Lab-Cultured Beef #417

April 14, 2017

This week we go into a lab that's working to make our kitchens more sustainable. Guest host Jessie Yaros speaks with Professor Mark Post about lab cultured beef, including how a hamburger is grown from scratch in the lab, the advantages of cultured beef over traditional factory farming processes, and the currently public perception of eating lab-made meat products. And Bethany Brookshire chats with astronomy writer Chris Crockett about the approaching Grand Finale of the Cassini mission and how the spacecraft's destruction could provide us with exciting new information about Saturn and its rings.

Guests:

  • Mark Post
  • Chris Crockett

Guest Bios

Mark Post

Professor Mark Post is a medical doctor who has had several appointments as assistant professor at Utrecht University, Harvard University, as an associate professor at Dartmouth College, and as full professor at Eindhoven University of Technology and Maastricht University. He is currently a visiting professor at Harvard, University of Modena, and faculty at Singularity University. His main research interest is the engineering of tissues for medical and food applications. He presented the world's first hamburger from cultured beef in August 2013 and is working on improvements and scaling up of production of cultured meat. He received the World Technology Award from AAAS/Times/Forbes for invention with the biggest potential for environmental impact. Three companies have spun-off to work on meat and leather applications of tissue engineering: Mark Post is the CSO and co-founder of these companies.

Chris Crockett

Chris Crockett writes about the latest astronomy news and research, from asteroids buzzing the Earth to galaxies on the far side of the universe. He has been the "In-House Space Man" for Science News since 2014.