FSTDT Forums
Community => Science and Technology => Topic started by: Her3tiK on January 24, 2013, 01:15:58 am
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20972018
When you buy some beef at the butcher's, you know it comes from cattle that once mooed and chewed.
But imagine if this cut of meat, just perfect for your Sunday dinner, had been made from scratch - without slaughtering any animal.
US start-up Modern Meadow believes it can do just that - by making artificial raw meat using a 3D bioprinter.
Peter Thiel, one of Silicon Valley's most prominent venture capitalists, Paypal co-founder and early Facebook investor, has just backed the company with $350,000 (£218,000).
Set up by father-son team Gabor and Andras Forgacs, the start-up wants to take 3D printing to a whole new level.
For three-dimensional printing, solid objects are made from a digital model. It's also known as additive manufacturing: to make the structure tiny droplets are "printed" - layer by layer - via a carefully controlled inkjet nozzle.
Meat without the slaugherhouse, but the power of science!
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Replicators, anyone?
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Not really a replicator, as that converts energy into matter using the principles of the conservation of mass and energy. (If the collision of an atom of matter and antimatter obliterates both and releases their full potential of energy, then that amount of energy can be used to create an atom of matter.)
This would have to be refueled by the sum total of the matter that is used to create the bacon. On the positive side, this will surely be significantly more efficient than cattle farming.
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This would be awesome!
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Push button, receive bacon. How could this not work?
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Push button, receive bacon. How could this not work?
The government would ban it to protect the agriculture industry.
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Well, these are printers we're talking about. You know, those machines that are about as reliable as a really unreliable thing. Just imagine you're waiting for a delicious steak to print, only for the damn thing to jam or just stop due to low ink (or the equivalent thereof). I tell you, it's infuriating enough as is, just imagine how bad it'll be when you need it to eat?
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Well, these are printers we're talking about. You know, those machines that are about as reliable as a really unreliable thing. Just imagine you're waiting for a delicious steak to print, only for the damn thing to jam or just stop due to low ink (or the equivalent thereof). I tell you, it's infuriating enough as is, just imagine how bad it'll be when you need it to eat?
Not to mention that the cartridges will be ridiculously expensive. A $2,500 cartridge prints you 20 pounds of meat. You attempt to print yourself one last chicken cutlet when the "ink" is low, and you end up with a smudgy, discolored and malformed lump of matter.
THE FUTURE IS HERE
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Yeah, printers are well-known to be kind of psychotic (http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Fuck+printers.+incredibleoddities.com_e54826_4250050.png).
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Well, these are printers we're talking about. You know, those machines that are about as reliable as a really unreliable thing. Just imagine you're waiting for a delicious steak to print, only for the damn thing to jam or just stop due to low ink (or the equivalent thereof). I tell you, it's infuriating enough as is, just imagine how bad it'll be when you need it to eat?
I know, my printer freaks out when ever I have to print something and it pisses me off, I know that I would be cursing if my food stopped printing when I am hungry and want food.
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Sounds less like a replicator, and more like a protein resequencer from Enterprise. However, that is still awesome as hell.
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New Chik Fil A cow advert -
Dey dook err derbs!
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New Chik Fil A cow advert -
Dey dook err derbs!
Modern Meadow Bowl sounds better than Chick-Fil-A Bowl to me!
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Man, if this works, it will be awesome. Like anything else, I think I'll wait until they smooth out the bugs first XD.
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Man, if this works, it will be awesome. Like anything else, I think I'll wait until they smooth out the bugs first XD.
"This bacon tastes like... pygmy shrew?"
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Not really a replicator, as that converts energy into matter using the principles of the conservation of mass and energy. (If the collision of an atom of matter and antimatter obliterates both and releases their full potential of energy, then that amount of energy can be used to create an atom of matter.)
This would have to be refueled by the sum total of the matter that is used to create the bacon. On the positive side, this will surely be significantly more efficient than cattle farming.
[nerd talk] Actually, Star Trek replicators don't work like that. They're established as having food stock and all of the vitamins, minerals, and other goodies needed to make food stored in the cargo bay. The replicators can't even rearrange on a molecular level; they just put all the pieces together with miniature teleporters.
So ironically, the idea of a bacon printer IS closer to a real Star Trek replicator than your theory: both of them require the actual food to already exist (replicators have food stock in the cargo bay, the bacon printer has cartridges filled with lab-grown cells) and simply combine all of the pieces into a ready-to-eat form. Literally the only difference is that replicators use teleporters to turn the food bits into an energy form and then recombine them in the right shape on the other side, while the bacon printer basically sprays the cells onto a surface in the right order.[/nerd talk]
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Not really a replicator, as that converts energy into matter using the principles of the conservation of mass and energy. (If the collision of an atom of matter and antimatter obliterates both and releases their full potential of energy, then that amount of energy can be used to create an atom of matter.)
This would have to be refueled by the sum total of the matter that is used to create the bacon. On the positive side, this will surely be significantly more efficient than cattle farming.
[nerd talk] Actually, Star Trek replicators don't work like that. They're established as having food stock and all of the vitamins, minerals, and other goodies needed to make food stored in the cargo bay. The replicators can't even rearrange on a molecular level; they just put all the pieces together with miniature teleporters.
So ironically, the idea of a bacon printer IS closer to a real Star Trek replicator than your theory: both of them require the actual food to already exist (replicators have food stock in the cargo bay, the bacon printer has cartridges filled with lab-grown cells) and simply combine all of the pieces into a ready-to-eat form. Literally the only difference is that replicators use teleporters to turn the food bits into an energy form and then recombine them in the right shape on the other side, while the bacon printer basically sprays the cells onto a surface in the right order.[/nerd talk]
Uhh...I've been a Trekkie for the last two and a half decades and this is the first I've heard of replicators operating like that. Everything I've seen on screen does more to support Sylyana and Rav, as explained by the Memory-Alpha article on replicators. (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Replicator) I'm curious as to a source for where you got this info. ???
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Raw foodstock info comes from the Technical Manual. TNG Season 3 Episode 55 ("The Enemy") also notes that ribosomes are apparently too complex to make with a replicator, despite modern technology being capable of cloning them. Episode 65 ("Sins of the Father") notes that caviar comes out imperfectly from a replicator, despite containing no exotic materials whatsoever. Items like gold and gemstones maintain value (DS9 Season 1 Episode 4 "Past Prologue" and Episode 10 "Move Along Home" respectively), though a machine that actually changes the state of matter through atomic rearranging would make them worthless. And there's MANY instances of material that has to be mined and/or carried via starship instead of being made in a replicator.
Never doubt the power of a scientific mindset and quotes from the show.
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Holy crap I want one... You could even make bacon that spells out fun things.
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Woah, woah. Would you be able to make...synthetic human flesh?
Or would there be bans on that or something?
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Woah, woah. Would you be able to make...synthetic human flesh?
Or would there be bans on that or something?
On the contrary, I think they would encourage use of this technology for making synthetic human flesh. Skin grafts, for one.
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Woah, woah. Would you be able to make...synthetic human flesh?
Or would there be bans on that or something?
On the contrary, I think they would encourage use of this technology for making synthetic human flesh. Skin grafts, for one.
Actually, they've already been looking into that. The medical community is happy as hell, if they can get it all to work correctly.
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Woah, woah. Would you be able to make...synthetic human flesh?
Or would there be bans on that or something?
On the contrary, I think they would encourage use of this technology for making synthetic human flesh. Skin grafts, for one.
Actually, they've already been looking into that. The medical community is happy as hell, if they can get it all to work correctly.
I for one see that as a much better application for this technology. Skin crafts, muscles, maybe even new organs being "printed" by a machine would be awesome.
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This may also lead to an increase in meat in the world diet and a decrease in mass raising and slaughter of live animals. Many vegetarians and vegans refuse to eat meat out of a desire to avoid harming other living creatures, or out of protest of the livestock farming conditions. Should this technology advance to the point that lab-grown cells are a viable source of meat, such complaints would be rendered moot. Even outside of the "print your own bacon" technology, simply the ability to grow and assemble cells into different foods without needing to slaughter animals to do so will be a massive boon for the meat industry. It'll probably radically change how farmland is appropriated (no need to have massive farms raising and slaughtering cattle and chickens by the thousand if technology lets you manufacture the meat for the same or a lower price), as well as world economies (if lab-grown food is the same price or cheaper than "real meat", massive agricultural raising of livestock will become less viable and companies that have a heavy hand in the production, like the McDonalds Corporation, would need to switch to this alternative meat production source or buy it from producers).