dmmj said:Didn't dolly the sheep have shorter telomeres which caused her shortened life span?
As I understand it (from a show I saw a few years ago on The Science Channel), a clone is an exact replica of the "donor" animal at that age, so a clone of, say, a 21-yo male is born w/ the age of 21 already in his genes...thus he'll age sooner (a clone of a 21-yo will be about biologically 70 when he's 50, in other words).
As I recall, Dolly is how they figured this out...