Meat Plants

I've been reading today about meat culturing. It's becoming more and more likely that we will soon be able to synthesize meat sans animal. The study was spearheaded by NASA in June of 2005 along with the University of Maryland. They are able to successfully grow meat by culturing muscle cells in a lab setting. The muscles still must be "exercised" so they maintain some form other than mush, but he implications are staggering. If this could be widely applied, it would probably be much cheaper, and certainly more humane than tending livestock. Vegetarians would have some things to think about. Everyone would. It's definitely in the realm of frankenfood, but the implications are quite interesting. The texture is still a little dodgy, but last week, a team of scientists cooked up a "chicken breast" if that's what you want to call it, in some oil and spices. The agreed that it smelled "quite delicious" but refrained from chowing down.

From: University of Maryland
and BBC