Famous Days for Students of English

22-02-1997

Dolly was a sheep born on July 5, 1996. She looked like a normal sheep, but she wasn’t normal. She was an exact copy of another sheep. She was created without a ram, without the use of sperm.

She was created by scientists in Scotland. They used a special method.

They took an egg cell from one sheep and took out the nucleus. Then, they took the nucleus from the cell of another sheep and put it into the egg cell of the first sheep. They created an embryo from this special cell. They put the embryo into the third sheep, which later gave birth to a new young sheep.

This method was new at that time. The scientists had to make many attempts. In the end, there were 276 unsuccessful attempts, but attempt 277 was successful, and a healthy sheep was born. It was named Dolly.

Her existence was kept secret for half a year before she grew a little. Then the scientists knew that it was time to speak to the journalists.

On February 22, 1997, journalists from all over the United Kingdom came to Scotland where the scientists informed them about this success.

Difficult words: ram (a male sheep), sperm (a very small male body part that makes a baby), egg (a very small female body part that makes a baby), cell (a very small part of a body), nucleus (the central part of a cell), embryo (a baby that is growing inside the mother’s body) attempt (a moment when you try to do something).