Dolly the Sheep is dead

Dolly the Sheep is dead - possibly the world's most famous animal was put to sleep on 14th February 2003 after developing progressive lung disease. Dolly was cloned from a dead adult sheep using frozen cells and born on 5th July 1996. There have been many reports that Dolly may have been getting old before her time, developing arthritis and possibly other problems. Scientists are waiting for the results of a post mortem to try to understand whether Dolly's latest problems were linked to the cloning technique, which commonly causes severe abnormalities. The big worry is whether teams trying to clone human babies will accidentally create very sick children.Clonaid claims birth of first human clone (Eve) by caesarian section on 26th December 2002 and a second child in Europe (Netherlands) to a lesbian couple in early January, a third in late January to a Japanese couple who cloned their dead son, plus another to a couple from Saudi Arabia and a further child - country of origin not declared. But no evidence of any kind had been offered by mid February to substantiate their claims.Born outside the US to an American woman, Eve was apparently created using Dolly technology - a skin cell and a human egg from the "mother" who is infertile. Clonaid claims 3 other "mothers" will give birth soon, one of which is carrying a twin of a dead child.While many experts expressed doubts about the claims, Clonaid said that independent gene testing would prove the claim about Eve in less than a week. This promise was withdrawn after a lawsuit was begun in the US to make Eve a ward of court, on the basis that the "mother" was the baby girl's twin sister and the "mother" had no legal parental rights even though she had just given birth to her own twin. A similar court case was launched in the Netherlands after reports that the second birth was to a Dutch lesbian. Clonaid say that the "parents" are afraid their cloned babies will be seized and taken away from them permanently. In early February Clonaid said that testing of the Japanese baby boy was under way.