Cloning, Mammoths, and Why We're Just Fancy Flies

If you had told me a few years ago that we’d be talking about cloning pets for the price of a flashy sports car, I’d have called you a lunatic. I mean, cloning? That’s the stuff of mad scientists in B-movies, or, at best, a weird science experiment with frogs and sheep. But here we are. Today, you can fork out a fortune and get Fido or Fluffy 2.0, a genetic carbon copy, fresh from a lab in China or the United States. If that doesn’t sound like science fiction enough for you, well, then maybe you’ve already binge-watched too many dystopian dramas on Netflix.

Let’s start with the basics because I know you might be thinking, “This all sounds like a bit of technical gibberish to me.” So, allow me to unpack it. According to Diego Claudio Cortez Quezada, a bright spark over at UNAM’s Center for Genomic Sciences, human cloning is still in its infancy, and by that, I mean it’s about as successful as me trying to assemble flat-pack furniture. To put it bluntly, the success rate of cloning humans is a measly 10 percent. Yes, you read that right. If you had a dozen embryos lined up, only one might—just might—make it through the gauntlet of developmental stages.

Cortez Quezada, bless his academic heart, points out that the process is essentially a bit of a disaster at this stage. It’s like cooking a soufflé that collapses nine times out of ten. It turns out that cloning primates—and we humans are fancy primates, let’s not forget—hasn’t gone quite as smoothly as it did with, say, frogs or sheep. Oh, yes, let’s not forget our old woolly friend Dolly. Everyone loves to trot out Dolly when discussing cloning. She’s like the poster child for “we can make animals in labs now, isn't that nifty?”

The method used to clone Dolly the sheep, a method first pioneered by some clever chap named John B. Gurdon in 1966 with frogs, hasn’t worked as well with primates. And before you shout “rubbish!”, bear with me. In 2018, the world got excited about two macaque monkeys in China: Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua. It was a big deal, right? The first cloned primates! And while the headline felt monumental at the time, the truth is that since then, progress in this area has been slower than traffic on the M25 on a bank holiday. We’re talking a modest jump from 2 percent success to a whopping 10 percent. Break out the champagne—oh, wait, maybe not just yet.

Speaking of absurd indulgence, remember that time Barbra Streisand decided she couldn’t live without her deceased dog? In 2018, she shelled out enough money to buy a small island to have the poor thing cloned. Yes, cloned. And it worked! Suddenly, Americans were queuing up to immortalize their pets in DNA form, as if a new Labrador or tabby from the shelter wouldn’t do. The dog-cloning business boomed, and why wouldn’t it? After all, who doesn’t want to spend 500,000 pesos (about $27,000) for a cloned cat? Or even better, one million pesos for a cloned dog. That’s right, for the price of a Range Rover, you too could have a second go at owning the same pooch that used to chew up your shoes. Only this one, genetically identical, might just be better behaved. Or not.

Of course, cloning as a concept is far from new. It’s older than my sense of cynicism about electric cars. Naturally, cloning happens all the time, and I’m not talking about some evil lab experiment. Asexual reproduction, for instance—look it up. Bacteria do it every day without fuss. They just duplicate themselves, no ethical debates, no dramatic headlines, no Streisand swooping in with her credit card. One bacterium becomes two, simple as that, and presto, you’ve got an identical copy. No muss, no fuss. Why can't humans be more like bacteria, you ask? Well, apart from the ethical nightmare that would unleash, we’re simply too complicated.

But that’s the problem, isn’t it? When you start mucking about with primates, like us, things get messy. You can’t just slap some DNA into an embryo and call it a day. You’ve got stages of development where everything can go wrong. Embryos die, cells don’t behave, and before you know it, the whole thing is up in flames, metaphorically speaking. It’s not that we won’t ever figure it out; it’s that, at the moment, it’s a colossal uphill battle, like trying to get a convertible through a British winter without freezing your bits off.

And here’s where it gets sticky, ethically speaking. When we’re cloning sheep or bacteria, no one bats an eyelid. Sure, Dolly was a bit of a sensation, but the world moved on pretty quickly. But when you start talking about cloning humans, things get pricklier than a hedgehog in a balloon factory. It’s not just a technical challenge anymore; it’s a question of “should we?” The notion of creating people with the same DNA as someone else sends shivers down the spines of bioethicists everywhere. And rightfully so.

Is this clone an individual with its own rights, or just a copy of someone else? What if something goes wrong during the process and the clone suffers defects? And who gets to decide who is cloned and for what reason? It’s a moral minefield, and the risks are tremendous. Yet, the tech is there—or at least getting there, even if it’s currently about as successful as a lead balloon in flight.

Spare Parts and Shaggy Mammoths

Right, let's talk about human cloning—the hot topic that makes your head spin. According to Diego Claudio Cortez Quezada, who spends his days pondering the science of human cloning at UNAM’s Center for Genomic Sciences, the biggest hurdle isn’t just the technical side of cloning—it’s the ethical minefield that comes with it. Let’s be honest here, the idea of cloning someone sounds about as fun as driving through central London at rush hour: it’s slow, painful, and you’ll probably end up regretting it.

But why is that? For starters, let’s talk about health risks. Cortez Quezada rightly points out that at the moment, cloning experiments are about as reliable as a second-hand car from a dodgy dealer. The success rate is abysmally low, and we’re not even talking about cloning fully functioning humans yet. The problem is that during the development of these cloned embryos, things tend to go horribly wrong. You’re as likely to end up with malformations as you are a healthy individual. It’s like trying to bake a cake without knowing if the oven’s even working—and half the time, you get a soggy, half-baked mess.

And then there’s the big one: human dignity and identity. You see, cloning a human being doesn’t just give you another person—it gives you a genetic copy. So, what does that mean for individuality? Suddenly, you're not just you anymore. You're a version of someone else. Imagine going through life knowing you’re not unique, that you’re just a carbon copy of someone else. It’s like being the second season of a brilliant TV show—nobody ever remembers it as fondly as the first. Where’s the dignity in that?

It gets even worse, though. Let’s say we get good at cloning—what’s stopping us from using these clones as nothing more than spare parts? We could end up with a future where humans are cloned just to be organ donors, walking around like living, breathing warehouses of spare kidneys. It’s straight out of a horror film, except it could become real life. The ethical dilemma here isn’t just about the science, it’s about how we value human life. Would these clones have the same rights as everyone else? Or would we treat them like we do our mobile phones—disposable once we’ve used up all the good bits?

Cortez Quezada doesn’t stop there, though. He throws in a few more ethical bombs, like social inequality and discrimination. Think about it. If cloning becomes possible, who’s going to be able to afford it? The mega-rich, of course. So, not only do they get to clone themselves, but they can also ensure their clones are genetically perfect. It’s the ultimate form of privilege—designer humans for the elite, while the rest of us get to sit back and watch as they tinker with the human race like it's a Formula 1 car. What rights would these clones have? Where would they fit into society? Do we even treat them as equals, or do they become a whole new class of people, stuck at the bottom of the ladder?

And then there’s the final ethical grenade: eugenics. That’s right, the science of perfecting humans. Imagine the possibilities. You could clone yourself but better—stronger, faster, taller, better-looking. Want a genius child? Just tweak a few genes here and there and, voila, a mini Einstein! It’s the kind of thing that sounds brilliant until you realise we’re talking about selecting human traits like you’re picking features for a new car. Choose your own adventure, but the adventure is life itself, and we’ve all seen how badly that can go when humans get a bit too clever for their own good.

However, before you despair at the thought of a future filled with morally questionable clones, there are a couple of silver linings. Cortez Quezada does give cloning a bit of a thumbs-up when it comes to regenerative medicine. Now, here’s where things get a bit more practical. Instead of cloning an entire human, how about just cloning bits of one? The idea is that, with your own DNA, we could clone organs specifically for you. So, say your liver’s had one too many pints at the pub—it’s alright, we’ve got a backup in the lab, cloned and ready to go. No more waiting lists, no more rejection issues—just pop it in, and you’re as good as new. The catch? Well, the risk is that private companies could take over the whole thing, turning organ cloning into a high-stakes corporate business. And trust me, you don’t want your next liver coming with a customer service helpline.

Then there’s the weird and wonderful world of de-extinction. Yes, you heard me right—de-extinction. Jurassic Park, but without the velociraptors eating everyone. It’s about bringing back species that have disappeared, like the Pyrenean ibex, which scientists already tried cloning (it didn’t end well, but the effort’s there). And what’s next on the list? How about the woolly mammoth, a creature that last roamed the Earth some 4,500 years ago? Scientists are giving it a go, trying to bring back the Ice Age giant. Personally, I think it’s brilliant. Bring back mammoths, bring back sabre-toothed cats, heck, let’s bring back the dodo while we’re at it. The only downside is, where do we stop? At what point do we realise we’re playing God and not doing a particularly good job of it?

In the end, Cortez Quezada hits the nail on the head with a reality check. We need to drop this grandiose notion that humans are the pinnacle of creation, sitting atop the evolutionary tree like kings of the jungle. We’re not. We’ve got about the same number of genes as a fly or a worm, and if that doesn’t put things into perspective, I don’t know what will. We’re just one species in a vast and complex web of life, no more special than anything else crawling or flying around on this planet. We’re clever, yes, but not nearly as intelligent as we think we are—just look at some of the decisions we’ve made in recent history.

So, here’s the bottom line. Cloning, as fascinating as it is, isn’t something we should be rushing into. Sure, the science is getting there, and the possibilities are both thrilling and terrifying. But let’s not lose our heads in the process. Whether we’re talking about cloning organs for transplant, bringing back extinct species, or, heaven forbid, cloning humans, we need to tread carefully. Because once we open that Pandora’s box, there’s no going back.