Cloning on the cellular level has been going on for years now. A simple PCR reaction, in which you clone a DNA or an RNA strand using primers(first know the sequence of the DNA that needs to be amplified, and then design your primers based on the sequence) is indeed a form of cloning. Bear in mind that a DNA is just a molecule, and with PCR, a DNA can be amplified as many times as you want. While PCR is not that new a technique, it's invention has been a boon to the scientific community. Furthermore, cellular functions found naturally, for example in bacteria, can be abused for cloning purposes. For example, suppose you want to study protein expression of a DNA strand. All you need to do is, amplify the gene in question, and then put it in a plasmid. Plasmids occur naturally in certain forms of bacteria like e coli, for example. Yeasts also come with plasmids. So you insert the gene in a plasmid, seal up the plasmid using some form of ligase enzyme, and then let the bacterium's cellular mechanism clone the plasmid for you. This way, you can get thousands of genes you're studying and use it for protein expression studies. There are many variations of plasmids. Cosmids for example are e-coli/virus hybrids. Viruses have also been used for cloning, as they spit out more clones than any other known organism(viruses are technically not living--it's a debatable issue btw). Of course animals have been cloned, but cloning of a complex multicellular organism like a sheep or a cow, or even a human being, is an arduous task, but it can indeed be done. This however, is a long-term study, and will take years before it can be effective. Oh, and cloning of plants is a cinch. Ever ingested one of those seedless melons? They're more than likely cloned. So it's not like one your run of the mill l sci-fi movies where a cloning tank spits out a clone or two. If that sort of technology is to become available, I see it coming for Asian countries like Japan or China, where religion does not hinder progress. As for America, the religious right will keep moral decadence in check, if you know what I mean.