Scientists have taken cells from a living pig and used them to grow muscle tissue in a solution of nutrients. The tissue is described as “soggy” and needing “exercise” to give it a better texture, but the hope is to one day provide meat for human consumption that has less of an impact on the environment and doesn’t involve animal suffering.
The advent of so-called “in-vitro” or cultured meat could reduce the billions of tons of greenhouse gases emitted each year by farm animals — if people are willing to eat it.
So far the scientists have not tasted it, but they believe the breakthrough could lead to sausages and other processed products being made from laboratory meat in as little as five years’ time.
(via 3 quarks daily)