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Biotech Space Earth ISS Technology

First Meat Grown In Space Lab 248 Miles From Earth 29

The Israeli food technology startup Aleph Farms has successfully cultured meat in space for the first time. The Guardian reports: Aleph Farms grew the meat on the International Space Station, 248 miles (399 km) away from any natural resources. Bovine cells were harvested on Earth and taken to space, where they were grown into small-scale muscle tissue using a 3D bioprinter. The method relies on mimicking a natural process of muscle-tissue regeneration occurring inside a cow's body. The experiment took place on September 26 on the Russian segment of the space station, and involved the assembly of small-scale muscle tissue in a 3D bioprinter under controlled microgravity conditions. In future the technique could be used to provide meat for people living on the space station.
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First Meat Grown In Space Lab 248 Miles From Earth

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  • by lobiusmoop ( 305328 ) on Tuesday October 08, 2019 @03:06AM (#59282376) Homepage

    Laika was the first meat grown in space.

  • by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Tuesday October 08, 2019 @03:18AM (#59282396)

    While this is a useful advance, it should be pointed out that all kinds of tissue/cells including muscle tissue has been cultured in space before .. they just didn't call it meat. It's more of a labelling thing. Like how organic means its safe. Organic hemlock and organic cobra venom, all much safer than synthetic chemicals?

    • More *reliable* in its effects than that chemical you just came up with yesterday and are way too confident about, since you barely know what it does at all

      Not necessarity not harmful. Hell, water is deadly if you drink enough. Let alone salt!

      Besides, ... my heart medication is literally snake venom. Just extracted, purified, and put into a pill in a known dosage.
      Most pharmaceuticals have natural origins, and the only difference is that somebody has slightly modified it, to give it more oomph. Hence ... fe

      • Not necessarily not harmful. Hell, water is deadly if you drink enough. Let alone salt!

        If you're drinking salt, the heat will kill you long before the excess sodium does.

    • Also, does this do anything for mass to orbit? I can't see how it would, since you need at least the mass + raw elements to compose the meat from, and then some mass penalty for the support to grow it.

      I mean, unless they've figured out how to spontaneously create nitrogen...

  • by johnsie ( 1158363 ) on Tuesday October 08, 2019 @03:41AM (#59282426)
    This is some very basic tech. We're going to need something a lot better than this if we're to explore strange new worlds and go boldly (fixed the split infinitive in the grammar) where no one has gone before.
  • Next step: Find out how to use a charcoal grill in space.
    • Next step: Find out how to use a charcoal grill in space.

      Of course.

      Hydrazine is well known for leaving a bad taste on grilled foods.

      Strat

  • —a propensity for The Guardian sourced articles on /, of late? More and more I see them as the only link in a story, and when I go to The Guardian I notice they never link to the source or other information on a story unless required to (like if they used an AP or Reuters story).

    Anyway, if you want something a little more free with its sources (as in source and beer), see https://futurism.com/the-byte/... [futurism.com]

    • Since the Snowden thing, my employer has blocked the Guardian's URL, lest any classified text touch our network.
  • Just like I can believe it's not butter... but don't have to, since it's blatantly obvious ... not just 30 years later, when the load of denatured protein, lack of vital substances, unnatural composition of ingredients on a chemical level, and process chemicals have ruined my digestive system and given me all those diseases that we all know and hate, but believe are due to old age because they thanks to our amazing bodies, take longer to emerge than our attention span.
    But even just because of its mushy tex

    • Meat, not "Meat". (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DrYak ( 748999 ) on Tuesday October 08, 2019 @05:51AM (#59282638) Homepage

      Just like I can believe it's not butter... but don't have to, since it's blatantly obvious ...

      "I can't believe it's not butter" is about making a different substance that more or less looks and tastes vaguely the same.

      Whereas that specific "Meat" is just meat.

      not just 30 years later, when the load of denatured protein, lack of vital substances, unnatural composition of ingredients on a chemical level, and process chemicals have ruined my digestive system and given me all those diseases that we all know and hate

      We are not talking about "Impossible meat" or any of the other trendy "100% pure vegan meat replacements" that try to create something that might look a bit like meat from afar, despite being made from completely different things.

      We are talking about meat that is basically just meat. i.e.: just muscle tissue, except that specific chunk of muscle was grown alone in a metaphorical petri-dish, instead of being grown with a whole rest of animal around it.
      But it's still muscle cells with all the same composition as average muscle cells. No "unnatural composition" or whatever.
      Chemically speaking, it's exactly the same composition as muscles cells from an animal (because they are literally the same type of cells), and the end burger patty will mostly be the same (roughly - except a real burger also has fat cells and a bunch of other stuff mixed in, whereas the sources linked mention only muscle cells in that specific example). The only difference is that its way much cheaper, because you only need to ship a few cells, not a whole multi-100s-of-kg weighting animal (and the cost-per-kg of shipping to space is currently horrendous *).

      but believe are due to old age because they thanks to our amazing bodies, take longer to emerge than our attention span.

      Not speaking about the butter/meat/whatever replacements. But *some* substances used in the food and agriculture industry have been studies for quite some time and modern science has a very rough idea of the dangerosity linked to their consumption.

      ----

      (*)- Currently you would still need to ship the nutrients for both situation (the stuff you grow your culture upon or the feedstock to feed the animal with), but eventually that's also something that growable in space.
      Ideally, in the future you would want to only ship the human into space and any food they might be requiring being locally produced there.
      3d printing and then growing cultures of cells is one way to solve the problem (while being a bit less taxing to the life support system than a whole animal),
      that's why, in addition of being a giant publicity stunt for aleph, there might also be some genuine interest into the tech.
      The obvious alternative being raising small edible animal that aren't too taxing (Chickens in space? South american-style Guinea pigs in space ?)

      • Chemically speaking, it's exactly the same composition as muscles cells from an animal (because they are literally the same type of cells)

        That's only true if you feed those cells the same type of nutrients. Real cells are fed with blood from the organism, which contains numerous complex substances made in other parts of the body.

  • by dohzer ( 867770 )

    Oh boy, the middle-aged men and baby-boomers are going to be posting strongly worded opinions about this so-called 'meat'. Such angry.

  • you need to stop eating meat or our planet is doomed!

    • Even 3d-printed meat?

    • And eat what instead? Fruit and veg I guess. So we'll have to start by getting rid of all these animals that are in the way of where we'd have to grow all this extra food. While we're doing that we can figure where to replace all the proteins and stuff that we need from meat that we don't get from veg. What we really need is a bunch less people. Regardless of that the planet itself will be fine for a long, long time after we've gone
      • by sad_ ( 7868 )

        i'm a meat eater, i think you got my post wrong.

        what i mean to say is - there is so much discussion about eating meat and how it is bad for the environment, all the while nasa is investigating how astronautes can eat (fresh)meat. well, it's not only a space problem, it is apparently a problem on eath as well. so, get build that space-meat-printer here and start printing to save the planet :)

    • I'll just wave my Magic Wand and magically convert homosapien DNA from omnivorous to herbivorous!
      *Waves magic wand in a complex gesture, reciting arcane magical words*
      *Civilization magically disappears, humanoids are living in trees instead*
      Oopsie! I changed history! Humans never developed sentience! Guess I didn't think of that!
  • by stealth_finger ( 1809752 ) on Tuesday October 08, 2019 @09:44AM (#59283190)
    Giant pigs or space meat. All served up by robobutlers riding hoverboards.
  • Pigs in Space, anyone? https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki... [fandom.com]
  • Kosher?
  • Meat grown in space. Great. I'm currently reading "Cold Storage" [nytimes.com] which is about a fungus experiment on Skylab that returned to earth with Skylab. And it's not a fun fungus. The book has some unrealistic and over-dramatic scenes; obviously written to be adapted for screenplay, replete with exploding heads. In any case, I'm a bit hesitant to be tasting orbital meatanics.

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