Free Republic

Francois Lenoir/Reuters Meet the new meat. Tiny pieces of muscle tissue grown in the lab will make up the patty of the first test-tube burger to be unveiled in London on Monday. If you take some scientists' word for it, the biggest agricultural revolution since the domestication of livestock is starting on Monday—in an arts center in London. At a carefully orchestrated media event, Dutch stem cell researcher Mark Post is planning to present the world's first test-tube hamburger. Its patty is made from meat that Post has laboriously grown from bovine stem cells in his lab at an estimated...

"What we have at the moment is rather like wasted muscle tissue," Post told the newspaper. "We need to find ways of improving it by training it and stretching it, but we will get there. This product will be good for the environment and will reduce animal suffering. If it feels and tastes like meat, people will buy it." The newspaper said the scientists took cells from a live pig's muscles and immersed them in a mixture of other animal products. The cells reportedly multiplied and created muscle tissue that could be turned into something resembling steak by artificially "exercising"...