Answer to Question #330184 in General Chemistry for Shang

Question

_{What is cloning? Cite itd advantages and disadvantages}

Answer 1

Cloning is a method of obtaining several identical organisms through asexual (including vegetative) reproduction. Cloning, depending on its application to groups of living and non-living beings, can be molecular, reproductive, therapeutic. Animals and humans can be cloned. A group of genetically identical organisms or cells is called a clone.

Cloning can help reproduce plants that are more disease resistant. Reproducing superior plants, especially superior nutritional plants, can help solve the problems of world hunger. Cloned plants are also more predictable, which can help save millions of dollars in farming costs, and endangered plants can be saved with the right cloning programs.

Efforts to genetically engineer or completely clone plant and animal species may result in a lack of necessary DNA diversity. Diversity helps improve future survivability, especially when unpredictable things happen. Scientists cannot predict the potential development of viruses or other killing agents to which cloned species may need to respond in the future.

For example, scientists may have decided to clone all the rice in the world. They gradually produce only one type, much more nutritious than other types. Other rice is no longer produced and its DNA variants are disappearing. Some time in the future, a disease strikes the rice crop and completely destroys it, and the world suddenly runs out of rice.