When you think of cloning, you'll probably either think of dolly, or maybe some sort of sci-fi clone army. German scientists, on the other hand, their minds hop to Christmas trees, and the hope that cloning can bring us all perfect ones forever.
Biologist Kurt Zoglauer of Berlin's Humboldt University isn't happy with the current Christmas tree situation. According to him, some 40 percent of trees just don't aren't good enough to cut it, and yet they still occupy their little spots on the farm for at least 10 years, and sometimes more. In a cloning project—one sponsored by the German government, no less—Zoglauer and his team are working on a way to breed and clone particularly robust trees. They aim to start their clone army by 2016. [Phys.Org via Engadget]