From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Wed Mar 20 2002 - 14:30:12 MST
An ancient science fiction dream has been growing meat in vats, providing
high quality protein without having to kill animals. New Scientist has
an article at http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992066
about an early experiment showing promise along these lines.
Chunks of fish muscle tissue 5-10 cm long were immersed in "fetal bovine
serum", a growth medium made from calves blood and widely used for cell
growth experiments. After a week, the muscle tissue had grown 14 percent.
FDA regulations forbid tasting the meat, but the researchers actually
fried it up with a little olive oil and by all accounts it looked and
smelled delicious. Apparently there's no law against cooking the meat,
you just can't eat it.
They are hoping to find a growth medium less likely to gross people out
or make them worry about mad cow disease. Not to mention that having to
kill a bunch of fetal cows in order to grow meat in vats kind of defeats
the purpose...
Hal
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