 Adult |
WHICH CELL NUCLEUS WAS THE MOM? |
Fetal |
After all, Dolly's parentage is now under question. No one else has been able to repeat the experiment that
produced Dolly -- ie, cloning a sheep from an adult sheep cell.
Not that most researchers have a flock of sheep just hanging out, chewing grasses, waiting.
At any rate, in the interests of tough, investigative journalism, I was at her doorstep. She lives in a
first level flat next to a haggis rendering plant, not far away from the abode of Dr. Ian Wilmut.
After a touch of business (I am, after all, creating this website for her -- she has no computer skills to
speak of), we got down to the interview. As promised, a hard-hitting one.
Q (me): Are ewe ewe?
A (Dolly): I'm me.
Q: Are ewe worried about all this turmoil about your parentage?
I'm afraid that since no one else has been able to clone a sheep from another adult sheep, there is
a suspicion that ewe are really a clone of an embryo cell. Your mother was pregnant. If she was your
mother, and not your grandmother.
A: That's okay. We're all in the same family.
Q: It wouldn't bother ewe to lose your claim to fame?
A: Ian himself said it was a one in a million shot that he blew it. But, either way,
I'm not going to lose my eweness. Descartes said it first: I bleat, therefore I am. How many sheeps have
their own websites?
A: Exactly. It's not much like a game of darts. Although if that's what he did, I could sue for malpractice. Hmmm...
A: I can't answer them anyway. I wasn't there then. Well, as a germ of an idea, but, uh... whatever happened
or didn't happen, it wasn't my fault. I didn't inhale. I'm not to blame. I plead the Fifth Amendment.
Wrong country, I know. I only follow orders. I have the right to remain silent. I have the moral duty to
silence my DNA.
Q: What sort of other projects are ewe up to?
A: Well, I feel I can make a few bucks on the following poster:
Q: Any final words?
A: Baaaa... Humbug.
Fortifying myself with a pint of old Sheep Dip, an excellent Scottish whisky
from the highlands east of the moon and south of Loch Ness, I approached my interview with the worlds'
most famous sheep with a hint of trepidation.
Which ewe are ewe?
Q: Maybe that's enough tough questions.
Q: How can someone hunting for a mammary cell to clone miss and get an embryo cell instead?
Cloning Emporium