This is Randi Hacker with another Postcard from Asia from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

For those of you who have put off cloning your favorite pet due to the exorbitant cost, good news! The process just got cheaper. A biotech company here in South Korea has discovered that stems cells from the fat tissue in a dog’s ears are much easier to reprogram than your standard somatic stem cells and thus have a 20 % greater chance of becoming a viable Fido – or should we say re-Fido. Up until now, the process has been so expensive that even the Korean Customs Service had to have a special reduced rate to clone those sniffer dogs they use at airports. Now commercial dog cloning is poised to become an affordable consumer commodity: Oy! Send in the clones.

From the KU Center for East Asian Studies, I’m Randi Hacker. Wish you were here.