|
|
 |
 |
Iran Claims Breakthrough With Cloned Sheep
A sheep in Iran is making big news. Royana is 15 months old, and he's a clone. That means instead of being born from two parent sheep, he was created artificially from the cells of just one. Royana was cloned using stem cells. Stem cells are the cells in embryos that grow into other kinds of cells.
Royana was cloned at the Royan Institute for Reproductive Biomedicine in Iran. Scientists there have tried the process 30 times, but Royana was the first to live more than a few minutes.
New scientific discoveries make cloning possible, but people have to decide whether or not it's right to try certain experiments. They try to figure out the bioethics of the science.
Iran is a Muslim country, and most its people are Shi'ites. The Shia rulers said that cloning human beings is wrong, but it's okay to clone animals. Sunni Muslim religious leaders disagree. In Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia, it's forbidden to clone any animal.
Scientists in Iran have the stem cells of some sheep that are endangered species. They hope that cloning might prevent those species from becoming extinct. Iran is the first country in the Middle East to clone an animal. The first clone ever was in the United Kingdom in 1996. Scientists there cloned a sheep named Dolly, who lived for six years.
I'm Adelbert and that's what happened in Science this week!
Play Pinpoint to locate the countries in this week's story.
Photo: Royan Institute
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
