Cloning: a small word with a big purpose. Cloning is the process used to create and produce genetically identical copies of an organism. Cloning has many promising applications in medicine, industry, life conservation and basic research. Although cloning has proven technically difficult, when the process is successful, the effect is significant. Additionally, genetic engineering, another word for cloning, is essential to the research and creation of life. Cloning is a very controversial subject and has a very high ethical price: it involves affecting genetic life with the aim of creating or destroying it. The era of laboratory cloning began in 1958 when FC Steward cloned carrot plants. But asexual reproduction of plants has been manipulated by grafting and steam cutting for over two thousand years. The first major breakthrough in the history of cloning came almost forty years later, in 1996, when Scottish scientists cloned the first mammal. Using cells from an adult sheep and an egg cell, Dolly the Sheep was created. This was the first time in history that adult cells were used to clone a mammal, instead of using embryonic cells. Since then, scientists have been able to clone mice, cattle and goats using similar methods. Cloning begins by separating a specific length of DNA containing the specific gene you want to copy. The small particle of the gene is then placed in another strand of DNA called a vector, which, after a while, turns into a recombinant DNA molecule. This molecule is used to carry the gene into a host cell, such as yeast, DNA can replicate from nuclear DNA to produce clones. Cloning also occurs naturally in some plants and bacteria. Plants... middle of paper... the research may be worth it in the end. Advances in scientific research will tempt some for the “best” reasons, but putting aside the dignity of others for the mere possibility of human life may not be worth the convictions of this method. Works Cited “Cloning Fact Sheet”. Cloning fact sheet. National Institutes of Health, April 28, 2014. Web. May 15, 2014 “Human cloning laws.” Home NCSL. West Group, January 2008. Web. May 15, 2014.Petechuk, David. “Clone and cloning”. The Gale Encyclopedia of Science. Ed. K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner. 3rd ed. Flight. 2. Detroit: Gale, 2004. 899-902. General OneFile. Internet. May 6, 2014. “Pros and Cons of Human Cloning – HealthRF.” HealthRF. HRF, December 6, 2013. Web. May 15, 2014. (Smith, Wesley J. “The Coming of Human Cloning; It's Here. Don't Get Used to It.” The Weekly Standard May 27, 2013. General OneFile. Web. April 29. 2014.