Looking Back - Dolly The Sheep Is Cloned

On this day in 1997, Scientists in Scotland announced the birth of the world's first successfully cloned mammal, Dolly the sheep.
Dolly, who was created at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, was actually born on 5 July 1996 although her arrival has only just been revealed.
Dolly is the first mammal to have been successfully cloned from an adult cell. Previous clonings have been from embryo cells.
The sheep's birth has been heralded as one of the most significant scientific breakthroughs of the decade although it is likely to spark ethical controversy.
Scientists in Scotland cloned a ewe by inserting DNA from a single sheep cell into an egg and implanted it in a surrogate mother.
They now have a healthy seven-month-old sheep - Dolly - who is an exact genetic duplicate of the animal from which the single cell was taken.
DNA tests have revealed that Dolly is identical to the ewe who donated the udder cell and is unrelated to the surrogate mother.

Embryologist Dr Ian Wilmut, from the Roslin Institute, said: "It will enable us to study genetic diseases for which there is presently no cure and track down the mechanisms that are involved."
The research, published in Nature magazine, follows the Edinburgh team's success in cloning sheep embryos. Last year they produced two identical sheep, which were clones of an original embryo.
The company which has bought the rights to the research, PPL Therapeutics, said Dolly would help to improve understanding of ageing and genetics and lead to the production of cheaper medicines.
US President Bill Clinton has set up a special task force to investigate cloning in order to examine the legal and ethical implications.

The cloning of Dolly the sheep raised moral dilemmas amid fears that the technique could be used to clone humans.
Dr Ian Wilmut, who led the team of Scottish scientists who were behind the birth of Dolly, described human cloning as both "repugnant" and illegal.
The news about Dolly's birth enraged animal rights activists and the Church of Scotland said while it was "fascinating" research work, it had reservations.
Dr Wilmut also revealed the thinking behind the sheep's name: "Dolly is derived from a mammary gland cell and we couldn't think of a more impressive pair of glands than Dolly Parton's."
A decision was taken in 2003 to put down Dolly after a veterinary examination showed she had a progressive lung disease. Her preserved body went on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Time For Prayers

One of these is praying for a bike, the

other for a big meat bone. Can you

guess which is which?

Orient Express

The Orient Express was the name of a long-distance passenger train originally operated by Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. Its route has changed many times, and several routes have in the past concurrently used the name, or slight variants thereof. (Pictured right: Poster advertising the Winter 1888-1889 timetable for the Orient Express). Although the original Orient Express was simply a normal international railway service, the name has become synonymous with intrigue and luxury travel. The two city names most intimately associated with the Orient Express are Paris and Istanbul, the original endpoints of the service.
Since 1977, the Orient Express ceased to serve to Istanbul. Its immediate successor, a through overnight service from Paris to Vienna ran for the very last time from Paris on Friday, June 8, 2007. Since then, the route, still called the "Orient Express", has been shortened to start from Strasbourg instead, occasioned by the inauguration of the LGV Est which affords much faster travel times from Paris to Strasbourg. The new curtailed service left Strasbourg at 22.20 daily, shortly after the arrival of a TGV from Paris, and is attached at Karlsruhe to the overnight sleeper service from Amsterdam to Vienna.
On 14 December 2009, the Orient Express ceased to operate and the route disappeared from European railway timetables, reportedly a "victim of high-speed trains and cut-rate airlines."

Train Eclair de luxe (the 'test' train)
Georges Nagelmackers invited guests to a railway trip of 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) on his 'Train Eclair de luxe' (lightning luxury train). The train left Paris (Gare de Strasbourg) on Tuesday, October 10, 1882, just after 18:30 and arrived in Vienna the next day at 23:20. The return trip left Vienna on Friday, October 13, 1882, at 16:40 and as planned entered Paris (Gare de Strasbourg) at 20:00 on Saturday October 14, 1882.
The train was composed of: 1. Baggage car, 2. Sleeping coach with 16 beds (with bogies), 3. Sleeping coach with 14 beds (3 axles), 4. Restaurant coach (nr. 107), 5. Sleeping coach with 14 beds (3 axles), 6. Sleeping coach with 14 beds (3 axles), 7. Baggage car (complete 101 ton). The first menu on board (October 10, 1882): oysters, soup with Italian pasta, turbot with green sauce, chicken ‘à la chasseur’, fillet of beef with ‘château’ potatoes, ‘chaud-froid’ of Game animals, lettuce, chocolate pudding, buffet of desserts.

Original train
On June 5, 1883 the first 'Express d'Orient' left Paris for Vienna. Vienna remained the terminus until October 4, 1883. The train was officially renamed Orient Express in 1891.
The original route, which first ran on October 4, 1883, was from Paris, Gare de l'Est, to Giurgiu in Romania via Munich and Vienna. At Giurgiu, passengers were ferried across the Danube to Rousse in Bulgaria to pick up another train to Varna, from where they completed their journey to Istanbul (then called Constantinople) by ferry. In 1885, another route began operations, this time reaching Istanbul via rail from Vienna to Belgrade and Nis, carriage to Plovdiv and rail again to Istanbul. (Pictured left: The Istanbul Gar bell).
In 1889, the train's eastern terminus became Varna in Bulgaria, where passengers could take a ship to Istanbul. On June 1, 1889, the first non-stop train to Istanbul left Paris (Gare de l'Est). Istanbul remained its easternmost stop until May 19, 1977. The eastern terminus was the Sirkeci Terminal by the Golden Horn. Ferry service from piers next to the terminal would take passengers across the Bosporus Strait to Haydarpasa Terminal, the terminus of the Asian lines of the Ottoman railways.
The onset of World War I in 1914 saw Orient Express services suspended. They resumed at the end of hostilities in 1918, and in 1919 the opening of the Simplon Tunnel allowed the introduction of a more southerly route via Milan, Venice and Trieste. The service on this route was known as the Simplon Orient Express, and it ran in addition to continuing services on the old route. The Treaty of Saint-Germain contained a clause requiring Austria to accept this train: formerly, Austria allowed international services to pass through Austrian territory (which included Trieste at the time) only if they ran via Vienna. The Simplon Orient Express soon became the most important rail route between Paris and Istanbul.
The 1930s saw the zenith of Orient Express services, with three parallel services running: the Orient Express, the Simplon Orient Express, and also the Arlberg Orient Express, which ran via Zurich and Innsbruck to Budapest, with sleeper cars running onwards from there to Bucharest and Athens. During this time, the Orient Express acquired its reputation for comfort and luxury, carrying sleeping-cars with permanent service and restaurant cars known for the quality of their cuisine. Royalty, nobles, diplomats, business people and the bourgeoisie in general patronized it. Each of the Orient Express services also incorporated sleeping cars which had run from Calais to Paris, thus extending the service right from one edge of continental Europe to the other.
The start of the Second World War in 1939 again interrupted the service, which did not resume until 1945. During the war, the German Mitropa company had run some services on the route through the Balkans, but partisans frequently sabotaged the track, forcing a stop to this service.
Following the end of the war, normal services resumed except on the Athens leg, where the closure of the border between Yugoslavia and Greece prevented services from running. That border re-opened in 1951, but the closure of the Bulgaria-Turkey border from 1951 to 1952 prevented services running to Istanbul during that time. As the Iron Curtain fell across Europe, the service continued to run, but the Communist nations increasingly replaced the Wagon-Lits cars with carriages run by their own railway services.
By 1962, the Orient Express and Arlberg Orient Express had stopped running, leaving only the Simplon Orient Express. This was replaced in 1962 by a slower service called the Direct Orient Express, which ran daily cars from Paris to Belgrade, and twice weekly services from Paris to Istanbul and Athens.
In 1971, the Wagon-Lits company stopped running carriages itself and making revenues from a ticket supplement. Instead, it sold or leased all its carriages to the various national railway companies, but continued to provide staff for the carriages. 1976 saw the withdrawal of the Paris-Athens direct service, and in 1977, the Direct Orient Express was withdrawn completely, with the last Paris-Istanbul service running on May 19 of that year.
The withdrawal of the Direct Orient Express was thought by many to signal the end of Orient Express as a whole, but in fact a service under this name continued to run from Paris to Budapest and Bucharest as before (via Strasbourg, Munich, and Budapest). This continued until 2001, when the service was cut back to just Paris-Vienna, the coaches for which were attached to the Paris-Strasbourg express. (Pictured right: A modern ÖBB sleeper car). This service continued daily, listed in the timetables under the name Orient Express, until June 8, 2007. However, with the opening of the Paris-Strasbourg high speed rail line on June 10, 2007, the Orient Express service was further cut back to Strasbourg-Vienna, departing nightly at 22:20 from Strasbourg, and still bearing the name.
Today
It provides a convenient connection from the TGV arrival from Paris. Before December 14, 2008, this service provided an efficient connection between Paris and Vienna: departure from Paris at 19.24, arrival in Vienna at 8.35, in the other direction departure from Vienna at 20.34, arrival in Paris at 9.34.

Today's Smile

The mother of a 17-year-old girl was concerned that her daughter was having sex. Worried the girl might become pregnant and adversely impact the family's status, she consulted the family doctor.The doctor told her that teenagers today were very willful and any attempt to stop the girl would probably result in rebellion. He then told her to arrange for her daughter to be put on birth control and until then, talk to her and give her a box of condoms. Later that evening, as her daughter was preparing for a date, the woman told her about the situation and handed her a box of condoms. The girl burst out laughing and reached over to hug her mother, saying, 'Oh Mom! You don't have to worry about that! I'm dating Susan!'

Brainteaser - Sunday's Answer

The third room. Lions that haven't eaten in three years are dead. That one was easy, right?