The bookmakers' flutter

list of mammals successfully cloned from adult cells almost adds up to a complete farmyard, lacking only the dog and the farmer. The cloned farmyard inventory demonstrates how much cloning research is guided by economic considerations rather than scientific curiosity. The mouse is the only traditional laboratory animal here. Each addition to the list of cloned species creates a different kind of response, depending on how close to the animal-lover's heart a given species stands. Back in May, the announcement that a cloned mule colt, Idaho Gem, had been born at the University of Idaho only raised gentle bemusement. It was ironic that in the brave new world of cloning even sterile hybrids like the mule can pass on their genes. That would have been that, had not the mule been a close relative of the horse, a member of the equine family. Idaho Gem raised the possibility that cloning of a horse might succeed as well, and equine cloning projects were undertaken in a number of institutions including Texas A&M, Lousiana State and Cambridge University. In the end, none of these universities claimed the trophy for the first cloned horse. Reports last month of the first cloned horse by researchers in Cremona, Italy — home of some of the finest violin makers — put the racing community into a spin, but they have little to fear from this experiment, writes Michael Gross.