Jacket Grown from Living Tissue

RangerRick98 writes "Wired has a story about growing jackets from living tissue. The jacket is grown using "a biodegradable polymer as a base," a coating of 3T3 mouse cells (which apparently continue to grow and split even after being removed from their host), and human bone cells for rigidity. The jacket grown so far is only about 2 x 1.4 inches. The hope is that when the polymer degrades, the jacket will retain its structure. The focus behind this work is 'victimless' leather."

Comments

Prior Art

[phauxfinnish]

I'm calling prior art.

Re:Save the cows.

[delta_avi_delta]

So you'd like for us to grow steak in the lab to save the environment?

Lets consider that.

The steak cells would require just as much energy to grow in a lab as elsewhere. Thing is we haven't quite caught up with nature in the energy efficency stakes (sorry, sorry) so this would require more energy than feeding a cow.

Furthermore, while the cow, at no extra cost, turns sunlight into steak via grass, our process would probably require us to harvest some cereal, process it, extract the relevant nutrients, and feed these to our steak cells, all of which requires more energy.

So there we have it. No cows died in the producing of our steak, but it had a terrific net cost to the environment. Plus it is no doubt homogenous, and bland, like all man-made food.

In short I completely disagree - IMHO the only way to avoid wreaking havoc all around us is to conform to nature, and live more naturally. Artifical steak is not the way.