Weird Science // Current

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Meat without animals? Science says yes!

Winston Churchill once predicted that it would be possible to grow chicken breasts and wings more efficiently without having to keep an actual chicken. And in fact scientists have since figured out how to grow tiny nuggets of lab meat and say it will one day be possible to produce steaks in vats, sans any livestock.

Pork chops or burgers cultivated in labs could eliminate contamination problems that regularly generate headlines these days, as well as address environmental concerns that come with industrial livestock farms.

The researchers noted that growing skeletal muscle in labs — the kind people typically think of as the meat they eat — could help tackle a number of problems:

* Avoiding animal suffering by reducing the farming and killing of livestock.
* Dramatically cutting down on food-borne ailments such as mad cow disease and salmonella or germs such as swine flu, by monitoring the growth of meat in labs.
* Livestock currently take up 70 percent of all agricultural land, corresponding to 30 percent of the world's land surface, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Labs would presumably require much less space.
* Livestock generate 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than all of the vehicles on Earth, the FAO added. Since the animals themselves are mostly responsible for these gases, reducing livestock numbers could help alleviate global warming.

However, such research opens up strange and perhaps even disturbing possibilities once considered only the realm of science fiction. After all, who knows what kind of meat people might want to grow to eat?

In Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson's epic sci-fi satire "Transmetropolitan," supermarkets and fast food joints sell dolphin, manatee, whale, baby seal, monkey and reindeer, while the Long Pig franchise sells "cloned human meat at prices you like."

"In principle, we could harvest the meat progenitor cells from fresh human cadavers and grow meat from them," Post said. "Once taken out of its disease and animalistic, cannibalistic context — you are not killing fellow citizens for it, they are already dead — there is no reason why not."

Is there a reason why not? What do you think about growing MEAT without animals?

http://www.livescience.com/health/091119-lab-meat.htmlWinston Churchill once predicted that it would be possible to grow chicken breasts and wings more efficiently without having to... more

DeliaTheArtist
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Now, web surfers can explore Mars

Nasa and Microsoft launched an interactive website that allows web surfers to become Mars explorers.The “Be a... more

karthikmns
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1 day ago

H1N1 Is a Plot to Kill Baby Boomers, Argues Conspiracy Theorist

A new day, a new H1N1 conspiracy theory! But this one is special. Ken Welch says on his blog, before treating us to an extremely... more

pjacobs51
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2 days ago

New Oddball Species Discovered That ATE Dinosaurs!

Paleontologists have discovered 3 new species of crocodile cousins in the Sahara, which have been nicknamed PancakeCroc, BoarCroc,... more

atomiclegion
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2 days ago

AUGUSTO DE LUCA : FOTOGRAFIE - NAPOLI GRANDE SIGNORA -PHOTOGRAPHS

FOTO TRATTA DAL LIBRO " NAPOLI GRANDE SIGNORE " GANGEMI EDITORE ROMA.... more

augustodeluca
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2 days ago

Meteor illuminates the Utah sky

preety amazing. wish i would have seen it (video) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8367760.stm

tallmansam
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3 days ago

Mesmerizing, Isn't It?

This is what goes on behind the scenes whenever you open your mouth to speak. The image was captured at 50 frames per second over... more

pjacobs51
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3 days ago

Jupiter's Moon Europa Might Be Teeming With Fish

New evidence has come to light that the vast, ice-encrusted oceans of Europa may be harboring Earth-like life that lives on the... more

pjacobs51
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3 days ago

The Banana is the Atheist's Worst Nightmare

New Zealand born evangelical Christian Ray Comfort, aka "the banana man", has published a new 150th anniversary edition... more

pjacobs51
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78 comments

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3 days ago

The Jet Fighter Laser Cannon

DARPA issuing the penultimate contract for what is intended to be a jet-mounted laser cannon. The Reg outdoes itself in a BOTEC... more

Tyrannous
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3 days ago

Nasa and Microsoft launch 'explore Mars' website

Nasa and Microsoft have launched an interactive website that allows users to explore the planet Mars. The Be a Martian website... more

slagface
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4 days ago

Space Chair Project

Kewl stuff! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6PSbUl_68k&feature=player_embedded

pjacobs51
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4 days ago

Astronomers Find Vampire White Dwarf

Type Ia supernovae are a mystery because no one can predict when or where one might occur. But astronomers are hedging their bets on V445 Puppis. A so-called "vampire white dwarf" that underwent a nova outburst after gulping down part of its companion’s matter in 2000, now, it appears this double star system is a prime candidate for exploding. “Whether V445 Puppis will eventually explode as a supernova, or if the current nova outburst has pre-empted that pathway by ejecting too much matter back into space is still unclear,” said Patrick Woudt, from the University of Cape Town and lead author of the paper reporting the results. “But we have here a pretty good suspect for a future Type Ia supernova!”

This is the first, and so far only nova showing no evidence at all for hydrogen, and provides the first evidence for an outburst on the surface of a white dwarf dominated by helium. “This is critical, as we know that Type Ia supernovae lack hydrogen,” said Danny Steeghs, from the University of Warwick, UK, “and the companion star in V445 Pup fits this nicely by also lacking hydrogen, instead dumping mainly helium gas onto the white dwarf.”

The astronomers have determined the system is about 25,000 light-years from the Sun, and it has an intrinsic brightness of over 10,000 times our Sun. This implies that the vampire white dwarf in this system has a high mass that is near its fatal limit and is still simultaneously being fed by its companion at a high rate.

“One of the major problems in modern astrophysics is the fact that we still do not know exactly what kinds of stellar system explode as a Type Ia supernova,” said Woudt, “As these supernovae play a crucial role in showing that the Universe’s expansion is currently accelerating, pushed by a mysterious dark energy, it is rather embarrassing.”

Woudt and his team used the ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) to obtain very sharp images of V445 Puppis over a time span of two years. The images show a bipolar shell, initially with a very narrow waist, with lobes on each side. Two knots are also seen at both the extreme ends of the shell, which appear to move at about 30 million kilometers per hour. The shell — unlike any previously observed for a nova — is itself moving at about 24 million kilometers per hour. A thick disc of dust, which must have been produced during the last outburst, obscures the two central .

As Steeghs said, one defining characteristic of Type Ia supernovae is the lack of hydrogen in their spectrum. Yet hydrogen is the most common chemical element in the Universe. Such supernovae most likely arise in systems composed of two stars, one of them being the end product of the life of sun-like stars, or white dwarfs. When such white dwarfs, acting as stellar vampires that suck matter from their companion, become heavier than a given limit, they become unstable and explode.

The build-up is not a simple process. As the white dwarf cannibalizes its prey, matter accumulates on its surface. If this layer becomes too dense, it becomes unstable and erupts as a nova. These controlled, mini-explosions eject part of the accumulated matter back into space. The crucial question is thus to know whether the white dwarf can manage to gain weight despite the outburst, that is, if some of the matter taken from the companion stays on the white dwarf, so that it will eventually become heavy enough to explode as a supernova.

http://www.universetoday.com/2009/11/17/astronomers-find-type-ia-supernova-just-waiting-to-happen/Type Ia supernovae are a mystery because no one can predict when or where one might occur. But astronomers are hedging their bets... more

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5 days ago

Dawn Takes up Residence in Asteroid Belt

The Dawn spacecraft – which is on a course to study the asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres – has taken up permanent residence in the asteroid belt as of November 13th. Dawn is officially the first human-made object to become a part of the asteroid belt, which is sandwiched between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.Dawn didn't move in without checking the place out first, though; this is the second visit for the craft, which remained there for 40 days in June of 2008. The lower boundary of the asteroid belt is defined as the furthest Mars gets away from the Sun during its orbit – 249,230,000 kilometers, or 154,864,000 miles.

Dawn, which was launched in September 2007, is on an eight-year, 4.9-billion kilometer (3-billion mile) journey to study the asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres. By studying these members of the asteroid belt, NASA scientists hope to learn more about the formation of our Solar System. Because Vesta and Ceres are some of the largest members of the ring of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, they are the most intact from when they were formed, and should act as a 'time capsule' to preserve information about what the early Solar System was like.

Dawn got a gravity assist from Mars in February of 2009, which propelled it past the planet and into the asteroid belt.

The spacecraft is expected to visit Vesta in August of 2011. Vesta is believed to be the source of most of the asteroid-origin meteorites that fall to ground here on Earth, and further study of the asteroid should confirm this.

In May of 2012, Dawn will make its way to Ceres, which lies further out in the asteroid belt. It will arrive there in July of 2015, where it will spend the remainder of its mission studying the icy dwarf planet, which may even have a tenuous atmosphere.

If you want to keep tabs on Dawn in its new home, the mission web site has a tool updated hourly, found here, which allows you to see where Dawn is right now. The tool includes simulated views of the Earth, Mars, Sun and Vesta from the vantage point of the spacecraft.

http://www.universetoday.com/2009/11/16/dawn-takes-up-residence-in-asteroid-belt/The Dawn spacecraft – which is on a course to study the asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres – has taken up permanent... more