These stories can take many forms, and have many meanings.

Once again, the old frame is used metaphorically, to draw attention to a new set of issues in a new context, and the reader can take the reports in a large number of different ways.

As such, their medical uses were rather limited, as witness the lack of therapeutic progress in sickle-cell anaemia in spite of our intimate knowledge of the protein and DNA lesions underlying the disease.

Supporters, while typically decrying the opposition's futuristic talk as premature, in fact did just the same.

But what kind of stories do they tell?

This kind of assertion radically oversimplifies the relations between media and audiences, fact and fiction, and the range of stories available at any one time.

They are plainly aware of the way biology has been represented in fiction, and the tensions around such images have become stronger as the grounds for the traditional journalistic assertion that 'fiction is becoming reality' have apparently become stronger.

Those who responded to Dolly, from President Clinton on down, the former with his call for a report 'within 90 days' from his advisers, wanted to understand more clearly what human cloning might mean.