Apparently, some dudes were able to directly reprogram skin cells to become neurons. No stem cells required. The results are still waiting to be validated and confirmed, but if this really is possible then it shouldn’t be that difficult to take a skin cell and reprogram it to be a single embryonic cell similar to a blastocyst (fertilized egg), then attach it to the wall of a fertile surrogate uterus… 9 months later, say hello to mini-me.
Aside from the cloning possibility, the prospect of being able to reprogram cells on the fly gives rise to thoughts of miracle cures, cosmetic modifications like skin/eye/hair color, sports cheaters converting fat cells directly in to muscle cells, people growing additional appendages, etc.
