That’s an
easy one – 19 years (18 in Alberta)! Of course, that
all depends on how you define “fully grown”…
but the law says that when you reach that age, you’re
officially a grownup (actual maturity level notwithstanding…).
Of course, there
are no human clones (at least not yet…at least none
that we know of). If you were to be cloned, we’d just
scrape a little of your DNA from one of your cells into an
egg (no, not a chicken egg – an egg of the human reproductive
variety), add a little water, bake for 45 minutes and presto!
Instant clone twin! Someone you can get to pass for you when
you don’t want to do any of those household chores Mom
expects you to do...
Actually, that’s
not at all how it would work (as Moms everywhere are no doubt
about to remind me!). Once the DNA is placed into the egg,
development would start over again. But – chances are
that the “new you” wouldn’t look exactly
like the “old you”, because environment plays
a role in shaping all kinds of things. For example, you would
think that the fingerprints of you and your new clone would
exactly match. But, like in identical twins (who share the
same exact DNA with each other in the same way your hypothetical
clone would share DNA with you), we see that their fingerprints
turn out different – because environmental effects change
the loops and swirls.
So, making an exact
copy of yourself is even harder than you might think. But
it would still take 19 years to “fully grow” one!
For more about cloning, check out somatic
cell nuclear transfer, the process used to clone animals.
How is cloning portrayed in the movies? Read
more…
March 2009
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