In this week’s edition of The Prototype, we look at cloning animals for hunting, making good on the promise of graphene, modeling a fly’s brain and more. You can sign up to get The Prototype in your inbox here.

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Department of Justice

Earlier this week, a Montana man was sentenced to six months in prison for breaking federal wildlife laws in connection with his efforts to clone embryos so he could breed a hybrid mountain sheep variety. The crime here wasn’t cloning, but rather illegally importing sheep for this purpose. His goal was to create a large mountain sheep variety that could be hunted on his ranch.

Since the first cloned sheep, “Dolly,” was born in 1996, cloning has become a tool used by some livestock breeders in agriculture for cattle and other species. It’s not unheard of for game animals, either. This past summer, I had a conversation with Jason Abraham, a rancher in Texas who cloned whitetail deer for breeders at hunting ranches in Texas. His company operated for nearly a decade until the state forbade the practice in 2020.

Deer breeding for hunting ranches is a big business in Texas, with an estimated economic impact of over $1.6 billion per year. Breeders often produce deer that are larger than found in the wild, and also have unbelievably massive antlers.

A major risk of this practice is the spread of chronic wasting disease, an infection........

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