Cloned Dogs Can Reproduce

Meet Snuppy (center). He is the happy father of 9 puppies born between May 14 and 18. South Korean researchers said that his parenthood is the result of the first successful breeding of only cloned canines. Hwong Woo-Suk, the cloning expert stewarding the creation of Snuppy, is now on trial for fraud, embezzlement and other charges for faking research on human embryonic stem cells, but Snuppy is the real thing. The research team leader, Lee Byung-Chun, said the "breeding of cloned dogs opens the way for cloning sniffer dogs and seeing-eye guide dogs, which usually have to be sterilised for training and lose the ability to reproduce." As lofty a reason for cloning dogs as this may sound, it doesn't hurt that dog meat is a normal part of the South Korean diet.