Three separate news stories this week illustrate the powerful hold of cloning, whether of people or animals, on the popular imagination. We had a convincing scientific report of human embryos cloned from adult skin cells, approval from the US Food and Drug Administration for the sale of meat and milk from cloned livestock, and – bringing people and animals together – a UK licence for researchers to use cow and rabbit eggs as a vehicle for human cloning research.

Although science fiction brought cloning to public attention several decades ago, current feelings of fear and fascination date to 1997, when the birth of Dolly the sheep showed that mammals really could be cloned. Besides religious objections, there are many deep-seated reasons why people feel squeamish (or worse) about cloning, from questions about individual identity to visions of mad scientists tinkering with nature.