Drew Barth

Author's Note: This is a research paper on cloning. I will show what cloning is, how it works, and my opinion towards cloning. 

What is Cloning?

            According to Human Genome Project more than 90% of cloning attempts fail. These cloning projects cost a lot of money with little success. This little success makes cloning a very controversial topic. Some people believe it is not humane to perform cloning to animals and people. But others say this is a great accomplishment to science.  Even though there can be upsides and down sides of cloning I think there are more downsides so right now we shouldn’t be cloning. 

                First to know why cloning is not the right decision at the moment is to figure out what cloning is and how it is done.  There are three types of cloning Therapeutic, reproductive, and DNA cloning. Reproductive cloning is the most used type of cloning. Reproductive cloning is taking DNA from the donor to the reproductive system of the receiver (Human Genome Project Information ). They take this DNA from a nucleus from an adult egg. From there they have to keep the egg preserved with chemicals until it is ready for birth and it is given birth from the same genetic animal (What Is Cloning). The first animal to go through this was a sheep named Dolly who was born in 1996 in Edinburgh Scotland (Humane Genome). The second type of cloning is therapeutic Cloning it is when embryos are collected to harvest stem cells in humans to help cure diseases (Fetzer). Therapeutic cloning is not to clone animals but to help cure human dieses through cloning stem cells, some day they hope to cure heart dieses. DNA cloning is when you transfer a DNA fragment of importance into a different host cell in the same animal breed.

                Even though knowing how cloning works is important, knowing the pros of cloning has the same importance.  The pros of cloning are the dieses that could possibly be cured. With these advancements through stem cell technology scientists hope that someday they will be able to cure some heart conditions.  Other positive things about cloning are if your dog dies there is a service that will clone your old dog for you but for a price. That does not mean the dog will have the same personality and will be exactly the same.

                Although knowing the pros of cloning is important, knowing the cons has the same importance. Some cons of cloning is how animals that get cloned have been known to die early in their life with no explanation. Another con of cloning is the expenses there are involved it takes 100,000 dollars to clone your dog which is a huge cost. Also more than 90% of cloning attempts fail which is an awful statistic (Human Genome Project Information ).

                Next I will explain why cloning is not the best thing to do with our time and money. Cloning takes a long time to get just right and the money to do this is crazy. I don’t think we are at the point where stem cell technology is really getting to the point to cure dieses.I think stem cells can be the next big thing in the medical field but for right now we are not at the point where we have perfected this technology.  Maybe in a couple of years there might be a breakout in cloning and it is cheap easy and everyone can benefit from this. I think it is just too much money and time that goes into cloning and you don’t get a lot of upsides to all of that money.

As you can see Cloning is not worth all the spending and time. Although there are a lot of upsides there are a lot of down sides of cloning.  Cloning is hard to perfect and takes a long time it simply is not worth all the time we put into it.

Bibliography

Fetzer, Scott. World Book. Chicago, IL: World Book Inc., 2000.

Human Genome Project Information . 11 May 2009. 18 april 2012 <http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/cloning.shtml>.

"Humane Genome." 11 May 2009. Cloning Fact Sheet. 16 April 2012 <http://www.genome.gov/25020028>.

What Is Cloning. 4 April 2012 <http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/tech/cloning/whatiscloning/>.

               

Drew Barth

Sorrow

Authors Note: This is a point of view piece on the book Fallen Angels.  

How would you feel if you were in the Vietnam War just so you could support your family back home? Well in the book Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers Perry a seven-teen year-old boy has to go to war to help his mom and his brother through the rough times. He soon finds that war is awful and wishes he could be back home.The way he tells the story makes us feel sorrow and sadness. He also struggles to tell the reader the full story because of his fear of war.

When Perry writes letters to his brother back home he refuses to tell him what goes on in this war. He does this so much that he forgets the truth himself so you never know if he is telling the real story or not. Perry's friend Pewee writes his girlfriend and always tells her the truth so if she knows what it is like she will understand what happened if anything would go wrong. Perry is just way to afraid of the things he has seen so he never wants to share these events with anyone even the reader.

Even though knowing how Perry deals with his problems is important, knowing how he talks to his unit has the same importance. Perry is always talking with his group of friends in his camp but never will repeat what has happened when they are out on patrol. He locks up during war and after he keeps all his feelings to himself. I think that he should share his feelings with someone so he doesn’t have all those feeling locked up in him. Perry says “I knew Mama loved me, but I also knew when I got back, she would expect me to be the same person, but it could never happen. She hadn’t been to Nam. She hadn’t given her poncho to anybody to wrap a body in, or stepped over a dying kid.” This is an example of him holding feelings in without people knowing what actually happened to him. He wants us to know that people will never understand what happens in Nam unless you have been there.

While he is out on patrol a lot of bad things happen to his unit. He freezes up in these situations which make his point of view change throughout the book because he doesn’t what to reveal what goes on in war. Perry says “We spent another day lying around. It seemed to be what the war was about. Hours of boredom, seconds of terror.” This line shows us how much war frightens him and how he can change the way the story goes because of this and just those seconds of terror scare him so much he doesn’t tell the story truthfully.  
Even though knowing how sorrow and sadness is important, knowing how Pewee Perry's friend would tell it and the mood he would bring to the story has the same importance. Pewee is a fun guy who doesn't really care about anything. He is very open minded and war doesn't affect him much. He would tell the story just like it is so he could give the reader a better story. Unlike Perry he likes the adventures and the thrill so he would include all these things in the story. He would probably add more violence to his story to make his story look better. Instead of feeling sorrow and sadness from Perry's point of view Pewee's mood would be happy and adventurous. This is the differences between Perry and Pewee and how they would tell the story.

As you can see Perry shows us that he consistently changes the point of view in this book because of his fear of war.  Perry Says “My father used to call all soldiers angel warriors,” he said. “Because usually they get boys to fight wars. Most of you aren’t old enough to vote yet.” This is another reason Perry might not have been ready for the war he is only seven-teen. He doesn't tell the reader the full story because of his awareness of war.