ARTICLE:Iran's second cloned lamb is still alive in Iran half a day after its birth — a record for the survival of an animal cloned by the country's scientists, a research official said Saturday."At midnight Saturday, the male lamb was delivered by cesarean and is still alive more than 12 hours later," Dr. Mohammed Hossein Nasr e Isfahani, head of the Royan Research Institute in Isfahan told The Associated Press.Nasr e Isfahani said the animal, dubbed Royana, is recovering in an incubator because he was and having difficulty breathing. "Its condition is stable now.""Royana was fed milk twice; once by a tube in its stomach and the second time, naturally through its mouth," said the scientist.In August, Iranian doctors oversaw the birth of the country's first cloned animal — a lamb that died minutes after it was born. Future experiments in genetics and stem cell research — using animal cells — are planned.The Islamic regime wants Iran to become a regional center for medical, aerospace and nuclear technology — which has led to an international showdown over Western claims that it wants to develop atomic weapons.Nasr e Isfahani said the sheep implanted with the cloned embryo was doing well following the birth.The research team plans to publish the findings of its experiment in an international scientific journal, but has not decided which publication to submit them to, the head of the research center said.Iranian researchers in Tehran and Isfahan plan additional cloning experiments in the coming months.Iran's Shiite Muslim religious leaders backed the program by issuing religious decrees authorizing animal cloning but banning such experiments with humans.A majority of Iran's nearly 70 million people are Shiites who comprise about 15 percent of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims.Many Sunni Muslim clerics in other Islamic countries, however, have spoken against cloning in any form.British scientists made international headlines a decade ago with Dolly the cloned sheep. Since then, rapid progress in stem cell research and genetics have raised widespread debates about ethics and the boundaries of medicine.Scientists say cloning sheep and other animals could lead to advances in medical research, including using cloned animals to produce human antibodies against diseases.

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