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Genetic engineering, altering the inherited characteristics of an organism in a predetermined way, by introducing into it a piece of the genetic material of another organism. Genetic engineering offers the hope of cures for many inherited diseases, once the pr ....

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.... influenza virus, could be hazardous. We have come to believe that all human beings are equal; but even more firmly, we are taught to believe each one of us is unique. Is that idea undercut by cloning? That is, if you can deliberately make any number of copies of an individual, is each one special? How special can clones feel, knowing they were replicated like smile buttons. "We aren't just our genes, we're a whole collection of our experiences," says Albert Jonsen. But the idea, he adds, raises a host of issues, "from the fantastic to the profound." When anesthesia was discovered in the 19th century, there was a ....