The First Cloned Monkeys Provoked More Shrugs Than Shocks

The First Cloned Monkeys Provoked More Shrugs Than Shocks

Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, the two cloned macaques.

(Credit: Qiang Sun and Mu-ming Poo, Institute of Neuroscience of the Chinese Academy of Sciences)


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Bernard Siegel
Bernard Siegel, J.D., is the Executive Director of the nonprofit Regenerative Medicine Foundation, with a mission of accelerating regenerative medicine to improve health and deliver cures. Bernie founded and co-chairs the annual World Stem Cell Summit & RegMed Capital Conference, founded and serves as editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed World Stem Cell Report (AlphaMed Press) and is the editor of the 360 Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine weekly newsletter. He founded and is the spokesperson for the Stem Cell Action Coalition, a 100+ member international alliance of nonprofits and research institutions leading the global "Pro-Cures Movement." As a recognized advocacy and policy expert in the fields of stem cell research, regenerative medicine and related subjects, Bernie works with the leading scientists and patient advocates, raising public awareness and educating lawmakers, the media and public.
Security workers with detection dogs walking in airport terminal

Security workers walk with detection dogs in an airport terminal.

Viacheslav Lakobchuk/Adobe Stock

Asher is eccentric and inquisitive. He loves an audience, likes keeping busy, and howls to be let through doors. He is a six-year-old working Cocker Spaniel, who, with five other furry colleagues, has now been trained to sniff body odor samples from humans to detect COVID-19 infections.

As the Delta variant and other new versions of the SARS-CoV-2 virus emerge, public health agencies are once again recommending masking while employers contemplate mandatory vaccination. While PCR tests remain the "gold standard" of COVID-19 tests, they can take hours to flag infections. To accelerate the process, scientists are turning to a new testing tool: sniffer dogs.

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Puja Changoiwala
Puja Changoiwala is an award-winning journalist and author based in Mumbai. She writes about the intersections of gender, crime, technology, social justice and human rights in India. She tweets @cpuja.
Image of artificial heart

This Jarvik-7 artificial heart was used in the first bridge operation in 1985 meant to replace a failing heart while the patient waited for a donor organ.

National Museum of American History

In June, a team of surgeons at Duke University Hospital implanted the latest model of an artificial heart in a 39-year-old man with severe heart failure, a condition in which the heart doesn't pump properly. The man's mechanical heart, made by French company Carmat, is a new generation artificial heart and the first of its kind to be transplanted in the United States. It connects to a portable external power supply and is designed to keep the patient alive until a replacement organ becomes available.

Many patients die while waiting for a heart transplant, but artificial hearts can bridge the gap. Though not a permanent solution for heart failure, artificial hearts have saved countless lives since their first implantation in 1982.

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Sarah Watts

Sarah Watts is a health and science writer based in Chicago.