Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

 

Lab-Grown Burger $345K

In-vitro meat, aka cultured meat aka petri pork could be coming to a burger joint near you. If they can get the prices down.

According to Mark Post, a vascular biologist at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, the first lab-grown burger will cost about $345,000.


(Cultured or in-vitro meat looking tasty)

Using stem cells harvested from leftover animal material from slaughterhouses, Post nurtures them with a feed concocted of sugars, amino acids, lipids, minerals and all other nutrients they need to grow in the right way.

So far he has produced whitish pale muscle-like strips, each of them around 2.5 cm long, less than a centimetre wide and so thin as to be almost seethrough.

Pack enough of these together - probably around 3,000 of them in layers - throw in a few strips of lab-grown fat, and you have the world's first "cultured meat" burger, he says.

SF fans' mouths have been watering for vat-grown meat since H. Beam Piper wrote about the idea in his 1961 novel Four-Day Planet:

I went on telling him about our hydroponic farms, and the carniculture plant where any kind of animal tissue we wanted was grown--Terran pork and beef and poultry, Freyan _zhoumy_ meat, Zarathustran veldtbeest.... He knew, already, that none of the native life-forms, animal or vegetable, were edible by Terrans.

"You can get all the _paté de foie gras_ you want here," I said. "We have a chunk of goose liver about fifty feet in diameter growing in one of our vats."
(Read more about carniculture plants)

Via Vancouver Sun; thanks to an anonymous reader for the tip on this story.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 11/13/2011)

Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )

Related News Stories - (" Food ")

Holland Factory 3D Printing 500 Tons Of Steak Per Month
'...I don’t understand technical things — tell me, does it ever feel anything?" - Margaret St. Clair, 1955.

Robochef Robotic Food Prep
'No hand touched the food...' - Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1912.

Drone Deliveries Instead Of Waiters In Restaurants?
'It was a smooth ovoid floating a few inches from the floor...'- H. Beam Piper, 1962.

SliceIt! Why Not Teach Robots To Use Knives?
'One building now gushed forth smoke and another stench that was unmistakable.' - Anne McCaffrey, 1996.

 

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

 

 

 

 

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Current News

Quaise Uses Beams Of Energy To Dig Geothermal Wells
'The peculiar quality of this light, which gave it its great preeminence over all other penetrating rays...'

Robots Repair And Modify Themselves
'The overworked leg motor would have to cool down before he could work on it...'

Waymo And Tesla 'Autonomous Cabs' Are Piloted By Remote Drivers
‘Where to, sport?’ the starter at cab relay asked.

Robot Janitors Get To Work
'A few mechanical cleaning devices crept here and there...'

Robots Learn To Install Charged Batteries Into Themselves
This is nothing new for science fiction fans!

Robot Rabbits Entice Pythons
'That little robot rabbit knew what it was talking about...'

LLM 'Cognitive Core' Now Evolving
'Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface... and the amount of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.'

Has Elon Musk Given Up On Mars?
'There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.'

Bacteria Turns Plastic Into Pain Relief? That Gives Me An Idea.
'I guess there's nobody round this table who doesn't have a Crosswell [tapeworm] working for him in the small intestine.'

When Your Child's Best Friend Is An AI
'Figments of his mind in one sense, of course, for he had shaped them...'

China's Drone Mothership Can Carry 100 Drones
'So the parent drone carries a spotter that it launches...'

Drones Recharge In Mid-Air Like Jets Refuel!
'...nurse drones that would cruise around dumping large amounts of power into randomly selected pods.'

Australian Authors Reject AI Training Of Llama
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'

Is China Mining Helium-3 On The Moon's Farside?
'...for months Grantline bores had dug into the cliff.'

Maybe It's Too Soon To Require Autonomous Mode
'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.

Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness?
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories

Home | Glossary | Invention Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.