[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

if it looks like meat and taste like meat and has the same texture, I'll be just dandy with it.

Soylent beef is stem cells!!

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

I see a future where we'll have vast factories with 'vats' containing a growth solution into which specifically engineered stem-cells are introduced, to grow a predetermined cut of meat. If you want a beef fillet, you grow just the fillet - you don't need the full cow.

I’ll join you in your (not entirely) baseless futuristic speculation.

I see a future where we’ll have vast extra-terrestrial factories gobbling up Kuiper objects for their carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen (CHON) and trace elements and cranking out vast quantities of non-biologically derived food of every description to feed a human population 1000 times its current size. In this scenario, the terrestrial biosphere will be valued as the huge library of evolving genetic diversity it is, not as a source of food, fuel, building material and real estate, reversing the historic trend of civilization to replace every possible wild species niche with genetically similar (or with the increased ciability of commercial cloning, identical) domestic species.

All the side products of the meat industry (leather, etc.) can also be grown in these 'vats'. You can grow a single continuous sheet of leather hundreds of meters long, you'll only be limited with the size of your 'vats'.

Leather? What would we want with that weak, smelly stuff? I’ll take my vat-grown protein fibre as spider silk, please, or ultra-long carbon fibre, with a trace of silver to keep it smelling nice. Though a complete wardrobe and piece bag of super-strong material might prove a pain in the but if you find yourself in dire need of punching a hole in it.

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by CraigD

I’ll join you in your (not entirely) baseless futuristic speculation.

I see a future where we’ll haveLeather? What would we want with that weak, smelly stuff? I’ll take my vat-grown protein fibre as spider silk, please,(

Would spider silk vests be bullet-proof?
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[Boerseun]

Originally Posted by Michaelangelica

Would spider silk vests be bullet-proof?

I doubt it, but they will most certainly be fly-proof!

I don't think speculating on where the future of the food supply lies is completely off-topic, a few years ago cloning was complete and utter science fiction! If we discuss things like these 'meat-vats', it might help to give us some perspective on the current issue, because the argument should stay the same, but we remove any personal prejudice, because it doesn't exist yet. So whilst being speculation, I think it could be helpful in giving us a more balanced perspective on what the FDA is saying.

[Celeste]

Ok...I'll admit that 'safety' doesn't appear to be an issue...at this moment.
Frankly speaking, it just doesn't sit well with me personally...InfiniteNow said it well, Soylent Beef. I had nightmares about that movie Soylent Green for years when I was young and it was the first thing that popped into my head when I read the FDA approval report.
Because biotech or "genetically manipulated" crops are a seperate thing altogether, crops used as food don't bother me in the least. Now, if I had a pet plant that "mooed" at me, or showed signs of pain, I might have to reconsider.

A few points that don't sit well: (Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong )

1. Clones are NOT an exact identical clone. The Microcondria DNA is different from the cell donor.
2. Chromosomes from some cloned cattle have longer telomeres than normal uncloned cattle.
3. In cloning, the transferred nucleus doesn't have the same program as a natural embryo. Complete reprogramming (chemical or electrical tweaks) is needed by scientist for normal or near-normal development. Incomplete programming will cause the embryo to develop abnormally or fail.
4. "Large Offspring Syndrome" (LOS). Clones with LOS have abnormally large organs. This can lead to breathing, blood flow, and kidney problems, as well as brain malformations and impaired immune systems.
5. Because clones are often born with severely compromised immune systems and receive massive doses of antibiotics, it could open the way for large quantities of pharmaceuticals and antibiotics to enter the food supply.
6. The US National Academy of Sciences also warned recently that the commercialisation of cloned livestock for food production could increase the incidence of food-borne illness, such as E-coli infections.
7. The technologies available are not sufficient for determining what parameters, such as DNA or the presence of certain amino acids, are absolutely relevant for predicting the impact on human health.

It makes more sense (and is politically and morally) much more palatable to clone organs and body parts. None of the right-to-lifers could argue that a cloned heart is *alive* and entitled to protection under the law, and it is unlikely that a cloned liver would be the target of a lawsuit from MADD.

I'd also like to hear your thoughts about this.
And I quote: In the future, if all animals produced for food are clones, all mutations will be negliable or non-existant and thus evolution will be stopped.


cheers!

[Boerseun]

Originally Posted by Celeste

And I quote: In the future, if all animals produced for food are clones, all mutations will be negliable or non-existant and thus evolution will be stopped.

Good post, Celeste - but if you think about it, evolution amongst domesticated animals have stopped thousands of years ago already, with the first practice of animal husbandry!

Our domesticated livestock are all 'created' by mankind from much different stock, over thousands of years. They are subject to artificial selection rather than natural selection, so that can't really be an objection?

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Michaelangelica

Would spider silk vests be bullet-proof?

Yes.

Actual spider silk (which consists of very long, very “sticky” protein strands) is very strong, and very difficult to collect and make into thread in large quantities. There’s a lot of interest in making large quantities of spider silk thread, for everything from super-compact and lightweight (though difficult to handle) climbing rope to bulletproof vests. One example involves inserting spider genes into goat ova to produce goats that excrete spider silk in their milk, then processing the milk to extract it, making a fiber that Nexia Biotechnologies calls “BioSteel”.

Though similar to cloning in that many people find it disturbing, this is just recombinant DNA technology, which has been around commercially for decades. The modern pharmaceutical industry depends extensively on it, though typically involving animals much less cuddly than goats, such as bacteria. Nearly all of the near-human identical insulin (eg: Humulin) critical to the much-improved treatment of diabetics is made this way.

[gribbon]

The only problem I can see with it is that it decreaes the reliability of the food supply, as if livestock were all the same, a new disease would wipe out the lot, but it's same with Monoculture and the wheat fields of the mid-west. But it's not really more dangerous.

Also, what would we do if companies patented the gene sequences that give a meat it's quality? If they made one which was supposedly disease resistant, then they would have complete leverage over our health.

[TheBigDog]

Also, what would we do if companies patented the gene sequences that give a meat it's quality? If they made one which was supposedly disease resistant, then they would have complete leverage over our health.

I don't know what is going to happen with patenting gene sequences. It is still a long way off for cloning to be more viable economically than traditional breeding. I would imagine that those sequences could be licensed out for generic beef. And other companies would create other sequences that appealed to other tastes. I would think that the fast food industry might be the first to do something like that so they could narrow the variability in their quality.

Bill

[Janus]

Originally Posted by CraigD

I’ll join you in your (not entirely) baseless futuristic speculation.

I see a future where we’ll have vast extra-terrestrial factories gobbling up Kuiper objects for their carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen (CHON) and trace elements and cranking out vast quantities of non-biologically derived food of every description to feed a human population 1000 times its current size.

Hey, so does Frederik Pohl, as per his Heechee series of books.