Cloning!! And More Meiosis

I have to say, I love this Biology Unit. I love learning about the mechanics of the machine that is our body. It's interesting (to me at least) to know that meiosis is what starts the baby making process! Learning about the 18 Ways to Make a Baby was really neat, and one of the ways was cloning.

Introducing, the amazing Cloning Charlie! He uses his super hero skills to divide and conquer evil. Unlike the process that goes on in cloning animals, Charlie's super powers could be compared to the production of sperm or plant mitosis.

 So, what goes into the animal cloning process? I'm not quite sure myself, but let's look at how a mouse is cloned and try and determine what in the heck is going on.

1. Meiosis here. That is how the regular splitting of cells occurs. After a woman's egg becomes fertilized it moves onto meiosis 2, the fetic and embryonic stages. But with cloning, you are going to have to exact same DNA as the creature you took the DNA from.  From here on is the recipe for cloning.

Ingredients

1 Mouse Somatic Cell
1 Mouse Egg
1 Surrogate Mouse
1 Dividing Agent (mouse sperm)

1. Extract a somatic cell from the 1st mouse. Harvest the egg from the 2nd.
2. Remove the nucleus from the egg cell. Replace with the nucleus from the somatic cell.
3. Fertilize the new egg cell.
4. Implant the egg into the surrogate mouse.
5. Hurray for babies!