Coolness!

[pyrephox]

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.

Comments

[jackwalker.livejournal.com]

(Shrug.) Sooner or later we're going to have to go with this, or give up eating meat entirely. The Western ranch-meat-heavy diet isn't ecologically sustainable in the long run, especially if three billion Asians who now subsist mostly on rice start eating significant amounts of meat. But producing meat this way carries a lot smaller ecological footprint. You don't have to feed all the parts of the steer you don't plan on eating.

[cpip.livejournal.com]

We could also get around to a massive die-off of humanity.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

I agree. I think it could be massively beneficial, if it's edible enough to take the place of real beef.