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Cloning involves building a living, multicellular organism from the genetic information contained in the nucleus of a single cell. Typically, this has been accomplished in plants, amphibians, and animals with embryonic cells, but until now scientists had not attempted cloning from cells of an adult mammal. Indeed, many believed that these cells were too highly differentiated to allow cloning.
However, a Scottish team transferred the nucleus of a cell from an adult white-faced sheep into an egg taken from an adult black-faced sheep, after the nucleus from that egg had been removed. The "new" egg was reimplanted in the uterus of the black-faced sheep, and ultimately a white-faced lamb (named Dolly) was born. Dolly is now seven months old and h…