io9: Dogs

Disgraced Human Cloning Scientist to Hawk Dog-Copies Instead

Michael Reilly — Fri, 23 May 2008 09:30:00 PDT

When your dog dies, it's a tough loss. But now you can bring back Fido, and not in the "Pet Cemetery" evil-pet way, either. BioArts International, a biotech company in California announced this week that they're partnering with South Korean cloning expert (and fraudster) Hwang Woo-Suk to deliver dog copies to the five highest bidders in their pet-cloning auction. Bids start at $100,000 dollars.

In 2004 and 2005 Hwang was regarded as top mind in human cloning. His research seemed to show that he'd been able to clone human embryonic stem cells, a huge accomplishment that would open the door to a new era in cloning and medicine.

That all changed in 2006 when news surfaced that he had fabricated his data and unethically obtained eggs from female researchers working in his lab. Disgraced, he left his prestigious position in academia to go work in animal cloning.

And now he's back, promising to keep your beloved K-9 around in cloned perpetuity for nothing more than a huge outlay of cash. Nevermind that he's already shown himself to be an utterly unethical scientist who will stop at nothing for personal gain (that says something abut the BioArts International's CEO Lou Hawthorne, too, who's got three copies of his dog Missy, pictured). Nevermind the valuable lessons Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to teach us all about the evils of cloning pets in the movie "The Sixth Day."

What's important, Hwang and Hawthorne are telling us, is that instead of saying goodbye to our pets, they can effectively live forever. Profit motive aside, I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not.

Source: Associated Press

Clones Bred to Sniff Drugs

Annalee Newitz — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:20:00 PDT

It's hard to find dogs that have just the right set of attributes to sniff for drugs, which is why South Korean Customs officials got their favorite drug-sniffing dog cloned. The seven clones (four are pictured here) have all grown up to be excellent sniffers — though only one in ten dogs usually passes drug-sniff training, all seven passed. All seven dogs are called Toppy, and each cost over $100,000 to clone, plus $40,000 extra to train. Over at Technovelgy, Bill Christensen points out that the cloned drug-sniffers have a precedent in a science fiction whose representation of cloning was so inaccurate that you'll be surprised it got anything right.

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!

It actually sounds like the Toppys (Toppies?) do have the same temperament as the dog they were cloned from, since they were all able to pass the same training he did.

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]

Dogoid Robot with No Head Moves in an Eerily Lifelike Manner

Annalee Newitz — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:30:26 PDT

It looks like something out of a James Thurber illustration, with its headless body and backward-dog legs, but the Big Dog is real and autonomous. This video, by the Big Dog development team at Boston Dynamics, shows just how lifelike the bot is. It can carry over 300 pounds, and its engines make an alien whining noise. It can also, apparently, recover its balance after being kicked by its owner, in a scene that that is disturbing on a number of levels.

Something about this video made me think of nice black metal, perhaps from Sweden. I'm not sure why. So I made a little snippet with a new soundtrack.

New Video of BDI's Robot [IEEE Automaton]

High-End Oxygen Bar Slows Down Canine Aging

LISA KATAYAMA — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 08:00:20 PST

Dogs are slowly replacing human children. In Japan, there are already more households with dogs than there are households with kids, and the service industry is right up there to pamper them. Here we see a canine oxygen bar—just one of the many luxury services available to dogs in Japan, like haute couture and yoga.

The owners of this facility already have about 20 oxygen bars for humans, but decided that our dog friends could benefit from clean air unattainable in cities like Tokyo. The dogs are placed in this glass cylinder and blasted with air for 30 minutes. Then, supposedly, they feel better. Image by AP

Tokyo oxygen bar offers pick-me-up for pooped pups [Reuters]