Easter bunnies arrive unnoticed

Five years ago it was completely unheard of, now it seems not a month goes by without a team of scientists reporting yet another cloning success. This week's BioNews reports on the world's first cloned rabbits, unveiled just before Easter. They join sheep, cattle, goats, mice, pigs and cats in the cloning hall of fame.

But compared to the media frenzy that surrounded Dolly the sheep, the bunnies barely got a mention. It seems we've all accepted this once-amazing new technology as part of modern life. In the press, animal cloning now attracts only the occasional opinion piece, most recently when a cloned cat raised the possibility of bringing back dead pets.

However, even though the rabbits didn't make the tabloid headlines, their creators believe they will be of great interest to scientists. Rabbits are large enough to handle easily, yet small enough to keep in the laboratory. They are also closer to humans in the way their bodies work than either rats or mice, so will be useful for studying human genetic diseases. The French scientists who cloned the rabbits have also hooked up with a biotech company with the aim of creating rabbits that produce human proteins in their milk.

So was their Easter announcement an attempt to generate publicity for the bunnies in a world no longer impressed by cloning? Apparently not. According to team leader Jean-Paul Renard, in France, unlike Britain and the US, rabbits have no connection with Easter whatsoever.