A calf weighing 40 kilos was born in east China's Shandong Province Wednesday, cloned from frozen stem cells from a black-and-white dairy cow.
The birth of the calf represented the first time that Chinese scientists have successfully employed frozen stem cells to clone a cow.
The calf, which has yet to be named, was born at 11:52 am on Wednesday and was able to stand up one and a half hours later, exhibiting normal new-born behavior.
To achieve their goal, scientists extracted epidermal cells from the ears of a dairy cow with a high milk yield.
Meanwhile, three cloned cows are expected to give birth in the coming days, and another two have been inseminated in Liangshan County of Shandong, where a major gene modification research center under China's High and New Technology Research and Development Program (program 863) is located.
(People's Daily October 18, 2002)