cloning again?

Question

is it true u cannot clone from dna alone. so basically we can only take dna from a living thng and clone its dna? it doesnt work if something was dead?

Answer 1

D.N.A. is a fragile molecule. The sooner it is extracted from a dead cell's nucleus the better your success is in cloning it or more likely, portions of it.
if you get tissue from a recently slaughtered animal it can be done with most cell types.
Different cell types have different time spans after death of the organism. Finger nails keep growing for several days after the person dies.
A dead elephants body takes up to a week before it cools to ambient temperature. (many cells and their nuclei, could stay alive for several days.)
Some body tissue retains D.N.A. (over time), better than the majority of other cell types. Nerve pulp tissue in tooth roots is a very protected environment and is readily used used by forensic anthropologists.
Doc. Dan.

Answer 2

I don't quite follow you...
If you mean "can we chemically produce DNA from scratch instead of isolating it from living organisms and using the isolated DNA as a template", then the answer is that it is possible.You can synthesize DNA sequences by using multiple synthetic oligonugleotides. There are a couple of methods for it but there is a limitation in the size of the DNA fragment you can produce. Practically you can get, with decent yield and purity, fragments less than 400 base pairs in length.
If you use DNA from an organism you can amplify by PCR DNA fragments of several thousand base pairs in length.