Cloning works rather well now. Here are six polo ponies, Cuartetera 01 through 06, all clones of a famous polo pony.[1] Their owner has been winning world class polo matches on these mares. They're strong and healthy and very real.

[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/six-cloned-horses-he...

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torginus 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

It's interesting to see how the spots on these horses look different. I thought it was chimerism like in cows, but apparently it's extremely rare in horses, but still there are epigenetic factors in play.

I wonder how much gene expression differs in clones of particular species raised in similar environments, I would expect the amount of difference between genetically identical individuals to differ by species, but I have no idea by how much, and how would humans rate on this measure.

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ErroneousBosh 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

They are approximately as varied as six foals from the same sire and dam would be normally.

In much the same way as you can spot similarities in two people who are even quite distantly related, you can often tell which animals are related just by looking. My neighbour had a pony that she got when she was quite little and who died something like ten years ago. All her daughters and grand-daughters look just like her.

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Animats 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They all have the face stripe, but it varies in size. Look at the hind socks. Some have two, some have only one. That's more of a variation than the stripe width.

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throwaway85825 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The DNA is the code but the animal still goes through the growth process which involves a certain amount of randomness.

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quantummagic 3 days ago | parent [-]

It's not just randomness; it is environmental influence. A simple example being a lack of food in the environment affecting size and developmental health.

	▲	mlyle 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I don't think you're saying different things. All the unpredictable and chaotic environmental influence is, being uncontrolled and unknowable-- effectively random.

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BizarroLand a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Spots in haired animals are often affected by hormones and temperatures in the womb, so it makes sense that they would be different in expression while maintaining some fundamental similarity.

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thrance 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Surprisingly, and perhaps fortunately, because of some boring biological details I won't expand on, cloning humans is harder than cloning horses or sheeps.

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Aboutplants 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Well there are cloned humans now…