Sounds scary, but it is not. Essentiall y thy're using the 'shell' of a cow's egg or ova and 'filling it with human DNA'. There is no cow/bovine DNA for the human DNA to mix with.

Doing it this way by-passes all of the ethics issues of usng human embryos because some people are worried about destoying 'babies'.

Sent by The Urban Scientist | 4:26 AM ET | 04-04-2008

The Urban Scientist writes, "Doing it this way by-passes all of the ethics issues of usng human embryos because some people are worried about destoying 'babies'."

Umm, no, it doesn't. What make someone biologically human, as opposed to bovine, is our DNA. Whatever that ovum was before its nucleus was evacuated of bovine DNA, it is now human.

BTW, why is 'babies' in single quotes? First off, it should double quotes, something I learned in fourth-grade English (unless it was simply a typo, at which point I apologize for correcting it). Secondly, there's nothing fictional about the word. We are all somebody's baby, as the mothers of the church always told me. Those babies (please note the lack of quotes) may not be wanted by you (aside for their spare parts capability) or their parents, but that doesn't keep them from being somebody's babies.

Sent by Matthew Scallon | 1:28 AM ET | 04-06-2008