Don Emmert/Shutterstock

It seems like only yesterday that cloning was little more than a plot device for science fiction stories, reserved for explaining how scientists recreated dinosaurs and drama over which character is the real deal and which is the evil doppelganger. However, scientists have seemingly cracked the code to successful cloning and are using it to heal the populations of vulnerable animals.

Earlier this year, a team of scientists from the Xizang Autonomous Region, the Institute of Plateau Biology of Xizang, and Zhejiang University announced that they had successfully cloned 10 Tibetan yaks . This landmark achievement came several months after the team cloned its first yak last July. The first attempt was to prove it could be done, and then the team showed it could be done en masse.

You might wonder what makes this such an accomplishment. After all, Chinese scientists cloned "super cows" back in 2023 — the same year researchers started work on their yak cloning program.…