Coolness!
CHARLESTON, SC, United States (UPI) -- A U.S. scientist has developed a process to grow cow cells into full-size hamburger overnight but he can`t get anyone to invest in the process.
Vladimir Mironov, a biology researcher at the Medical University of South Carolina, said the process involves taking immature cells that develop into skeletal muscles from cows -- or pigs, or chickens, or turkeys -- and fusing them to a protein that, with the help of steroids, grows into big hunks of meat, The Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier reported.
The newspaper said the process isn`t exactly cloning, but more like cattle farming through chemistry.
The scientific procedure has been published in tissue-engineering journals, but Mironov says he can`t find any financial backers, Post and Courier says.
'In business, who pays to make a product nobody wants to buy?' Mironov asked. 'You show this technology and say, `Do you want to try the meat?` and they all say, `No.`'
But Mironov says the long-term benefits of the technology could outweigh the negative public perception.
He told the newspaper: 'It`s not Frankenstein meat. It`s like hydroponic tomatoes.'
Hell, if I had enough money to invest in this, I'd give it to him. For that matter, I'd eat the burgers, too.
Vladimir Mironov, a biology researcher at the Medical University of South Carolina, said the process involves taking immature cells that develop into skeletal muscles from cows -- or pigs, or chickens, or turkeys -- and fusing them to a protein that, with the help of steroids, grows into big hunks of meat, The Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier reported.
The newspaper said the process isn`t exactly cloning, but more like cattle farming through chemistry.
The scientific procedure has been published in tissue-engineering journals, but Mironov says he can`t find any financial backers, Post and Courier says.
'In business, who pays to make a product nobody wants to buy?' Mironov asked. 'You show this technology and say, `Do you want to try the meat?` and they all say, `No.`'
But Mironov says the long-term benefits of the technology could outweigh the negative public perception.
He told the newspaper: 'It`s not Frankenstein meat. It`s like hydroponic tomatoes.'
Hell, if I had enough money to invest in this, I'd give it to him. For that matter, I'd eat the burgers, too.
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We're talking really, desperately cheap burgers here. If it weren't for the fear that the American public would shriek and run away, I'd have to imagine that fast food chains would be falling all over themselves to get this stuff up and running.
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Sigh.
But I think it's a darn cool idea!
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Now I'm having Chicken Run flashbacks.
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Consider it stolen
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(Regarding the 'ick factor', one character in Lois Bujold's Vorkosigan series becomes nauseous at the thought of eating meat from a real animal, so...)