will need the Acronis BootCD/DVD distribution kit, which will need to be unpacked to DVD or even to a flash drive, for example, using UltraISO, UNetbootin, etc.

After creating bootable media, you can proceed directly to cloning:

1. Boot from the created help from Acronis BootCD/DVD drive.
2. In the Acronis main window, open the Tools and Utilities section.

   

3. On the right in the list of utilities, go to "Disk Cloning" and select auto mode carrying out the process. Click next.
4. Left-click to select the source disk with the copied information, click "Next".

   

5. In the next window, select the target drive where you plan to clone the old HDD. The target drive can be either an HDD or a high-speed modern SSD.

   

If you are copying to a solid state drive, then the usual situation will be when its capacity is less connected HDD. In this case, Acronis True Image will display a message about the need to exclude certain files and folders from the cloning process.

Usually, only the system is transferred to the SSD, so only the main disk partition (usually “C”) can be allocated for exact copying, excluding partitions or individual files with unnecessary information from the process. If the volume of the disk allows cloning old drive completely, you can click "Next", after which the process of sector-by-sector low-level copying of the disk will start.

Note that the application is paid, but it is multifunctional, works very quickly and, as has been shown, has the ability to select data on the hard drive for transfer.

Using the Paragon Hard Disk Manager App

This multifunctional application is only slightly inferior in popularity to the program described above. It is also convenient to use it to clone information on drives:

Like Acronis True Image, this application for reliable sector-by-sector data copying is better to run not from under Windows, but from a boot drive. You can create it in the program itself, using a special rescue media creation wizard:

Note that Paragon Hard Disk Manager is also a paid application, but its functionality is no less than that of Acronis True Image. Both of them work with any disks and file systems, support Windows 8.1 and 10.

Disk cloning using EASEUS Disk Copy

This small application, unlike those previously considered, is completely free, but nevertheless it allows you to reliably clone hard drives, their individual partitions sector-by-sector and migrate the OS to various drives, including solid-state SSDs. The program is launched from a bootable DVD or flash drive, for which you need to download a free distribution kit for installation on the official website of the utility. After running the executable setup file, the wizard will offer a choice:

• install EASEUS Disk Copy on a USB flash drive,
• to the optical drive
• export the ISO image of the utility to a computer disk.

A simple and quick option is to create bootable flash drive, i.e. the first one in the list.

In the next window, specify the disk to be copied and the drive to which information will be transferred sector-by-sector. A certain drawback of the application is the lack of Russian localization.

After cloning a Windows 10 boot disk, sometimes the system may not boot. In this case:

If you get a File: \Boot\BCD error after booting, repair Windows bootloader.

Cloning Disks with Macrium Reflect

This is another small utility distributed free of charge. Its functionality includes cloning HDD and SSD, creating them complete images, as well as images of individual partitions that can be used in the OS as virtual media. The installer can be obtained from application website, when you start it, you need to specify the installation directory and select the "Free" license.

When you first start Macrium Reflect, it will prompt you to create a boot disk, which you should agree with, since when working in Windows environment cloning can be error prone. After starting the program:

1. In the main window, select the drive to be cloned.
2. Under the selected drive, click on the link "Clone this disk" and in the next window select the drive to which you want to transfer the information.

Using the Farstone RestoreIT Pro Utility

it paid app is used to create backups of any information on disks, saving the current state of the system, and in case of unforeseen failures, restoring it literally by pressing a single button.

The mechanism of work is that it overwrites the boot sector of the disk, adding itself to it, and also creates an additional logical disk to record all the information being backed up. In fact, Farstone RestoreIT Pro creates system restore points, and it can be used to roll back to the previous state not only the entire disk, but also individual partitions.

You can activate and deactivate the application in context menu, the latter is opened by clicking on the tray icon. This feature allows you to save system resources when you are sure that its state is in this moment does not change. Farstone RestoreIT Pro can create bootable CD / DVD or even floppy disks, with which you can not only restore the disk if it cannot boot normally, but also the main boot record MBR with partition table.

How to quickly copy a hard drive to another hard drive (HDD/SSD)

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Developments

Scientists have created human embryonic clone using DNA from human skin cells. In the future, such a clone could be a source of stem cells for the development of individual treatment using the DNA of the person himself.

According to researchers from the US and Thailand, the clone is unlikely to develop into a human. The team of scientists had previously carried out the entire process on monkeys. However, the clone embryos died before they could grow into adult monkeys.

Experts emphasize that they do this in order to develop treatments for incurable diseases, but many fear that now nothing will stop scientists from cloning a person.

Shukhrat Mitalipov together with a team of scientists from Oregon Health and Science University in the USA they created clones using the same method as when creating a cloned sheep Dolly in 1996.

In the beginning, the eggs of healthy women were taken and DNA was removed from them. Then, the nuclei of skin cells were placed in empty eggs and embryos were grown. When the embryos were 5-6 days old, the scientists collected the daughter cells and created a cell line. These stem cells can turn into any cell of the body, which will allow you to heal, renew and replace damaged body parts.

In 2004 researcher Hwang Wooseok from South Korea announced that he had cloned a human embryo for the first time and obtained stem cells from it. However, later it turned out that the data was forged, and he was accused of fraud.

Human cloning

Can scientists completely clone a human? To be sure, the researchers made a big breakthrough by creating a cloned embryo.

But we are still Far from a woman giving birth to the world's first human clone. The embryo will need to be implanted using artificial insemination.

However, studies show that problems begin long before the birth of a clone, and this may not be safe for humans. The chances of success of this kind of procedure are very small. After all, as you know, Dolly the sheep appeared only after 277 unsuccessful attempts.

Cloning: pros and cons

There are many possible pros and cons of human cloning. They include:

Pros of cloning:

Ability to reactivate damaged cells by growing new cells and replacement organs such as the heart, liver, and skin

Ability to create people with an identical set of genes as organ donors, for example, for bone marrow transplantation

The possibility of having children in infertile couples with the genetic makeup of the mother or father

Cons of cloning:

Likely threat to identity

Loss of genetic variation

The risk of a "black market" of fruits, when people want to clone themselves

Unknown psychosocial harm that will affect family and community

Hello admin. I want to clone the Windows 8.1 operating system in Acronis True Image 2015 from a regular hard disk to an SSD, I think this method is much simpler than all the others, first I specified the Source disk, then the Target disk and that's it. A 500 GB hard drive is naturally larger than a 120 GB solid state drive, but can you exclude unnecessary disks, folders, and even just files in the cloning settings?

Of course, I can do everything myself, but I'm afraid, since I have little experience with Acronis True Image, and you only look at it like this!

How to clone the Windows 7, 8, 8.1 operating system in Acronis True Image 2015 from a regular hard drive to an SSD (the size of the drives varies)

Hello friends! If you often work with Acronis True Image, then you probably noticed that the program settings have such an option called Cloning, and as our reader rightly noted, this option is very finely tuned.

For example, I suggest you clone my Windows 8.1 from a regular 250 GB hard drive to a 120 GB SSD. A simple 250 GB hard drive is almost full of files and naturally all the information from it will not physically fit on the SSD, but when cloning we can exclude unnecessary folders, files and even entire disks, as a result of the cloned information exactly 120 GB will remain, that is, as much as SSD volume. But you need to do everything right, because the Windows 8.1 operating system cloned to another hard drive should start with us!

To start, let's connect to system unit second device SSD solid state drive

For the success of this serious operation, you must be well versed in Disk Management, pay attention to this window of my computer and you will immediately understand what's what.

Disk 0

simple hard SATA drive volume 250 GB.

1 . The first hidden section (we will clone) System Reserved (Reserved by the system), has a capacity of 350 MB. The main purpose of a hidden partition is to store files Windows boot 8.1. If you have Windows 7 installed, then this partition will be 100 MB in size.

2 . The second section has the letter (C:) (we will clone) 105 GB, installed operating system Windows 8.1.

3 . The third section under the letter (E:) capacity 127 GB, with data files: music, movies, and so on, occupied by 100 GB. We can clone this section not completely, just exclude when cloning large files. Or we can completely exclude this partition from the cloning operation and instead, at the end of the process, an empty partition is formed on the SSD.

Disc 1. Solid state drive SSD, when cloning, all information on it will be deleted

Acronis True Image 2015

For cloning, it is better to use the boot disk of Acronis True Image 2015, as this version works without errors with SSDs and has UEFI support. It is better not to install Acronis True Image on Windows and work with boot disk this program, so you will avoid many mistakes.

You can make a bootable flash drive with Acronis True Image 2015 in the program itself or with the help of this article of ours .

So, we boot from a disk or flash drive with the Acronis True Image program. Who does not know how to boot from a disk or flash drive, read our article - .

For example, I enter boot menu your computer with motherboard ASUS often pressing the Delete key when turning it on, then I select the "Boot Menu" and already in it I select the drive or USB flash drive.

In the main window of Acronis True Image 15, select

Tools and Utilities

Disk Cloning

Select with the left mouse the Source disk (the disk from which you want to clone the Win 8.1 operating system), in our case, a simple hard disk 3 MAXTOR STM 3250310AS and click Next.

Select with the left mouse the Target disk (the disk to which you want to clone the Win 8.1 operating system), in our case, a solid state drive SSD Silicon power and Next

Acronis displays a warning "The selected target hard disk contains partitions that can store data. Click OK to confirm deletion of all partitions on the target hard disk." Click OK and Next.

Window Exclude by files and folders.

In this window Acronis software True Image 15 tells us that in order to clone information from the Source disk to the Target disk, we need to exclude 23.72 GB of files from the Source disk. You can't exclude files from the first section (Reserved by the system) as the Windows 8.1 download files are located there. It is also undesirable to excludefiles from disk installed Windows 8.1. Disk with installed operating system Windows system 8.1 the letter (D :) is assigned here, if you click on it with the left mouse, the files will open operating system.

So we will exclude files from the disk (E:).

Attention : Friends, you can simply exclude this entire disk (E :) from cloning, as a result, Disk C will be cloned to the solid state drive:(Reserved by the system) containing download filesoperating systemand another drive (D:) containing Windows files 8.1, but you can choose a more difficult option. Let's open the disc(E:) and choose on it junk file or folder. For example, on this disk, the virtual hard disk NewVirtualDisk1.vdi has been an eyesore for me for a long time, I have not needed it for a long time and its volume is about 50 GB, let's exclude it from cloning, mark this virtual disk ticked. Program

As you can see, after excluding the file, we still have 30 GB left. free space. Click Next

If you click Proceed now, the cloning process will begin exactly as shown in this window.

Before - what is on the solid state drive now and all this will be deleted.

After - what will be on the SSD after cloning, that is, two small partitions.

I want to say that I personally do not need this state of affairs. I need on SSD drive a hidden partition (Reserved by the system) containing the operating system boot files and another drive (D:) containing the files of Windows 8.1 itself

So I'll be back at the window File exclusion and tick the whole disk(E:). Acronis True Image 15 restarts cloning space calculation.

Friends, pay attention to the disk (E :), it will be created sooner, since this is a drive cloning operation, but the disk (E:) will be completely empty. After cloning, we simply delete it in Disk Management, and attach the resulting unallocated space to the C: drive, that's all.

Proceed. The cloning process begins.

Disk Clone operation completed successfully.

We restart the computer and enter the boot menu, select the SSD for booting and boot from it.

Cloned Windows 8.1 boots fine. Windows activation failed. We go to Disk Management and see this picture.

Partitions on a simple hard drive have lost drive letters, but you can simply assign them and that's it.

On solid state SSD drive As expected, when cloning, there are three sections. The first one is with the operating system boot files. Second drive C: with cloned Windows 8.1. Third disk D: completely empty.

Delete drive D: and attach unallocated space to drive C:.

I would be glad if I could help.