Yesterday, the first lab-grown hamburger was cooked. And eaten! And according to The Week, it didn’t taste too bad. This lab-grown patty took two years and $325,000 to produce. And as sources revealed, the money came from Google co-founder and TED speaker Sergey Brin. (Watch his talk on Google Glass, or his talk with Larry Page on the genesis of Google.)
But the TED connection doesn’t end there. The burger is a product of Cultured Beef, a project born at Maastricht University in The Netherlands and headed by Mark Post, a specialist in tissue engineering. At TEDxHaarlem, Post gave a talk called “Meet the new meat,” during which he introduced Cultured Beef to the world and explained the process behind its growth. He also discussed the future he envisions for in-vitro meat.
Here’s an excerpt from his talk, featured above:
“This hamburger contains 60 billion cells. Now, that’s a lot. You need to culture a lot of cells. You need to somehow find a way to do that efficiently because, remember, we have to be more efficient than the cow or the pig…
It has to be efficient and it has to also be meat. Not some kind of substitute. We have more than enough substitutes from vegetable proteins. It needs really to be meat. Nothing less, nothing more…
It takes about 7-8 weeks to grow a muscle fiber, and so, also 7-8 weeks to grow a hamburger. You could do it at home if you like … If you have the right materials, it’s very, very easy to do. And in fact [the] stem cells … they survive freeze-drying, so you could envision that over the Internet we would eventually sell little, sort of, tea bags of stem cells — from tuna, from tiger, from cows, from pigs, from whatever animal you could imagine. Then, in the comfort of your own kitchen, you could grow your own tissue. You would have to know what you want to eat 8 weeks in advance — because it takes a while.”
For more about Cultured Beef, watch Professor Post’s TEDx talk, or take a look at the website.
This post originally ran on the TEDx Blog. Read more there »
Comments (25)
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Coach Bennett commented on Aug 27 2013
Reblogged this on AP Environmental Science.
tuka sako commented on Aug 22 2013
Summer. I agree that Marvin`s posting is cool, last friday I got audi since I been bringin in $5868 this-past/month and more than ten thousand this past month. with-out any question its the easiest-work Ive had. I started this 7-months ago and immediately made more than $87… per-hr. I use this web-site, http://www.mac22.com
John Ayeko commented on Aug 8 2013
What if our new meat can cause undesired body growth?
heavymango commented on Aug 7 2013
Reblogged this on Heavymango.
anewwe commented on Aug 6 2013
Reblogged this on Anewwe's Search for Eudaimonia and commented:
Fuck yea I want to grow my own meat at home. Without killing the animal? Yes, please, Thank You.
C. Ontario commented on Aug 6 2013
I guess this could be helpful for places that don’t have enough grazing pasture. Previous TED Talk has info on studies showing INCREASING grazing to mimic natural heard movement IMPROVES pastures and REVERSES desertification, which also absorbs carbon. TED Talk video by Allan Savory: “How to green the world’s deserts and reverse climate change” –
Published on Mar 4, 2013
“Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert,” begins Allan Savory in this quietly powerful talk. And terrifyingly, it’s happening to about two-thirds of the world’s grasslands, accelerating climate change and causing traditional grazing societies to descend into social chaos. Savory has devoted his life to stopping it. He now believes — and his work so far shows — that a surprising factor can protect grasslands and even reclaim degraded land that was once desert.”
.
Gary Smith commented on Aug 16 2013
Allan Savory’s techniques for reversing desertification plus Joel Salatin’s grass farming methods plus reforestation techniques will return balance to the planet.
I also believe that if one cares about the environment, the humane treatment of animals, deforestation, or similar causes, then one’s actions should support that belief. One way to do that is by consuming only naturally and sustainably produced products.
Take a look at what you consume and where it originates and make it a personal choice to not partake in the damage continually done to the planet by choosing to eat sustainably.
Pingback: The Future is Here: Lab-Grown Burger Gets a Taste Test | Stories by Williams
INSIGHTS commented on Aug 6 2013
Reblogged this on INSIGHTS.
Pingback: Nerdcore › How to grow a Hamburger: Mark Post @ TED
Iwa commented on Aug 6 2013
Reblogged this on Iwa's Blog.