Two monkeys are the first ever primates to be cloned using the technique that created Dolly the sheep.
The technique brings the prospect of cloned human beings even more closer. But scientists caution that there may be no good reason to create such clones, and that ethical and legal questions need to be answered about such research.
More immediately, the technique will allow researchers to create whole labs full of genetically identical monkeys. That could prove tremendously useful in scientific and medical research – allowing doctors to watch how specific treatments affect the genetic makeup of animals that are otherwise exactly the same, for instance.