This Year, Scientists Will Try to 'Build One Burger' in a Lab

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Would you like some fries with your stem cells?

Meat. It seems we can't live without it, even if the American Meat Institute, global warming, and the horrors of factory farming keep giving us reason after reason to. Because scientists tend to be a fairly intelligent lot, they understand this, and are addressing the issue at a cellular level.

Food Navigator reports that a team of scientists in the Netherlands are leading the research into lab grown meat, a technology that involves growing meat products from stem cells. Right now, they're trying to grow strands of meat, but have the long-term goal of growing larger cuts like steaks and chops.

Although their experiments sound like some sort of Homer Simpson fantasy, the scientists are taking their work so seriously that in the coming year they're going to spend 250,000 euros trying to grow a hamburger, which sort of puts John DeLucie's $30 burger and fries into perspective. The leader of the research team predicts that this technology will find commercial application "not too far in the future." Let's just hope that it gets to us before this guy's human-poo burgers do.

[Via The Food Section]

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