I call shenanigans on the Vegetarian Society.
Given that DNA sequencing is getting cheaper and cheaper, by the time this gets to market, it will be very simple to test this.
Just sequence DNA from the 'meat'. Before growing the muscle cells in a dish you could just take out a lot of genes that aren't required to grow muscle, but *are* required to grow a pig - like genes specific to neurons, other organs, etc. That will not affect the meat, and then you can be guaranteed that it's not from a whole pig.
The same of course applies to the Soylent Green argument - if you get (almost entirely) human DNA then you're eating grandma and not fake pig.
Though your suggestion is obviously tongue in cheek, I just thought it might be good to point out that there are pretty intractable problems with using DNA as a storage medium.
It is VERY SLOW to copy (it takes several hours for human cells w/ ~3 billion letters to divide) and is prone to errors during copying.
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I call shenanigans on the Vegetarian Society. Given that DNA sequencing is getting cheaper and cheaper, by the time this gets to market, it will be very simple to test this. Just sequence DNA from the 'meat'. Before growing the muscle cells in a dish you could just take out a lot of genes that aren't required to grow muscle, but *are* required to grow a pig - like genes specific to neurons, other organs, etc. That will not affect the meat, and then you can be guaranteed that it's not from a whole pig. The same of course applies to the Soylent Green argument - if you get (almost entirely) human DNA then you're eating grandma and not fake pig.
Though your suggestion is obviously tongue in cheek, I just thought it might be good to point out that there are pretty intractable problems with using DNA as a storage medium. It is VERY SLOW to copy (it takes several hours for human cells w/ ~3 billion letters to divide) and is prone to errors during copying.
Why would the first director team up with the second? The first's resume makes me semi-hopeful, while the second's...not so much.