the corner office

Years ago an urban legend email was doing the rounds about KFC no longer using real chickens, and instead using genetically modified, boneless quasi-chicken organisms to up their profits. That might have been a hoax, but this Slate article (via Andrew Sullivan) makes the case for a humane way to generate the dead animals we demand as part of our diet:

How? By growing meat in labs, the way we grow tissue from stem cells. That's the great thing about cells: They're programmed to multiply. You just have to figure out what chemical and structural environment they need to do their thing. Researchers in Holland and the United States are working on the problem. They've grown and sautéed fish that smelled like dinner, though FDA rules didn't allow them to taste it. Now they're working on pork. The short-term goal is sausage, ground beef, and chicken nuggets. Steaks will be more difficult.

I predict some market resistance.