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Well, they said there would be multiple attempts, so I assume they're looking for eye color, patterns in the fur and stuff like that?
by nkkollaw 9y ago
Well, they said there would be multiple attempts, so I assume they're looking for eye color, patterns in the fur and stuff like that?
- gwern 9y agoI think by multiple attempts they mean the viability of the cloning process itself. It's a tricky process and a lot of the cells or embryos will just die on you for various reasons. This is true even of human IVF: if you harvest 5 eggs from a woman, she'll be somewhat lucky to get 1 child born. This is because some of the embryos are clearly abnormal, die while stored, when implanted don't 'take' and result in a pregnancy, or the pregnancy ends in a miscarriage or stillbirth, so on average you need 5+ eggs to start with and many women will have to do 2 (or even more) IVF cycles to get their child. (And you can lose them after birth too! As OP notes, the runt of the litter died.) Similarly with cloning: you just lose lots of embryos along the way from 'cell sample' to 'happy panting healthy puppy delivered to new owner'.