Born in London in 1825, Thomas Henry Huxley was one of the greatest men of the nineteenth century. In 1846, Thomas Henry Huxley was appointed an assistant doctor aboard HMS Rattlesnake. The ship had been asked to survey areas of the Great Barrier Reef and the neighboring seas. This gave Thomas Henry Huxley an opportunity to study animal life and was the start of his biological career. The voyage lasted four years, during which time he gathered much information on plankton(浮游生物).     

On his return from the voyage, Thomas Henry Huxley was made a member of the Royal Society in recognition of his scientific work. Although he continued to publish papers about plankton, his interest was turning towards vertebrate (有脊椎的) animals. For some time Thomas Henry Huxley and his workmates had been discussing the possibility that animal species had evolved (进化), one from another. No satisfactory theories had been put forward, but in 1859 Darwin's The Origin of Species appeared. Thomas Henry Huxley at once realized its importance and how the theory of natural selection provided the working hypothesis (假说)we sought. For the rest of his life Thomas Henry Huxley struggled to ensure the full recognition of Darwin's work. In 1863, Thomas Henry Huxley published Man's Place in Nature in which he compared man and great apes(猿). He clearly showed similarities.

Despite his many achievements, he was given no award by the British state until late in his life. From about 1870, Thomas Henry Huxley was too involved in other things to continue actual research. He had always been interested in education. He pioneered the teaching of biology and his method of selecting "type animals" is still followed today. He spent the last ten years of his life writing essays mainly on biology.

The birth of Britain’s first cloned dog has been considered “a waste of money” and scientists said the process raised serious ethical (伦理的) concerns.

Sooam Biotech, a company in Seoul, said it had cloned the puppy, named Mini-Winnie, from a 12-year-old dog belonging to Rebecca Smith, who lives in the west London. She had won a contest run by the company which hoped to sell the service to pet owners for 60,000 pounds a time.

Mini-Winnie was born after scientists took skin cells from Mr Smith’s pet and dropped them into donor eggs to make embryos (胚胎). The puppy must remain in Korea for six months to satisfy British quarantine (检疫) laws.

But researchers warned that while a cloned dog might look similar to its biological parent, it would be a very different animal. “You would have many chances of replicating (复制) your favorite pet by choosing one from Battersea Dogs Home,” said Robin Lovell-Badge, a geneticist at the National Institute for Medical Research in London. Dusko Ilic, a stem cell scientist at King’s College London, said, “It is extremely unlikely that a puppy cloned from a favorite pet will behave in the same way. As time passes by, the differences will be more and more pronounced, especially personality traits. It is an absolute waste of money.”

The cloning process is controversial (有争论的) because the animals are often born with diseases or die soon after birth.

I think, it’s unnecessary to try to clone pets for pet owners. First, it’s really costly. Second, the cloned pet is actually another dog. Third, there are many homeless dogs for people to adopt in shelters. So why not just adopt a dog instead?