$375,000 Lab-Grown Beef Burger To Debut On Monday 221
sciencehabit writes "If you take some scientists' word for it, the biggest agricultural revolution since the domestication of livestock is starting on Monday — in an arts center in London. At a carefully orchestrated media event, Dutch stem cell researcher Mark Post is planning to present the world's first test-tube hamburger. Its patty — financed by an anonymous billionaire — is made from meat that Post has laboriously grown from bovine stem cells in his lab at an estimated cost of $375,000, just to prove a point: that it is possible to produce meat without slaughtering animals."
Doesn't save animals (Score:5, Informative)
FTA:
There are other problems: Cultured meat is now grown in medium with fetal calf serum, a supplement made from blood collected at slaughterhouses; scientists have yet to find an alternative that doesn't involve dead animals.
Re:I wonder about the taste (Score:5, Informative)
If you want to worry about the taste and texture of synthetic meat, try this one on for size:
http://www.infiniteunknown.net/2011/06/15/shit-burger-japanese-researcher-creates-artificial-meat-from-human-feces-video/ [infiniteunknown.net]
Re:I wonder about the taste (Score:5, Informative)
Imagine meat that can stay vacuum sealed on the shelf with no refrigeration for months and still taste fresh!
That's available now. [omahasteaks.com] Irradiated meat is available, but not widely sold. There are some tricks to preserving taste, one being to vacuum-pack and freeze to -30C before irradiation.
Re:Beats meat (Score:4, Informative)
Have you ever had veal?
I love a good steak, or burger but I stopped eating veal when I saw how those calves were raised.