Above is the winner of my Best Company Name of the Year Award.

No, it's not a comic-book creation in an upcoming Batman sequel, nor is it a recently unearthed lost film of Roger B. Corman but, rather, the cutting edge of genetic research.

The Sausalito, California-based company, co-founded by billionaire John Sperling in an effort to clone his dog Missy, hasn't quite got to canines yet, but in the meantime, cats 'R them.

The company created the very first cloned cat - a calico born in 2001 named CC.

They've got five more in the works, being weaned before delivery to their owners-to-be.

The first of the current batch to make it home - and for Christmas, yet - is Little Nicky.

The kitten is a clone of the beloved pet cat Nicky of a Texas woman.

Nicky died earlier this year, but not before a skin cell from his body was removed and fused with another cat's hollowed-out egg cell to create Little Nicky.

Before you get your hopes up, though, you'd better hit that piggy bank really hard: it costs $50,000 - and no, your insurance won't cover it - to recreate your pretty purring pet.

Here's the full story by Dan Vergano, from today's USA Today.

A first: Cash register jingles at Genetic Savings & Clone

Just in time for that last-minute holiday gift, a bioscience firm has announced the first sale of a cloned kitten, a male named "Little Nicky."

Genetics Savings & Clone (GSC) of Sausalito, California, reports selling the kitten to a Texas woman for $50,000.

Genetically, the kitten is a twin of the buyer's Maine Coon cat "Nicky," who died earlier this year.

The owner declined to be identified in print.

The kitten is reported to resemble the original cat in both temperament - mellow - and behavior, quickly learning commands and enjoying water play, as well as being identical in appearance.

The sale of the kitten, born October 17 in an Austin lab, is the first of six similar transactions the cloning firm has in the works.

More clone kittens are alive and are being weaned before delivery to their owners, says firm spokesman Ben Carlson.

The Humane Society and other pet advocacy groups have criticized pet cloning as wasteful, noting that 6 million to 8 million cats and dogs enter shelters each year nationwide, where 3 million to 4 million are put to death.

"We've gotten along fine for millions of years the old-fashioned way of breeding cats. We don't need cloning," says Wayne Pacelle of the Humane Society.

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