the Beeb hacks ( mediaeval historians and media grads) were full of it.
think DNA ( as TTT quips so often: is that how you spell it?). How does a liver cell know it is liver? The obvious answer up to 1959, was "The liver cell only contains liver DNA"
BUT 1959 Gurdon irradiated a frog spawn ( = one cell) and then put a frog liver nucleus into it
and got ......a frog ! - ( not frog liver)
OR: But Gurdon showed that this was not the case. By transferring the nuclei of adult frog cells into enucleated eggs, he obtained cloned adult frogs.
and we were told at uni 1970 that this showed the DNA of every cell contained the information for the whole.
'They' didnt stress that if you just cultured a frog liver cell, you got layers and layer of cells called fibroblasts
so you needed the egg-cytoplasm. This was a point rather underplayed 50 y ago.
and so now they have managed to do the first few cells without egg-cytoplasm
just a brick in the wall - and far too early to say how impt it is.
Dolly the sheep (mammal) had a short life and irretrievable kidney abnormalities.... which were unexpected....