Test tube meat

BBC reports that "Dutch scientists have used stem cells to create strips of muscle tissue with the aim of producing the first lab-grown hamburger later this year."

Professor Post's group at Maastricht University in the Netherlands has grown small pieces of muscle about 2cm long, 1cm wide and about a mm thick.

I predict that

• The taste will be awful
  
• The universal reaction will be "yuck"
  
• If they do make a hamburger by the end of the year it will be small, and, as they indicate have to have blood and fat mixed in
  
• If they make a go of it the price (currently £200,000/hamburger) will in fact come down as they predict
  
• The price will never be competitive, because it will never be as efficient at turning grain into protein (15%) as natural means, unless they use sleight of hand accounting.