My first Stanford summer I went to Scotland and Ireland to visit my high school friend Dale Muzzey, who was working a summer job at the Roslin Institute, the place that cloned the sheep in collaboration with PPL Therapeutics. (PPL is now out of the cloning business altogether.) Dale is now in the Harvard biochemistry Ph.D. program, so he’s still keeping at it. One of the days I was there, he took me to work and I got to meet the inhabitants of the Large Animal Unit. At the time I was there, Dolly was still being kept outdoors, she was still vigorous, and she was most certainly still alive!

The British government keeps close control on cloned animals. To make absolutely sure the animals do not enter the food supply, they are not allowed to leave the institute unless they are dead.

Sometimes people see the pictures I took in Scotland and they ask why I got to pet the cloned animals. I’m not sure what to say to that. I guess I just have a really smart friend from high school and he’s a nice guy.

The husband of one of Dale’s coworkers was the gamekeeper for a duke’s estate—8000 acres if I remember correctly. Rich people come onto the estate and shoot grouse. The duke charges money for the privilege, and gives some of the money to the gamekeeper. It’s a hard living for the gamekeeper.

The Scottish countryside is stunningly beautiful; it really does all look like that. Scotland used to be covered by forest thousands of years ago until people cut all the trees down. The bare hills are very beautiful, covered with grass and heather. But I feel strange when I know that I’m admiring environmental devastation.

Ireland is also very beautiful. Like Scotland, it is seen as a bit of a backwater by England, and has strong sociopolitical ties to England. Of course, Scotland is part of the United Kingdom, but in many respects it governs itself. Likewise, although Ireland is an independent country, the cultural ties to England still appear (to me, as an outsider) to be strong.