China's first cloned police dog ready for missions

15:22, August 23, 2019

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  China's first cloned cat born in Beijing

  A photo of Chinas first cloned cat, a kitten named Garlic, shared on Sina Weibo by Scientific Exploration. (Photo: China Plus)A company in Beijing announced on Monday that it had successfully bred Chinas first cloned cat, reports China Science and Technology Daily."The kitten named Garlic was born on July 21 in a laboratory of the biotechnology company Sinogene. It was born from an embryo carried by a surrogate mother," said Wang Jidong, the CEO of Sinogene. "Garlic has been verified as a cloned cat by a third-party verification organization, and is currently in a good condition."The birth of the kitten is the result of a cloning program that began last August. Chen Dayuan, a researcher from the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said the technology developed by the company has a high success rate: one cloned kitten from four implanted surrogates.Its rare for cats to be successfully cloned, said Shi Zhensheng, a professor from the Veterinary Medicine College at China Agricultural University. Cats have unique reproductive characteristics, which make them difficult to clone. The success of Sinogene marks a step forward in Chinas cloning research sector.The cloning technology used to create Garlic will help China to build a genetic library of endangered species, with the goal of breeding species under threat of extinction.

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  Chinese gene firm clones cat, sparking wide consumer interest

  The cloned kitten "Garlic" was born on July 21 at the Sinogene Biotechnology Company in Beijing, believed to be the first successfully cloned cat in the country. (Photo: Global Times)Cat lovers who are devastated by the death of their beloved felines may soon be able to have their pets cloned, following the birth of Chinas first cloned kitten.The cloned kitten, named "Garlic," was born on July 21 and cloned at the laboratories of Sinogene Biotechnology Company in Beijing.The company started its experiment on cat cloning in August 2018, and Garlic, a British shorthair, was born 66 days after an embryo was transferred to a surrogate mother, the company said at a press conference on Monday in Beijing."My cat died of urinary tract disease. I decided to clone him because he was so special and unforgettable," the cat owner Huang Yu told the Global Times.Garlic and the original cat, which supplied the cells, appear identical but have different temperaments and personalities, Lai Liangxue, the companys chief scientist and a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told the Global Times on Monday. A cloned cats life expectancy is the same as any other cat, Lai said.To make the cloned animal share the same memories with the original, the company is considering the use of artificial intelligence or man-machine interface technology to store them or even pass the memories to cloned animals, the general manager of Sinogene said at the conference.Sinogene deputy general manager Zhao Jianping said the successful cloning of Garlic will allow the company to officially start offering cat-cloning services, which is expected to cost 250,000 yuan ($35,400) each.Zhao told the Global Times that several cat owners had already booked the service, hinting that the future market could be huge. The company also offers a dog cloning service, costing 380,000 yuan.China has more than 73 million pet owners and mor...

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  China sends new naval fleet for escort mission

  File photo: CGTNQINGDAO, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- The 33rd fleet from the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) Navy on Thursday left the port city of Qingdao in east Chinas Shandong Province for the Gulf of Aden to escort civilian ships.The fleet is mainly composed of naval forces from the the Northern Theater Command of the Chinese navy, including a destroyer, a frigate and a supply ship.It has more than 600 officers and soldiers, dozens of special operation soldiers and two helicopters onboard.The PLA Navy began to carry out escort missions in the Gulf of Aden and the waters off Somalia in December 2008.Over the past decade, the Chinese navy has dispatched 106 vessels and over 28,000 officers and soldiers to escort more than 6,700 Chinese and foreign ships.