Scientists Develop Rice That Doesn't Have to Be Cooked
Scientists in India say they have developed a variety of rice that requires no cooking. It just needs to be soaked in water at room temperature for 45 minutes. The rice was developed last September by scientists at the Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI) in Orissa. They were inspired by soft rice, or komal saul, that grows in the Indian state of Assam. Take a look:
PETA is offering a $1 million prize to the first contest participant able to create in vitro chicken meat and sell it to the public by June 30, 2012. The contestant must do both of the following:
Produce an in vitro chicken-meat product that has a taste and texture indistinguishable from real chicken flesh to non-meat-eaters and meat-eaters alike.
Manufacture the approved product in large enough quantities to be sold commercially, and successfully sell it at a competitive price in at least 10 states.
Judging of taste and texture will be performed by a panel of 10 PETA judges, who will sample the in vitro chicken prepared using a fried "chicken" recipe from VegCooking.com. The in vitro chicken must get a score of at least 80 when evaluated in order to win the prize.
Slate reports that the idea has created quite a stir even in PETA's own office.
If this idea repels you as a carnivore, imagine how it feels to a vegetarian. PETA co-founder Ingrid Newkirk tells the New York Times that the prize offer caused "a near civil war in our office" and that "we will have members leave us over this." Newkirk observes, "In any social cause community, there are people who strive for purity."
This contest may or may not lead to tasty lab-grown chicken meat but it is getting many journalists to think and write about the issue. Articles have appeared in U.S. News, The Star, The Atlantic, L.A. Times, Time and even Pork magazine.
Can you grow chicken nuggets or a steak without needing a chicken or a cow? The UMD Newsdesk reports on a team scientists that think meat can be grown in a lab environment using new techniques of tissue engineering.
In a paper in the June 29 issue of Tissue Engineering, a team of scientists, including University of Maryland doctoral student Jason Matheny, propose two new techniques of tissue engineering that may one day lead to affordable production of in vitro - lab grown -- meat for human consumption. It is the first peer-reviewed discussion of the prospects for industrial production of cultured meat.
"There would be a lot of benefits from cultured meat," says Matheny, who studies agricultural economics and public health. "For one thing, you could control the nutrients. For example, most meats are high in the fatty acid Omega 6, which can cause high cholesterol and other health problems. With in vitro meat, you could replace that with Omega 3, which is a healthy fat.
"Cultured meat could also reduce the pollution that results from raising livestock, and you wouldn't need the drugs that are used on animals raised for meat."
The benefits are pretty clear if the meat can be shown to be safe and that the human digestive system processes the "artificial meat" the same way it does meat from animals. An obvious downside would be that it doesn't sound very appetizing.
The Independentreports that scientists have begun adding human genes to rice in Japan.
Present GM crops are modified with genes from bacteria to make them tolerate herbicides, so that they are not harmed when fields are sprayed to kill weeds. But most of them are only able to deal with a single herbicide, which means that it has to be used over and over again, allowing weeds to build up resistance to it.
But the researchers at the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences in Tsukuba, north of Tokyo, have found that adding the human touch gave the rice immunity to 13 different herbicides. This would mean that weeds could be kept down by constantly changing the chemicals used.
That's good that the rice is now immune to herbicides. But it is far worse now that the rice have human genes. GM products are one thing to consider but Human GM products are a completely different matter. The gene inserted in the rice comes from the human liver so there is a hint of cannibalism in human rice that is quite frightening. It is this kind of irresponsible action that will frighten the public and possibly put the brakes on any potential benefits from therapeutic cloning and stem cell research.
PETA is 