The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2012

by Dan Ariely

  Van der Schaft tried to explain. The initial cells are typically taken from a mouse. (The Dutch have also focused on pork stem cells, because pigs are readily available to them, often reclaimed from eggs discarded at slaughterhouses or taken from biopsies.) Researchers then submerge those cells in amino acids, sugars, and minerals. Generally, that mixture consists of fetal serum taken from calves. Some vegetarians would object even to using two animal cells, and the fetal calf serum would present a bigger problem still. Partly for those reasons, a team working under Klaas Hellingwerf, a microbial physiologist at the University of Amsterdam, has been developing a different growth medium, one based on algae. After the cells age, van der Schaft and her colleagues place them on biodegradable scaffolds, which help them grow together into muscle tissue. That tissue can then be fused and formed into meat that can be processed as if it were ground beef or pork.

  The research is not theoretical, but at this point the Dutch scientists are far more interested in proving that the process will work than in growing meat in commercial quantities. They are preoccupied, in other words, with learning how to make those lens-size blobs more efficiently—not with turning them into hamburgers or meatballs. Great scientists attempt to change the way we think about the natural world but are less concerned with practicalities. They look upon any less fundamental achievement as “an engineering problem,” dull but necessary grunt work. “Scientists hate this type of work, because they want breakthroughs, discoveries,” Mironov told me. “This is development, not research. And that is the biggest problem we face.”

  The Dutch team has been trying to discover how best to work with embryonic stem cells, because their flexibility makes them particularly attractive. Stem cells can multiply so quickly that even a few could eventually produce tons of meat. Yet any culture nutritious enough to feed stem cells will have the same effect on bacteria or fungi—both of which grow much more rapidly. “We need completely sterile conditions,” van der Schaft explained. “If you accidentally add a single bacterium to a flask, it will be full in one day.” There is also the cancer syndrome: stem cells proliferate rapidly and could divide forever if they are maintained properly. That’s why they are so valuable. Yet when a cell divides too often it can introduce errors into its genetic code, and these create chromosomal aberrations that can lead to cancer. Tissue engineers need to keep the cells dividing rapidly enough to grow meat on an industrial scale, but not so fast that they become genetic miscreants.

  Any group that intends to sell laboratory meat will need to build bioreactors—factories that can grow cells under pristine conditions. Bioreactors aren’t new; beer and yeast are made using similar methods. Still, a “carnery,” as Nicholas Genovese, the PETA-supported postdoctoral researcher, has suggested such a factory be called, will need much more careful monitoring than a brewery. Muscle cells growing in a laboratory will clump together into a larger version of the gooey mess I had just seen if they’re left on their own. To become muscle fibers, the cells have to grow together in an orderly way. Without blood vessels or arteries, there would be no way to deliver oxygen to muscle cells. And without oxygen or nutrients they would starve.

  It turns out that muscle cells also need stimulation, because muscles, whether grown in a dish or attached to the biceps of a weight lifter, need to be used or they will atrophy. Tissue fabricated in labs would have to be stimulated with electrical currents. That happens every day in research facilities like the one at Eindhoven; it is not a difficult task with a piece of flesh the size of a fish egg. But to exercise thousands of pounds of meat with electrical currents could potentially cost more than it’s worth.

  Technical complexities like these have caused some people to suggest that the field will fizzle before one hamburger is sold. Robert Dennis, a professor of biomedical engineering at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, said that the differences between animal tissue and laboratory-created organs remain significant. “Muscle precursor cells grown in a gelatinous scaffold are really just steak-flavored Jell-O,” he said. “To reach something that would have real consumer appeal would require stepping back and approaching the question from a fundamentally new direction.” Dennis is no less eager to grow meat than his colleagues. He is, however, concerned about hype and false hope. “Engineering fully functional tissues from cells in a petri dish is a monumental technical challenge in terms of both difficulty and long-term impact,” he said. “It is right up there with the Apollo program; a permanent and sustainable solution to the global energy and food challenges, appreciated by the public but not yet solved; the global freshwater problem, not yet appreciated by the general public; and global climate change, still vehemently denied by the scientific illiterati. Tissue engineering is well worth the investment, because it will profoundly improve the human condition.”

  Most others engaged in the research say that the goal isn’t quite so distant. “There are many practical difficulties that lie ahead,” Frank Baaijens told me. Baaijens is a professor at Eindhoven and a leader in the development of cardiovascular tissue. “But they are not fundamental problems. We know how to do most of what we need to do to make ground meat. We need to learn how to scale it all up. I don’t think that is a trivial problem, but industries do this sort of thing all the time. What is needed is the money and the will.” Baaijens agreed to work on the project only because it was similar to his current research on the debilitating bedsores that occur when sustained pressure cuts off circulation to vulnerable parts of the body. Without adequate blood flow, the affected tissue dies. “This guy approached us and said, ‘You ought to make meat,’” Baaijens recalled. The guy was Willem van Eelen. “We had some doubts, because we were focused on medicine. But he was so enthusiastic and persistent, and in the end I think he was right. We don’t necessarily think of this as medicine, but it has the potential to be as valuable as any drug.”

  Stone Barns, a nonprofit farm in Pocantico Hills, north of New York City, is an eighty-acre agricultural wonderland. The animals and plants there rely on each other to provide food, manure, nutrients, and the symbiotic diversity that any sustainable farm requires. I had come to discuss the future of meat with Dan Barber, the celebrity chef at Blue Hill, the culinary centerpiece of the property. Barber has strong views about the future of agriculture, but he disdains the partisan and evangelical approach so often adopted by food activists. He believes that organic farming can provide solutions to both agricultural and ecological problems. He is not willfully blind, however, to the irony of a farmer in the rich world who thinks that way. “To sit in some of the best farming land in America and talk about what organic food could do to solve the problems of nine hundred million people who go to bed hungry every night . . .” He stopped and smiled wanly. “That is really a pretty good definition of elitist.”

  When I called a few days earlier and told him that I wanted to talk about lab-grown meat, there was silence on the phone. Then laughter. “Well,” he said, “I would rather eat a test-tube hamburger than a Perdue chicken. At least with the burger you are going to know the ingredients.” Barber said that he would be perfectly willing to taste such a product. Unlike some other environmentalists, however, he was leery about the ecological value. “If we were replacing some factory-farmed animals, then I suppose it could be used as a complement to agriculture. But removing animals from a good ecological farming system is not beneficial.” Barber argues that the vast systems of factory farms in the United States rely on almost limitless supplies of clean water and free energy, which permits farmers to avoid paying a fair price for the carbon used to raise livestock and move their products around the country. Eventually that will have to change, he says, and, when it does, so will the economics of our entire farm system.

  It was the first fresh day of spring, and we went out to watch the heritage sows forage in the natural wilds of the farm. They seemed as happy as any person who had just emerged into sunlight from a particularly difficult winter. “The residual benefits of a na
tural system like this are cultural,” Barber said. “These animals are part of a system in which everything is connected. That is why you have to look at the entire life cycle of farms and animals when talking about greenhouse gases.”

  Barber disputes the common assertion that livestock eating grass belch huge amounts of methane into the atmosphere and are therefore environmentally unacceptable. “That is a simplistic way to look at this problem,” he said. “In nature, you just cannot measure methane and say that livestock contribute that amount to climate change and it is therefore a good idea to get rid of livestock. Look at meat. I am not talking about factory farms—which are terrible—or the need for better sources of protein for many people in the world. But if you just look at meat without looking at the life of a cow you are looking at nothing. Cows increase the diversity and resilience of the grass. That helps biological activity in the soil and that helps trap CO2 from the air. Great soil does that. So when you feed a less methane-emitting animal grain instead of grass you are tying up huge ecosystems into monoculture and plowing and sending enormous amounts of CO2 into the air with the plows. You are also weakening soil structures that might not come back for hundreds of thousands of years.” Stressing that he understood that a growing population will need additional sources of protein, he continued, “So if you can supplement a farming system with cultured meat, that is one thing. But if your goal is to improve animal welfare, ecological integrity, and human health, then replacing animals with laboratory products is the wrong way to go.”

  The moral and ethical issues that would accompany the use of lab-grown beef may ultimately prove more intractable than the scientific issues. In 2008, when PETA announced a million-dollar reward for the first team to make in vitro chicken, many animal-welfare activists responded with outrage. Jim Thomas, of the environmental group ETC, expressed a common fear: “If test-tube meat hits the big time, we will likely know by its appearance in a Big Mac or when agribusiness buys out the patent holder.” Even some PETA leaders felt that the decision to support research into in vitro meat was dangerous. Lisa Lange, a PETA senior vice president, opposed the award. “My main concern is it’s our job, as the largest animal rights organization in the world, to introduce the philosophy and hammer it home that animals are not ours to eat,” she said.

  I can understand why a chef and farmer like Dan Barber believes that we ought to raise animals, kill them humanely, and eat them. I had trouble, though, comprehending why animal rights supporters weren’t rushing to embrace a plan that could ultimately end the use of livestock. I put the question to Peter Singer, the Princeton philosopher, who in 1975 published Animal Liberation, which is often considered the founding document of the animal rights movement. Singer doesn’t come at animal welfare issues from the perspective of a pet owner; he is a utilitarian and believes that it is our moral duty to reduce the amount of suffering on Earth. Since our taste for meat is the only reason that animals are butchered inhumanely and raised in monstrous conditions, he considers eating meat immoral, because it greatly increases the amount of suffering in the world. “It seems all pluses and no minuses to me,” he said of in vitro meat. “But I think some vegetarians and vegans just have a ‘yuck’ response to meat, whatever its source. Or they think it is unhealthy. Or they think that if we accept it, people will think that ‘the real thing’ is better, whereas we have been trying to tell them for years that it isn’t. These are all confusions, in my view. Catholics for centuries taught that masturbation is wrong because sex should lead to procreation. Then IVF comes along, and masturbation is the obvious way to get the sperm that enables an infertile couple to have a child. And the same Catholics say no, masturbation is wrong.”

  Nobody can yet say whether in vitro meat would find a market. That will depend on the cost and whether people regard it as safe, healthy, and morally acceptable (or perhaps superior) to what we eat today. The last issue is difficult to address. Americans are big fans of the Food Network and of cooking shows such as Top Chef. They are eager to follow recipes too. “I wonder how people would feel if, at the beginning of a show, the stars pulled a darling little lamb onto the stage and then beheaded, gutted, and skinned it,” Ingrid Newkirk said. “I am thinking that the ratings would fall.” It may take a sight that shocking for people to fully understand what is at stake. More than anything else, more even than the technical aspects of the science, the success of laboratory-bred meat will depend on our understanding of its importance.

  “When I was a kid, I liked to read about science,” Bernard Roelen told me. Roelen, a member of the in-vitro-meat research team in the Netherlands, is a stem-cell biologist at Utrecht University. “And often you would read about some problem—nuclear waste, for instance—where it would say we don’t know now what the solution is, but scientists will find a solution. And now I am a scientist and we face a really serious issue in the environment. And I feel a responsibility to find an answer.

  “Because who will find solutions to these problems? It has to be scientists. We made a mess, and we have to clean it up. I know Willem van Eelen wants to see this happen overnight, and that is not possible. But it will happen eventually, and when it does I think we will look back and wonder why it took so long—why it took so long for us to understand what we have done to animals and to the Earth.”

  MARK MCCLUSKY

  Mad Science

  FROM Wired

  THE PERFECT FRENCH FRY—golden brown, surpassingly crispy on the outside, with a light and fluffy interior that tastes intensely of potato—is not easy to cook. Here’s how most people do it at home: cut some potatoes into fry shapes—classic ³⁄8-inch batons—and toss them into 375-degree oil until they’re golden brown. This is a mediocre fry. The center will be raw.

  Here’s how most restaurants do it: dunk the potatoes in oil twice, once at 325 degrees for about four minutes, until they’re cooked through, and then again at 375 degrees to brown them. This is a pretty great fry.

  But let’s get serious. The chef Heston Blumenthal—owner of the Fat Duck restaurant in Bray, England, holder of three Michelin stars—created what he calls triple-cooked chips. (He’s English.) The raw batons are simmered in water until they almost fall apart and then placed on a wire rack inside a vacuum machine that pulls out the moisture. The batons then get the traditional double fry. You need an hour and a $2,000 vacuum chamber, but these are the best fries in the world. Or, rather, they used to be.

  The new contender was created by Nathan Myhrvold, the former chief technology officer of Microsoft. Myhrvold cuts his potatoes into batons and rinses them to get rid of surface starch. Then he vacuum-seals them in a plastic bag, in one even layer, with water. He heats the bag to 212 degrees for fifteen minutes, steaming the batons. Then he hits the bag with ultrasound to cavitate the water—forty-five minutes on each side. He reheats the bag in an oven to 212 degrees for five minutes, puts the hot fries on a rack in a vacuum chamber, and then blanches them in 338-degree oil for three minutes. When they’re cool, Myhrvold deep-fries the potatoes in oil at 375 degrees until they’re crisp, about three more minutes, and then drains them on paper towels. Total preparation time: two hours.

  The result is amazing. The outside nearly shatters when you bite into it, yielding to a creamy center that’s perfectly smooth. The key is the cavitation caused by the ultrasonic bath—it creates thousands of tiny fissures on the potato’s surface, all of which become crunchy when it’s fried. When Plato saw the shadow of a french fry on the wall of his cave, the guy standing behind him was snacking on these.

  The recipe is one of 1,600 in Myhrvold’s new cookbook, Modernist Cuisine. It’s a big book—2,400 pages big. Six volumes big. Big as in the original slipcase failed Amazon.com’s shipping tests and had to be replaced with acrylic. Big like it weighs nearly fifty pounds and costs $625.

  This is the way Myhrvold operates. After leaving Microsoft with all the money in the world, he started a company called, immodestly, Intellectual Ventures and turned his attent
ion to busting some of the biggest problems in science and technology. And he dove into a few hobbies. Now most of us, if we were to get interested in cooking, might start to putter around the kitchen at home or do a little reading. Maybe we’d take a class. Because cooking is primarily a craft, dominated by artisans—or artists, if that’s how you view what a chef does. Every once in a while, a chemist drops in to take a look or heads for the world of industrial-scale food.

  But Myhrvold—a theoretical physicist and computer scientist—has the lifestyle flexibility of a multimillionaire and the mental discipline of a world-class researcher. To him, cooking is about fundamental interactions in the material world: how heat enters food. How you mix two separate materials most effectively. How water molecules interact in a solution. You see a pork chop and some mashed potatoes; he sees a mesh of proteins that coagulate at a specific temperature next to an emulsion of starch and fat. “Chefs think about what it’s like to make food,” Myhrvold says. “Being a scientist in the kitchen is about asking why something works, and how it works.” To him, a kitchen is really just a laboratory that everyone has in his house. And when you have that attitude with that brain and those resources, well, you might not be the best cook in the world, but you just might put together the best cookbook.

  If Modernist Cuisine lives up to Myhrvold’s hopes when it’s published in March, it’ll be the definitive book about the science of cooking—the Principia of the kitchen. It’s dense and beautiful and inspired, and even though Myhrvold assembled a team of fifty chefs, writers, photographers, designers, scientists, and editors to create it, the final product is in fact an eerily accurate recapitulation of how Nathan Myhrvold thinks.