Monday, August 31, 2026

Question: In 1996, scientists cloned the first mammal from an adult cell and named it after Dolly Parton. What kind of animal was it?

Answer: A sheep. Named Dolly, she was cloned at Scotland’s Roslin Institute from a cell taken from an adult ewe, proving for the first time that a specialized adult cell could be used to create an exact genetic copy. She was named after Dolly Parton; the stockman who helped with her birth suggested the name because she’d been cloned from a mammary cell, a lighthearted nod to Parton’s famous figure.