What do monkeys and sheep have in common? They’ve both been unnaturally reproduced via cloning. Wow!

Politicians and “analysts” will have their typical reactions to stories that involve cloning; some of them saying “What the bloody earth, this is such an outrage and undermines the very concepts that constitute life”, and others saying “Oh goody, this is probably a good thing, and shows why science education is so important and merits a tax increase.”

To either stereotypical reaction, I have nothing to offer except a long and inflated yawn. Politicians don’t do the actual cloning; rather, it is the cloners who do the cloning. Since cloners can be more interesting than politicians, let’s talk to one of them instead.

So what will be cloned next? Humans? Laptop computers? Cars? Maybe food? Yeah, maybe food.

Meet Sigmund. He is a cook at a franchise Mexican fast food restaurant in the frontier village of Boston, Massachusetts. He wishes to become a cloner, so he is quite fascinated by the concept of cloning. So, accordingly, I am quite fascinated to have an opportunity to interview him about his fascination about this fascinating topic.

Sauhard: Good morning, Sigmund. Thanks allowing a sauhard.com team member like myself to interview you. Can I have a taco? [I hand him $1.15 as payment]
Sigmund: Soon, Sauhard, but hopefully even sooner at some point in the near future.
Sauhard: That was quite cryptic. What do you mean?
Sigmund: Well, you see, tacos can take a long time to make. You know, they teach in pre-school that it takes 9 months for a new person to be, right? Well, similarly, it takes 9 seconds for a taco to be made.
Sauhard: But I believe a second is significantly shorter than a month, by several orders of magnitude.
Sigmund: Ah, my friend. But you know, that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement! You see, we all know that 9 is a pretty large number. So if it takes 9 anything to make something, that’s too long and should be improved, to make it in 8 of that thing or less. I’ve figured out a way to make tacos more quickly.
Sauhard: Really? What might this way be?
Sigmund: Well, it’s really easy. So I have this sheet of paper, that has ingredients and instructions on how to make a taco. It’s like a recipe or something, you know. So I figured, instead of rewriting the recipe each time, I’ll just post it on the wall and use it to make each taco. So instead of making 1 taco from 1 recipe, I could make like 100 tacos from 1 recipe! Think about how much time that would save!
[painful, awkward silence]
Sauhard: [making very little effort to veil my annoyance] SIGMUND. The nine seconds to which you referred have elapsed. Give me my darned taco already, lest I should think that your cloning strategy actually slows the process down.

No, I don’t believe I was being rude, since I had already paid for my food, and it took longer than the promised nine seconds for the taco to be made. As a customer, I have rights, and I demand that those rights be respected.

Of course, the taco itself was quite delicious, despite the unfortunate longer-than-nine-second delay. I made sure to congratulate Sigmund on his discovery that he could make tacos more efficiently if he didn’t rewrite the recipe after making each taco. I also told him to submit his ideas to the big corporation that owns his restaurant.

While the “big guys” up the corporate ladder have yet to get back to him, Sigmund remains optimistic. He doesn’t seem like the type that would give up that easily, and I applaud his perseverance.