Nine Lives Extravaganza
Miss your cat? Get it back!
As near as I can tell, this is for serious, although it's clearly the most insane thing I've seen in a long time...prior to euthanization, you can pay $895 to have Genetic Savings & Clone Inc. take a biopsy sample and save it in their PetBank for $100 a year. ($1395 for the premium service--extra samples taken and the option to have the procedure done on recently-deceased pets.) Then, for a mere $32,000, they'll clone your cat, delivering you a new kitten with the exact genetic traits of your beloved feline pal. (At present, this service isn't available for dogs.)
Wow. I had no idea such a thing existed, at any price. I won't get into the ethics of cloning (their site makes some effort to do so) but I can't help but feel like they're preying on people's grief. And actually, just grieving people with a lot of extra money on their hands. Not that I want to put any price on a pet, which is often entirely a member of your family. But $32,000 could go a very long ways in the hands of the Humane Society or ASPCA. Speaking of which, they have any number of kittens and cats that you can adopt today, rather than burning a fortune on a clone. This is exceedingly wasteful extravagance.
Posted at 11:34AM Sep 15, 2006 by WILSON, JOSHUA in General | Comments[5]
I've heard of this. I think it's based in California (because we all know Californians are insane). It seems like a huge waste of money and like you said, think of what the Humane Society and ASPCA could do with just $32,000. And really, the only thing you're getting is an exact genetic replica of your cat - it won't be the same cat you had before. It will be raised in a different environment.
I could go on and on. And on. And on. My very first technical writing project in undergrad was on cloning.
Posted by Rhonda on September 15, 2006 at 01:57 PM EDT #
Regarding the thought about it not being the same cat: Exactly!
I fear that most people believe cloning happens in a very science-fictiony way: by placing the animal in some sort of sealed chamber, and then there's some flashing lights and smoke, and an exact, healthy duplicate strolls out of an adjacent chamber, with all the thoughts and memories of the original.
Posted by Josh on September 15, 2006 at 04:09 PM EDT #
I'm envisioning some pretty great MST3K moments.
Posted by Rhonda on September 15, 2006 at 04:48 PM EDT #
I forgot to mention...the duplicate is also EVIL!
Posted by Josh on September 15, 2006 at 04:49 PM EDT #
I think you (and some others on WolfBlogs?) will be interested in attending the 2007 Triangle Science Blogging Conference. If you want to be involved more than just being a passive participant, please let me know. Also, if you have ideas about spreading the word around the NCSU science community, please let me know.
Posted by coturnix on September 22, 2006 at 10:19 PM EDT #