Libby II

I read about this company (Genetics Savings and Clone) that clones cats commercially. It’s the company that cloned Cc, but only 9 cats were cloned in 2004, due to capacity limits. They hope to perfect the technology to clone dogs in 2005. Right now, the going price for a cat is $50,000. I wonder how much they’ll charge for a dog.

Am a little fuzzy on the details of exactly how they clone an animal, but according to the CEO, Lou Hawthorne, it involves lots of donor eggs. He says that his company is the largest underwriter of spaying clinics in the US, and they buy the eggs, which would’ve been thrown out as waste anyway. The clinics use the money to spay more strays. Sounds good to me! Or is it just that I am willing to believe anything so I can harbor even a glimpse of hope that when my sweet Libby goes to doggie heaven, I can replace her with a clone? And the image of Sigouney Weaver seeing all the failed clones of herself in Alien 3 haunts me too. I am not so naïve in thinking that they’ll have 100% success rate so they only start with one egg. So what about the ones that don’t work out? Funny thing is, I am pro-choice, but I just can’t stand the thoughts of half-developed Libby embryos or fetuses being thrown out as trash. I guess it really is different when it comes to your own baby.

Jason, on the other hand, is curious as to what Libby’s reaction will be if she were to see her own clone. I wonder if the clone will have the same scent signature as the original. That’ll probably confuse the heck out of Libby.