Sunday 18 August 2013

Sister From Another Mister / Lab Burgers

Ashley is my sister from another mister. We coordinated our outfits unintentionally, but looking back through these photos, I realise how alike we appear! It's probably got a lot to do with the fact that we're both wearing wigs and teeny dresses. Or maybe it's because Ashley is wearing my clothes. For this outfit post, we went on a little pretend picnic in Victoria park outside of Sydney University, after getting up super early (like 7am, haha) to make sure the light wasn't too intense for our photos! I love that I have finally found someone else who will happily sacrifice sleep, comfort and shoot for hours on end just to get the perfect photo. I am going to miss this girl!

Annika's top + skirt - c/o Choies (can also get it here)
Annika's bag - Thrifted
Annika's socks - Cotton on
Annika's shoes - c/o Yeswalker
Annika's headband - c/o Milanoo
Ashley's dress - c/o Chictopia (The White Pepper)
Ashley's sweater - Emoda
Ashley's bag - Store in Italy
Ashley's shoes - Yeswalker
Ashley's headband - Claire's in Japan

I wanted to talk properly about lab-grown burgers the other day, but didn't have the time because of my own lab-work (I'm not growing meat, but I am doing some pretty cool stuff). You probably heard all about it on the news, though - a researcher from Maastricht University recently let two people to taste-test a $300,000 hamburger patty made from meat he had grown in his lab.
Image source: Not an artificial burger but a super cute crochet burger from bottletopboy on Etsy.
Why is this such exciting news?

The process
No animals die in the process of making lab-meat. A small amount of special cells called "stem cells" are extracted from the shoulder muscle of a cow. A "stem cell" just means that the cell has not yet decided what final form it will take - it's a normal process of growing, or regenerating body tissue after an injury. Stem cells can divide indefinitely in this "undecided" state, so after extraction they are grown with nutrients to encourage them to multiply.

After you have about a million stem cells, you let them "decide" to be muscle cells by separating them into different dishes and varying the levels of nutrients and signals in the dish to mimic the inside of the animal. The cells then grow into strips of muscle. Bundle them together, and you have your hamburger patty.

What this means:
  • Much less animal slaughter and cruelty. As soon as lab-grown meat becomes commercially available and affordable, I know that I will never eat meat from actual whole animals again. I hope that in 100 years time, people will be quite appalled by the idea that we used to slaughter animals for meat.
  • Much less environmental strain. Lab-grown meat will use 55% of the energy of the current beef industry - a huge cut when you consider how large this industry is - and will also only emit 4% of the greenhouse gases of the current beef industry.
  • Much more free land - lab-grown meat will only use 1% of the land that conventionally farmed beef uses.
  • Hopefully, much less starvation. The human population is only going to keep rising and currently 1 billion go hungry every day. More people = more demand for meat, so having a system in place which doesn't use as much land an energy will be easier on the planet, meaning that hopefully we can produce a lot more of it to feed everyone!

Another reason to be super excited by science!








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21 comments:

  1. Such a cute outfit post! And that was an interesting read on lab burgers, it's amazing what science can achieve!

    Ginge, Cosmos and Crayons ♥

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  2. That's really cool about lab-grown meat. Sometimes I wish I had a time machine so I could see where all these scientific developments will lead and which ones will really take hold.

    But anyway, you both look incredibly cute in these pictures. I absolutely love your matching separates here!

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    1. I am basically sadder than anything else that I won't get to see where science takes us in 200 or 300 years time. Unless, of course, we figure out how to upload our brains to computers before I die. Which I am kinda counting on. Haha.

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  3. I love love love your dresses! So adorable! Sister's from other misters are the bomb diggity!

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  4. Seriously, your every blog post never seem to bore. I have probably said this before but those little science notes before your posts ends are so very interesting! :)

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  5. You both are so cute! Love that post.

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  6. You two look so adorable together, I love both of your dresses!

    Xo, Hannah

    sweetsweetnoir.net

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  7. I've heard about the lab-grown meat! very cool.

    so much cuteness all around!

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  8. aww you both look soo cute & I love your style!! Great blog & so glad I've found it :) xoxo

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  9. The idea of the lab grown meat freaked me out, even as a vegetarian, but the points you've made are so true---now I find it incredibly exciting!

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    1. That makes me so happy! I also had friends who as soon as they heard "lab-grown" meat had the immediate reaction of "yuck". But if it's explained properly, you realise how awesome it is, which is why I wanted to explain it properly here. And really, I think that the slaughtering of animals is a whole lot more "yuck" than this.

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  10. you both look so cute! i love your two piece and her dress

    xo Sarah
    http://absolutelysarahx.blogspot.com

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  11. I absolutely LOVE your post on lab burgers, as a vegetarian, I try to raise awareness on issues such as hunger and the environment (As they relate to meat consumption), without being overbearing/annoying. Would you mind if I reblogged some of this? I will, of course, link back and give you credit!

    Thanks,
    Mich
    ButtonsandBirdcages@gmail.com
    http://www.buttonsandbirdcages.com

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  12. you two look adorable and I hope one day we don't need to kill any animals for meat too!

    toinfinitynbeyond13.blogspot.hk

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  13. At first when you mentioned Lab Burgers, I had the idea that Ashley was your lab partner, and you called yourselves the Lab Burgers. Ha! Then, you mentioned lab-meat, and I thought of green eggs and ham. With two words, stem and cells, I completely got it. I don't understand why people have such a problem with stem cell research, but I think it's gonna be the next best thing.

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    Replies
    1. Hahahaha, I wish I had a lab-partner and we called ourselves the Lab Burgers. That'd be awesomely nerdy and great. :)

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    2. Right? Unfortunately, I don't have any copyrights to the Lab Burgers so feel free to use that whenever a science-y partnership comes up! You guys would be unique...dare I say rare?

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