Wallaby back in wild
THE adventurous wallaby who stopped motorists in their tracks when he hopped along the Sydney Harbour Bridge has been released back into the wild.
The wayward male swamp wallaby, nicknamed Syd, was taken to Taronga Zoo in a serious condition due to the stress of his moment in the spotlight on January 16.
Police captured the wallaby – with the help of former Wallabies captain Nick Farr-Jones who was on his way to work when he came across the very Australian turn of events.
Taronga Zoo veterinarian Dr Larry Vogelnest assessed the marsupial shortly after his capture saying he would be released as soon as he was well enough. After more than a week in recovery, the wallaby was released yesterday at Kuring-gai Chase National Park. SCIENTISTS have successfully produced the world’s first monkey clones using the same method that made Dolly The Sheep.
Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua are just eight and six weeks old respectively, and early images of the pair are incredibly cute – but animal welfare experts have condemned plans to create more clones for drugtesting as a “horror show”.
The genetically identical long-tailed macaques were born at Shanghai’s Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Neuroscience.
They’re unique because they’re the first primates to be cloned using the somatic cell nuclear transfer technique that was used to create the famous sheep-clone Dolly 20 years ago.
Senior author Dr Qiang Sun said: “We tried several different methods, but only one worked.”
For Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, scientists removed the nucleus from an egg cell and replaced it with another nucleus from body cells. This reconstructed egg eventually turns into a clone of whatever donated the second nucleus.
The research team behind the incredible feat are planning to create more macaque clones over the coming months.
But the scientists say that they want to create “customisable” populations of monkeys for large-scale animal testing.
“This will generate real models not just for genetically based brain diseases, but also cancer, immune, or metabolic disorders and allow us to test the efficacy of the drugs for these conditions before clinical use.” Dr Sun said.
Dr Julia Baines, from PETA UK, said: “These two monkeys represent misery and death on an enormous scale. This experiment – and all other experiments on animals – should be ended immediately.”