Happy First Birthday Snuppy!

The world's first cloned dog celebrates its first birthday today. The dog named Snuppy was created in South Korea by a team of scientists led by one time national hero and now shamed scientist Hwang Woo-suk. From Reuters:

The birthday celebrations at the university where Hwang once ran his lab were subdued. Snuppy, short for Seoul National University puppy, is in good health and weighs about 29 kilograms (64 lbs), university officials said.

For his birthday, Snuppy enjoyed two of his favourite foods; ice cream and sausages...

Dogs are considered one of the most difficult animals to clone because of their reproductive cycle. Snuppy was born after a normal pregnancy in a yellow Labrador surrogate mother.

The process was difficult and costly. A total of 1,095 reconstructed embryos were transferred into 123 surrogates to create two living puppies. The other cloned dog died after 22 days from pneumonia.