Stay Out Of The Basement:
A family father/scientist, Dr. Brewer, becomes obsessed with his flora experiments in the basement. His obsession begins to affect his behavior when his kids discover he bleeds green, is eating plant food and sleeping on dirt. It is later revealed that dear old dad was growing human clones from plants and the man they've been dealing with is really his plant clone. The real Dr. Brewer then destroys all of human and plant hybrids. But who's to say that's the real Dr. Brewer?

Why I'm Afraid Of Bees:
Gary Lutz's is a fan of computer role playing games. His computer games lead him to a company that advertises a real-life role playing game, where clients can switch bodies with other clients. Similar to The Fly, Gary accidentally gets stuck in the body of a bee that enters the machine during the switch. While his body has the mind of his partner, his partner's body is stuck with the mind of a bee, and Gary has the body of a bee.

Attack Of The Mutant:
Comic book fan Skipper Matthews is in fan-fantasy world when he discovers his favorite comic book characters have come to life in his town. Together he helps to defeat the villainous Masked Mutant. But unfortunately (or fortunately) Skipper gets sucked into their world (via ray gun) and becomes a real life comic book character as well, who bleeds ink.

Egg Monsters From Mars:
Dana (boys name) finds a mysterious egg and discovers that it's really from some crazy scientist. The egg hatches and the little monster becomes a pet to him. Of course the scientist will stop at nothing to get his eggs back, and the monster protects Dana, who later gets knocked up by one of the aliens.

The Cuckoo Clock of Doom:
This book was every siblings dream. Michael's bratty sister Tara is ruining his life and causing him embarrassment and beat downs from local bullies. For his birthday Michael receives a cuckoo clock that has the power of time travel. Michael figures out the switch and jumps back into time. Unfortunately for Michael he is stuck on a backwards loop that jumps him back year by year until he is a little baby. He figures out a way back, but manages to erase his sisters existence in the process.

Let's Get Invisible:
A mirror connected to a light switch allows a group of kids to turn themselves invisible. They all experiment on how long they can change back and forth until the connection fizzles and one child gets stuck in the mirror. The mirror world is another dimension where their evil twins have been trying to break out into the real world. By the end of the book you don't know who is the original character and who is their doppelganger.

Invasion of the Body Squeezers/ Revenge of the Body Squeezers (Part One And Two):
Very close to invasion of the body snatchers, but the aliens get into your body via hugs. In the second part though you get introduced to a whole host of new aliens that are trying to set off a bomb that would squeeze all humans into a tiny size.

Piano Lessons Can Be Murder:
This book straddles the scifi fence a little. Jerry is a little boy taking piano lessons from the deranged Dr. Shreek. The piano teacher is fascinated by Jerry's hands, and it's later revealed that Dr. Shreek is a large robot that harvests hands for his master. Granted Jerry gets saved by the ghosts of it's past victims...so not entirely scifi, but the still hand stealing robot helps.

The answer is: not for a really, really long time. First of all, genetically-modifying a viable human embryo (which the one in the aforementioned experiment was not) is illegal in most countries. Second, we wouldn't know how to modify a human embryo to enhance its superpowers even if we wanted to. Sure we might be able to knock out a few genetic diseases given a few more years, or make it glow like those bunnies and kittens with the fluorescent fur.

A recent article in AP makes it clear exactly what this so-called 'designer embryo' really was:

"None of us wants to make designer babies," said Dr. Zev Rosenwaks, director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

The idea of designer babies is that someday, scientists may insert particular genes into embryos to produce babies with desired traits like intelligence or athletic ability. Some people find that notion repugnant, saying it turns children into designed objects, and would create an unequal society where some people are genetically enriched while others would be considered inferior.

The study appears to be the first report of genetically modifying a human embryo. It was presented last fall at a meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, but didn't draw widespread public attention then. The result was reported over the weekend by The Sunday Times of London, which said British authorities highlighted the work in a recent report.

Rosenwaks and colleagues did the work with an embryo that had extra chromosomes, making it nonviable. Following a standard procedure used in animals, they inserted a gene that acts as a marker that can be easily followed over time. The embryo cells took up the gene, he said.

The goal was to see if a gene introduced into an abnormal embryo could be traced in stem cells that are harvested from the embryo, he said. Such work could help shed light on why abnormal embryos fail to develop, he said.

Genetically-modified embryo stirs criticism [AP via PhysOrg]

Christensen writes:

Science fiction fans might consider this to be a commercial business use of the RePet technology used in the film The Sixth Day. The cloning research and work was done by a team of Seoul National University scientists led by Professor Lee Byeong-chun. Now, if only they could master syncording, which is the fictional technology in The Sixth Day that assured that your new RePet was behaviorally identical to your old pet, they wouldn't even need to train them!

Given the black market in imitation pharmaceuticals, it might also be useful to have a dog that could sniff out cloned drugs, too. Imagine a dog that could tell the difference between Pfizer's Viagra, and Bob's black market V1agr@.

Korean Cloned Drug-Sniffing Dogs [Technovelgy]

Probably pretty difficult, not least of which because we don't go through an embryo stage outside the womb.

According to an article by Clara Moskowitz in Live Science:

Scientists exposed 4-day-old sand dollar larvae to fish mucus, a sign that danger is close. They found that the larvae created clones of themselves within 24 hours.

"It's the first time we've seen anything clone itself in response to cues that predators are near," said researcher Dawn Vaughn, a biology doctoral student at the University of Washington's Friday Harbor Laboratories. After being exposed to fish mucus, the larvae formed embryo-like buds that eventually detached and developed into new, genetically-identical larvae that were much smaller than the originals. The parent larvae were left smaller, too, measuring about half their beginning size . . .

The scientists think cloning may provide a double benefit to larvae facing danger. By doubling themselves, they have a second chance to ensure their genetic information survives even if one larva gets eaten.

Additionally, being smaller may be beneficial to larvae trying to hide from fish.

"Fish are visual predators and often choose their prey based on size," Vaughn told LiveScience. "You're apt to see something bigger. Based on past research, we're hypothesizing that small size protects larvae, but we have to test that."

Creatures Clone Selves in Face of Danger [Live Science]

Fringe focuses on the brilliant-but-maybe-crazy scientist Walter Bishop (Noble), his estranged son... and the female agent who brings the two of them together. When the show starts, the elder Bishop is in an institution. Every week, the show focuses on another self-contained paranormal mystery, plus the relationships among the characters. Also, Lance Reddick (The Wire) will co-star as Phillip Broyles, special agent for Homeland Security. Broyles heads up the special Fringe division, set up to investigate a series of terrorist/paranormal events. Alex Graves (Journeyman) will direct the pilot.

Of course, J.J. is in the can-do-no-wrong zone right now, so maybe this show will subvert X-Files the way Cloverfield subverted Godzilla. You never know, right? [Production Charts]

Researchers took DNA from one of Wood's skin cells, injected it into a human egg cell from the fertility clinic next door to Stemagen, and created a multi-celled embryo — essentially the same size embryo that a fertility clinic would implant into a woman undergoing IVF treatments. Wood, however, emphasizes that he's horrified by the idea of human cloning and wants only to use this new technique to make stem cells for therapeutic purposes.

I say, bring on the human clones. Kerry Macintosh, a law professor, has recently written a fascinating book, Illegal Beings, about how the biggest problem with human clones is their legal status. She argues that when a human clone is born its identity will have to be kept secret — under current law, the clone's existence is illegal and therefore it would have no human rights and would have to be confiscated by the government if found out. So there might be human clones out there right now, but the frightened parents would never reveal it for fear of losing their child.

Mature Human Embryos Created from Adult Skin Cells [Washington Post]

Apollo's Song was originally serialized in a weekly comic magazine back in 1970. This was during the transition phase of Tezuka's career—his production company had just tanked, and he was skeptical of the anime industry, which insisted on censoring his work. It was the same year that he wrote Alabaster, a story about a homicidal, partly invisible ex-athlete intent on destroying all the beauty in the world.

For Tezuka, science fiction was never a goal; it was the medium through which he chose to explore complex, often taboo issues of his time, like love and hate and promiscuous sex. By addressing these issues via animated fictional characters living in a surreal future, he avoided controversy and criticism in the real world.

Apollo's Song is a coming-of-age story that starts in the present and warps back and forth into the past and future. The ambiguous protagonist is a boy named Shogo, who learned to despise the idea of love during a childhood mired in his mom's promiscuous affairs with his many papas. He hates it so much that he obsessively murders any living thing showing even the slightest hint of passion. These killing sprees land him in a mental hospital, where a mysterious doctor puts him through electroshock therapy and transports him into different roles, each in extreme imagined environments—an island where dozens of zoo animals procreate, an isolated house in the mountains, and Nazi Germany. Through his adventures, Shogo finally learns to love. Hypnosis takes him to his final destination—Tokyo in the year 2030, where super-humanoid clones called Synthians rule a cold, heartless world. There, Shogo is caught between two tasks he's been ordered to perform—to kill the Synthian queen, but also to teach her how to love.

The inner lives of animals, reproduction, twisted sexuality, reincarnation, and the inevitable war between humans and their creations—clones and robots—are themes that arise repeatedly in Tezuka's manga. Even today, a lot of Japanese people don't talk that openly about love and sex. Manga is often a prime medium for understanding these issues—sex ed is often taught in comic strips, and almost every male magazine has pornographic graphic novels tacked into its end pages.

Nearly 20 years after his death and over half a century past his heyday, only twelve of Tezuka's titles have been published in English. But with the Asian Art Museum's recent exhibit on Tezuka and other titles being worked on by publishers like Vertical and Viz, we should be seeing a greater rollout in the years to come. If you're going to start somewhere with Tezuka's science fiction works, Apollo is the place to go.

A truly brilliant invention, the chickie knobs are basically vat-grown chicken that has been so incredibly genetically modified that they're basically balls of flesh with holes to stick food in, and an ass to poop out of. They're the epitome of the grotesque bio-engineered world of tomorrow that Atwood portrays so horrifyingly in the novel.

When the FDA approves cloned meat for consumption, you can bet that people will freak out about it. Though there are no known health risks associated with eating clones (you eat cloned veggies all the time), people just think it's icky. Not sure why it's somehow ickier to eat a clone than it is to eat a cow bred for generations to be dumb and fat, but whatever.

Cloned Livestock Poised to Receive FDA Clearance [WSJ]

• Chloe's power is finally revealed: While we already knew Chloe was a meteor freak with some kind of magical healing tears, it wasn't really shown what she could actually do until this episode. She takes Jimmy's cut finger in her hand and makes the poor little boo-boo go all bye-bye with some sort of weird E.T. light-up hands. Her one tear could bring Lois back from the dead, but it takes a lot of effort just to seal up a one-inch cut? Give us a break.
• Grant Gabriel is a clone of Julian Luthor: We've also knew that Grant Gabriel was Lex's long-dead brother Julian for a few episodes, last Thursday was the first time it was revealed that he was actually a clone of Lex's brother, who died when he was 12 years old. Lex has been playing around in the cloning toybox and trying to bring his brother back. The first effort resulted in a clone who aged prematurely, but he seems to have it fine-tuned now. However, everyone seems to have forgotten about Lucas Luthor, Lex's other younger brother who he had hidden away several seasons ago. Counting last night's old clone, Julian, and Lucas, that gives Lex quite a family reunion to come home to. Of course, he put a bullet into old clone's chest, which will make it a bit awkward at future family meetings.
• Brainiac is on the way back: The last time we saw Milton Fine / Brainiac, he was reduced to a tiny bit of goo living in a glass vial. Last night Chloe told Clark that the fluid was evolving and getting smarter each time it tried to escape. It's liquid with a memory and a mission, but how the hell does Chloe come by this stuff? She can translate Kryptonian, hack military firewalls, and score top-secret lab reports. Too bad her talents are wasted in the basement of the Daily Planet. She could be a one-woman Geraldo.
• Clark is actually Bizarro: Clark returns from a two-week visit to the Fortress of Solitude and everything seems to be just hunky dory with the Young Adult of Steel. That is, until he hugs Lana near the end of the episode and we his shift turn angular and crystalline for the briefest of seconds, meaning he's the Bizarro version of Clark. Then we see what we imagine is the real Clark, trapped inside some kind of glass chamber back in the Fortress that looks like the device that took Supey's powers away in Superman II. So why the hell is Bizarro acting so nice and hugging folks? We'll have to wait until next year to find out.

• We were going to add "Clark finally flies!" to this list, but it turned out to be Bizarro-Clark shooting up that stairwell like a comet, so we'll still have to wait to see him take to the skies. At which point the show should instantly be canceled for violating its "No flights, no tights" rule. Then again, they should have put the brakes on this show back when it started to suck. Four seasons ago.

They're sitting down, very clone-like, for a meeting. They all have official name tags and little mics to speak into. Not like they need it—they're probably all thinking the same thing. At least they won't have a problem reaching a unanimous decision. Image from "Lost Control" published by Die Gestalten Verlag

Lost Control [via PingMag]

Says Brendan Tobin of the Irish Center for Human Rights, an author of the report:

Failure to outlaw reproductive cloning means it is just a matter of time until cloned individuals share the planet. If failure to compromise continues, the world community must accept responsibility and ensure that any cloned individual receives full human rights protection. It will also need to embark on an extensive awareness building and sensitivity program to ensure that the wider society treats clones with respect and ensure they are protected against prejudice, abuse or discrimination.

Most of the report urges the international community to set up better laws against human reproductive cloning, essentially threatening them with the stick of having to take sensitivity training to deal with clone co-workers. I guess the worst thing that the UN can imagine is another minority group demanding its rights. They also talk about the two main arguments against human reproductive cloning: religious concerns, and fear of commoditizing human life. (They leave out what to me seems like the most important issue, which is that making a human clone is essentially to experiment on a human subject without permission.)

No matter how you slice it, the UN document is pretty damn anti-clone. For a less clone-phobic legal analysis of clone rights, check out law professor Kerry MacIntosh's book Illegal Beings: Human Clones and the Law (Cambridge University Press). At least she offers several legal methods to assert civil rights for clones. Getty Image by Martin Oeser.

Is Human Cloning Inevitable: Future Options for UN Governance [UN University]

While everyone worries about the world's first cloned child, the nation's first cloned organ donor, or even the first cloned student at their local high school, it seems far more interesting to speculate on the first cloned autobiographer.

After all, if your clone wrote a memoir, what would it say? Would the experiences it recounts resemble yours?

And whose intellectual property would the resulting book be?

Stranger still, whether or not your clone managed to get everything right, if he or she (or it) came to you requesting an informative interview, complete with briefcase, tape recorder, and open notepad, what would you say? What would it feel like to be interviewed by your own clone?

Or, for that matter, to be interrogated: What if we interrogated captives at Guantanamo with their own clones - how long would it be till the first breakdowns began...?

Pursuing this line of thought one night, I found myself thinking about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, in which the monstrous offspring of a god-struck electrical scientist comes back to wreak havoc upon the family of its creator. It struck me that something altogether more interesting and exciting was bound to occur someday, when, say, a special FBI task force could be cloned from the hair samples of a criminal perpetrator, and those clones could then be sent to track down the originary bad one amongst themselves, eliminating that flawed and imperfect model, rubbing out the deviant seed from which they sprang.

Which leads me to believe that human cloning might finally give us the mythology we so strongly deserve: Cloning will make human life interesting once again.

In any case, the world's first cloned novelist will literally revolutionize global literature. It would even seem, if publishers now find themselves falling further and further behind in the game of capturing consumer attention, that the only genuine way out is to do something historically extraordinary, something everyone will remember - and that is to publish the memoirs of a clone.

The idea is already out there; someone now just has to do it.

We only need to look as far as the recent work of British author Kazuo Ishiguro, who introduced - sort of - the idea of a narrating clone - sort of - in his 2005 novel Never Let Me Go. In that book, specially bred organ donors are raised in an isolated English schoolhouse, barely understanding the bizarre, if medically efficient, truth behind their everyday existence.

But where is the pathos of the clone? The emotion? Where is the first person poetry, the song lyrics?

Where is clone existentialism?

When will the clones get their Faust?

There's always Michel Houellebecq's The Possibility of an Island, his catastrophically bad step into a kind of sexualized sub-genre of clone sci-fi, in which various versions of the book's narrator reflect across decades of personal experience... coming up with disappointingly little to think about.

But the question remains: Is there a literary genre appropriate to the experience of the clone? Is it, by default, science fiction? Not autobiography? What about a clone martyrology - or even a new line of travel guides, listing clone-friendly hotels near central London?

Fundamentally, though, I can't help but wonder what might happen if the world's first novel written by a clone hits the top of the New York Times bestseller list - which it would be bound to do. Everyone would read it. It could be called The Diary of Who I Almost Was. Or The Book of No One.

And if a book of clone poetry gets onto the syllabus of an undergraduate English course at an Ivy League university - what will Fox News have to say about that?

Who speaks for clones, outside the borders of science fiction - and what happens when the clones start speaking for themselves?