Why Growing Hamburgers in a Lab Will Doom Us All

Latest in our series: Seen & Heard on the Web

By Chris Bucholz, Cracked.com

Last week, Dutch scientists provided the answer to a question nobody had asked when they announced the successful creation of laboratory-grown meat. Presumably while standing in front of a massive, sparking Jacob’s ladder, these scientists also announced their plans to create the first artificial hamburger later this year, mixing artificial muscle, artificial fat and presumably a hint of love into a single lump of horrible. Time travelers arriving from later this year have yet to come back and warn us away from such a folly, but they are certainly en route.

In a way, this shouldn’t surprise us too much: Dutch cuisine is well known for its use of ingredients like dried fish, mayonnaise and despair, so news that those wooden-shoed madmen were creating another culinary abomination is perfectly within character. But it’s their use of advanced genetic technology that raised our eyebrows, especially given our history of fabricating scare stories about modern science to drum up business for our Cracked-brand Apocalypse Kitz.

So, to find out exactly how these meat-forging lunatics intended to destroy the world (and if they weren’t doing that at all, to try and fix that), I was sent to the Netherlands. After touching down in Netherland City, I caught a bicycle to Maastricht University, which is not, as you might expect, built on an isolated island or in the heart of an active volcano.

It was just a completely regular-looking Dutch university.

There I sat down with Dr. Mark Post, keeping a close eye to see if there were any restraints built into the chair I was sitting in.

Read the interview: Why Growing Hamburgers in a Lab Will Doom Us All | Cracked.com

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