Korea to Clone Drug Sniffing Dogs 158
SK writes "Scientists at Seoul National University Korea are seeking to commercially clone dogs this year — the world's first attempt to create canine clones for money. Senior researcher Kim Min-kyu at the Seoul-based University is spearheading the efforts based on his team's expertise in cloning dogs. As per Mr. Kim early last month, they signed a memorandum of understanding with the Korea Customs Service to clone its drug-sniffing dogs. They have already obtained somatic cells of the expensive dogs and will attempt to clone them in July or August to get puppies late this year at the earliest."
wtf (Score:5, Insightful)
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Example:
Company A offers specially-bred and _fully-trained_ drug sniffing dogs. They are constantly improving their capabilities and have the fullest potential available.
Company B used technology to make copies of previous gene
Maybe making dogs isn't the point... (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps the point is not to create dogs by the time-honored 'most efficient method possible'. Perhaps the point is to highlight the advanced nature of Korea's biotech industry to court foreign interest/investment/prestige and possibly to attract further talent. Cloning dogs may not be the best way to produce dogs, but perfecting mammal cloning techniques (and the undoubtedly several spin-off discoveries and technologies which one would expect to accompany such research) requires some in situ experimentatio
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There's the obvious answer, which is that dogs are different than sheep, and so probably present different hurdles in a prospective cloning process. Also, more specifically, it may provide more info about dogs and their development; it might, for example, help suss out just how much of a dog's olfactory acumen is due to genetic factors as opposed to epigenetic factors and learned (e.g. trained) behaviors.
And then there is the "hasn't been done this way before" chic which is highly attractive in experimen
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SNU may have ways to keep the costs down -
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10587038/ [msn.com]
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Maybe they *can't* breed. (Score:2)
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if you wanna breed the best of the breed, there can be only two.
clone them and you got ulimited supply of the best of the best
some to do work others to speed up the breeding process.
Aiiiiiiiiight ?
Sniffers (Score:2)
They need to clone them... (Score:2)
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From a logical point of view (Score:1)
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Sheez, the ignorance. You think people eat dog meat like steaks?
Dog meat usually comes in two varieties:
Boshintang is a hot and spicy soup that is served with a bowl of rice and the regular Korean side dishes (kimchi, whatever the restaurant happens to have that day).
Su-yuk is thinly cut meat that is steamed together with assorted herbs and vegetables. It's usually eaten as a side dish with soju (at least that's how I eat it). It's a little on the fa
Re:From a logical point of view (Score:4, Insightful)
This is simply a 'nifty' factor thing, and is logically a waste, at least for the purpose they are suggesting to use it for.
Scientifically, I think it'll produce a lot of good data. Commercially it'll just produce some ripped-off customers and unhealthy dogs.
From a factual point of view (Score:3, Insightful)
Old fashioned breeding produces a much higher result rate (multiple puppies per litter, rather than multiple litters to get a viable puppy).
Old fashioned breeding produces multiple puppies per litter. Some of these puppies will have the attributes you want. Others won't. It will take at least a year to tell which are which. See the problem?
Additionally, the results of breeding will be a lot healthier and long lived than those of cloning.
I'm going to counter that with another made-up
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Regarding the breeding process, you don't always get results, but a complex mammal (say a dog, or if you want an example that already was made, a sheep), takes hundreds of tries for ONE viable offspring.
some reading for you, since you've neglected your knowledge in genetics
dolly [wikipedia.org] - There theory ab
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And you can't do a pure copy, chunks of non-DNA can transfer, especially compounds found in the nucleus. Lastly, although I don't agree with that theory of artifical aging, DNA can age in a way in many species. Look at the stuff on telomeres and telomerase...
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Regarding aging, unfortunately not. While the telomere problem would mostly be nullified (telomerase production usually ceases after birth, not during or prior to), they still accumulate the cellular damage that does transfer. While the cellular age might only be (we'll say) 2 months, you have the problem of a limited supply of that strain.
Assumptions for analys
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2, 3, and 4 are almost completely a matter of genes.
It doesn't really matter how many dogs you've trained semi-professionally. Until you get your hands on one genetically identical animal, after another, after another... I don't think you'll fully appreciate how much alike these creatures will be. Additionally, they'll be raised in very similar drug-sniffing environments.
It will be ve
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There's a huge a
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As someone familiar with the use of dogs for US Customs (now Customs and Border Protection), there is an element in this thread that I have not yet seen addressed. That is, while allowing for performance variances among dogs, proper training determines a good drug dog, not necessarily the dog itself.
Most pooches have very good sniffers and can detect the presence of drugs. The key is to teach them when to alert and when not to. False positives benefit no one and neither do actual positives of no conseq
just like cattle (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll have a Pekingese please, baked with some rosemary. Yummy!
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RePet (Score:5, Funny)
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IIRC the sucess rate (which in this case would equate to live puppies) isn't that high for mammalian cloning in the first place.
What's wrong with regular selective breeding?
I'll get it out of the way early (Score:1)
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Does it really matter? They know that the specimen has all the genetic traits it needs to be a successful drug sniffing dog. Why take the chance of breeding that out? Once the production line gets ramped up, I'm sure that this place will be making discoveries left and right which improve the science behind cloning and improve humanity's knowledge about biology in general. Hopefully, they won't stay as trade secrets for too long. How strong is the patent system in Kor
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You still have to train the dogs.
Once the production line gets ramped up, I'm sure that this place will be making discoveries left and right which improve the science behind cloning and improve humanity's knowledge about biology in general.
If these were robots then the term "production line" would make sense. Even without genetic variatio
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I know the dog still needs to be trained, but some dogs, like bloodhounds, have a better sense of smell, there's a genetic aspect which cannot be trained, its either there or its not.
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I know the dog still needs to be trained, but some dogs, like bloodhounds, have a better sense of smell, there's a genetic aspect which cannot be trained, its either there or its not.
They're talking about cloning drug sniffing dogs, not tracking dogs. The former is like looking for an elephant in a barn, while the latter is like looking for a mouse. You can use pretty much any sort of dog for drug sniffing--- and they do. They often just pick pound dogs that have a suitable temprament.
Really, you can use most any dog for tracking as well--- scent hounds are just better suited to it by breeding. But even then, the difference between (say) a Labrador and a Bloodhound is more signific
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I Can See It Now... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I Can See It Now... (Score:5, Funny)
I for one welcome, (Score:2)
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"Terrorist make Obscene Clone Fall!"
Uhhh (Score:2, Interesting)
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Some human-defined canine behaviour is inherited without training. My parents setters showed gun-dog behaviour despite never having been trained or worked with dogs on a shoot. My partner's West Highland terrier is included to hunt rodents without any training (ratting is the main role for Westies when kept as working dogs).
Those aren't human defined behaviors. Those are natural hunting instincts that humans have traditionally exploited. The reason those setters showed "gun dog behavior" is that retrieving, flushing, and pointing/setting (the traditional gun dog tasks) are natural parts of the canine hunting instinct. That's why dogs and people are such a good match. Our natural interests are remarkably similar.
What's wrong with selective breeding? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sometimes, the simplest solutions are the best ones.
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How hard is that?
Each mating gives you several puppies. I''d guess that some (around 25 percent) would be better than their parents, some (around half would be just as good) and some (around 25 percent) would be less proficient.
If you do that for a few generations then you'll end up with dogs that are better than what you have at the moment, plus you'll have a selection of dogs that are more genetically
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By cloning one of the dogs, you should end up identical copies. That is the goal of cloning, yes? You might lose out on the next generation of dog who's nose was MORE sensitive.
You would be saving money (maybe, I am wondering how much t
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What's wrong with selective breeding?
Nothing in concept. The practice is another matter. Many breeders have screwed up the gene pool of certain dog breeds and introduced multiple genetic problems (hip displasia for instance). They select for aesthetic qualities and not often enough for good companion dog qualities, or eliminating genetic disease.
Also most dog breeds were selected as working dogs, not companion dogs. As a result we have dogs that are too aggressive, or have too much need to heard (people
Re:What's wrong with selective breeding? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know where all the people in this thread who believe that have come from. It's incredibly hard to do, involving massive amounts of trial and error. By the time you've created a breed of dog that breeds true (i.e. within a certain range of accepted characteristics -- not necessarily always the exact point you want, though) you've usually introduced anything from hip dysplasia to total psychosis. It took hundreds of years to develop Border Collies and even then as anyone who's tried to use them to herd sheep will tell you only about 1 in 4 is really the way they're supposed to be. There's one on my Uncle's farm that doesn't go uphill. Product of centuries of very dedicated breeding, it is, much more than there's time to do for drug dogs.
So no, selective breeding is not simple or easy either in genetic theory or in practice, and it involves a lot of looking after puppies until you are sure they don't have the features you want and only *then* drowning them.
Sometimes, the simplest solutions are the best ones.
Sometimes, the 'inspirational poster slogan' approach to solving difficult biological problems is stupid. Actually, that's the case pretty often.
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Sometimes, the simplest solutions are the best ones.
I did not read the article, so I have no idea what I'm talking about, but I thought the same thing.
What does cloning give you? Because even if you have the best genetically 100% reproducible drug sniffing organism, it still has to be _trained_ to do its task at hand.
Now, I know why most of the illegal drugs are still illegal in the US
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Money, power, and racism mostly. Also, the people in the government simply don't have it on their priority radar to undo the obvious wrong. Kinda like all of the junk laws on the books like things that are "illegal" for you to do between consenting adults in private.
The origins of the drug laws in the US are mostly racially motivated.
And why wouldn't Korea have illegal drugs?
The reason I b
When do they rebel? (Score:1)
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Re-engineer them? (Score:1, Troll)
Replicants, here we come!
Why aim so low? (Score:2)
Plenty (Score:1, Funny)
We already breed plenty of those here in California.
This is a GOOD thing. (Score:5, Funny)
--Richard
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Interesting (Score:2)
First clone the scientists, double productivity (Score:2)
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Wrong species (Score:3, Funny)
rj
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You can't clone one of those unless you find an original. I'm afraid that you'll have to engineer one of those. Don't forget to preserve the 'electability' genes, while you're working on the 'cluefulness' genes.
Starcraft (Score:1)
Their TV-dinner industry... (Score:1)
Shortcut to success (Score:2)
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Can we even believe this? (Score:3, Informative)
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yep, way to go!
O_o Drug sniffing dogs? (Score:1)
Humans would be easier! (Score:2)
We already have engineered "Lifestyle Pets" (Score:3, Funny)
They won't sniff drugs (well, maybe catnip) but Lifestyle Pets [lifestylepets.com] sells the "Ashera" line of housecats. It costs a mere $22K (or $28K if you want expedited processing) plus $1500 shipping -- and, according to their FAQ [lifestylepets.com], "All Ashera kittens are provided with a Certificate of Authenticity that will include an image of each kitten's DNA 'fingerprint'."
If Microsoft ever gets into this business, we'll be in real trouble. "I'm sorry, sir, we need to ensure that your copy of Microsoft Puppy is not pirated. Can you read me the 500-character DNA fingerprint off of your Certificate of Authenticity?"
Expensive and won't work (Score:2)
Being a good detection dog has more to do with personality than with raw olfactory skill.
Two dogs with the same DNA won't necessarily have similar personalities. Think about the identical twins that you know. Same DNA, different personalities.
You can't clone personality. What a waste of time and resources.
THEY HAVE THE T-VIRUS! (Score:1)
Who would have guessed that Raccoon City was in Korea?
MORE drug sniffing dogs? (Score:1)
Just by the way Guys, (Score:1)
How about long life dogs? (Score:2)
After they actually figure out how to do it it would be a good ten years before they have something like that that they'll market to humans, but how about extending the lives of dogs?
The thing that gave me the idea was eye dogs. An eye dog costs a lot to train and usually humans outlive them. This can be very traumatic to a blind persion who has had an eye dog for a number of ye
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Re:In other news... (Score:4, Informative)
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Korea to dog clone sniffing drugs.
Clone sniffing drugs to dog Korea.
Sniffing Korea to clone dog drugs.
Clone drugs to dog sniffing Korea.
*yawn*