Using cow stem cells grown in a petri dish, the researchers have created small strips of muscle that will be mixed with blood and artificially grown fat to make a hamburger, the BBC writes. Celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal is being courted to cook “a golf ball-size of this stuff,” physiologist Mark Post of Maastricht University said at a news conference Sunday in Vancouver, British Columbia, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Proof of the concept isn’t cheap: about $330,000, provided by an anonymous investor. As with all inventions, the costs would drop dramatically once commercialized.
So-called test-tube meat is being developed to slash the environmental impacts of factory farming, improve consumer health and lessen the suffering of animals.