How did Argentina’s president Javier Milei clone his dog five times?

QUESTION Did Argentinian President Javier Milei try to have his dog cloned?

He not only tried, but succeeded. Javier Milei, a self-described libertarian and “anarcho-capitalist,” adopted an English mastiff named Conan in 2004, after Conan the Barbarian.

This dog died in 2017 and the following year Milei received the clones of Conan – one with the same name, plus Murray, Milton, Robert and Lucas, named after his favorite economists Murray Rothbard, Milton Friedman and Robert Lucas.

At his political rallies, Milei held up photos of his dogs, which he distributed to the crowd before picking up a chainsaw, his unsubtle metaphor for the cuts he promised to make.

Milei, unmarried, described the 200-pound Conan as his “best friend and confidant.” According to The Madman, Milei’s unauthorized biography of Juan Luis Gonzalez, after Conan’s death, a devastated Milei visited a medium to communicate with his deceased pet in the afterlife. Milei said Conan passed on God’s mission to him as president of Argentina.

Milei paid PerPETuate, an American company, $50,000 (£40,000) to carry out the cloning. Usually reluctant to talk about his ‘grandchildren’, he has said: ‘What do they say, my dogs determine my strategies, yes? That they are some kind of strategic committee? They are the best strategic committee in the world.”

Javier Milei won Argentina’s presidential election in November with 56% of the vote, using some unorthodox tactics. Pictured holding up a chainsaw during one of his rallies

Dog cloning involves somatic cell nuclear transfer. The nucleus of a somatic cell (a cell other than a sperm or egg cell) from the donor dog is inserted into an egg cell from which the nucleus has been removed. The reconstructed egg is then stimulated to begin dividing and then implanted into a surrogate mother dog. The first cloned dog, the Afghan hound Snuppy, was created in 2005 by scientists in South Korea.

Rachel French, St Andrews, Fife.

QUESTION What are the most patronizing pop songs ever? I think of Another Day In Paradise by Phil Collins.

I love Phil Collins, but he probably deserved some of the grief he got for Another Day In Paradise, a song about the guilt of ignoring the homeless, in which he told us to “just think about it” think’. Phil later left Britain for the tax haven of Switzerland.

Some responses to the song were even more patronizing. Enter Billy Bragg, who piously told us, “Phil Collins may write a song about the homeless, but if he doesn’t have the action to match it, he’s just exploiting that as a subject.”

Bragg recently updated his already toe-curling song Sexuality to support the trans movement with the shocking lyric: “Just because you are them, I won’t turn you away / If you stick around, I’m sure we have the right pronoun.”

Another excruciating song about homelessness was Mel C’s If That Were Me, which includes the line, “I couldn’t live without my phone / But you don’t even have a house.”

John Lennon’s song Imagine contained the lyrics: ‘Imagine no possessions. I wonder if you can. No need for greed or hunger. A brotherhood of man

Phil Collins at a 1997 gala celebrating The Prince’s Trust

Paul McCartney is the king of beautiful melody, but without John Lennon to add a little guts to it, his lyrics can be sticky. None more so than with Ebony And Ivory, in which ‘Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony / Side by side on my piano keyboard, oh Lord, why not?’

That said, it was John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band who gave us the tiresome hippie anthem Give Peace A Chance, as he sat in bed and did nothing. Then in The Luck Of The Irish, Yoko Ono insulted an entire nation when she commented on Northern Ireland’s troubles with: “Let’s walk like leprechauns on rainbows / The world would be one big Blarney stone.”

The king of them all, however, has to be Do They Know It’s Christmas? by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure. Not only because Ethiopia has a longer Christian tradition than the British Isles, but it even refers to Africa as a place ‘where nothing ever grows, no rain nor rivers flow’ – a stunningly misleading portrayal of Ethiopia.

Gus Evans, Carlisle, Cumbria.

One of the most patronizing pop songs has to be John Lennon’s Imagine, right? “Imagine no possessions . . .’ No one saw John, or any other pop singer, giving away their wealth and possessions.

Paddy Bowen, Great Torrington, Devon.

QUESTION How can the liver regenerate? Are there other parts of the body that can do this?

The liver is the only solid organ that can use a regenerative mechanism to return to full capacity after damage. Remarkably, the body can handle the removal of up to two-thirds of the liver and returns to normal within three months after a substantial hepatectomy.

Other solid organs, such as the lungs, kidneys, and pancreas, adapt to tissue loss but can no longer function fully.

The liver plays three key roles in the body: as a protein factory to maintain blood thickness and consistency; a filtration system that cleans the enormous amount of blood flowing from the gastrointestinal tract back to the heart, and supports metabolic processing by producing bile, which aids food digestion and helps the body absorb medications.

The liver is the only solid organ that can use a regenerative mechanism to return to full capacity after damage

The main functional cells of the liver are called hepatocytes. During liver regeneration, these multiply and divide rapidly to restore liver mass and function.

The process is complex, but a key factor is a reciprocal relationship between hepatocytes and endothelial cells, which line blood vessels. Hepatocytes produce factors that help new blood vessels nourish the growing liver, and endothelial cells generate growth factors that help hepatocyte proliferation.

Non-solid organs can also have significant regenerative powers. Blood vessels can undergo angiogenesis, where new blood vessels are formed to replace damaged blood vessels.

The skin constantly renews itself through cell division at the base of the epidermis. It can regenerate to heal wounds and replace damaged tissue. But deeper layers of the skin do not pass through this and therefore do not replace themselves.

Kavita Shah, Isleworth, Middx.