h a l f b a k e r yClearly this is a metaphor for something.
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Cancer cells are good at growing and dividing under conditions which
other cells find difficult, e.g they can float about to metastasise, don't
require a basal layer and can deal better with anaerobic respiration.
Incidentally, correct me if I'm wrong. However, if this is true, it strikes
me
that they would be more productive than say a bovine skeletal
muscle cell. They would need less energy, be easier to culture etc, and
since one of the problems with meat production is the tropic level of
the animal, a sedentary tumour using glucose and oxygen more
efficiently than a gambolling lamb would get round this to some extent.
Consequently vat-grown meat should be produced from tumour cells
rather than ordinary body cells. This would probably mean the meat
concerned lacked a fibrous structure and therefore the texture of the
meat people are accustomed to eating. The carcinogenesis of ordinary
cells could also be encouraged by plonking a load of nasties in the vat.
https://en.wikipedi...iki/Henrietta_Lacks
[hippo, Oct 27 2015]
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//vat-grown meat should be produced from tumour
cells rather than ordinary body cells// Been done. |
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Yes, the strange and slightly disturbing story of Henrietta Lacks (see link)... "Scientists have grown some 20 tons of her cells..." |
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Really [MB]? On purpose or was it a question of pushing
them beyond the Hayflick Limit or something? |
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[Hippo], yes, I had her in mind. In fact in the coming sunny
uplands of the utopia which is just round the corner, I
envisage the whole human species to be represented
entirely by parasitic tumour cells. When I'm in a good mood
anyway. |
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//On purpose or was it a question of pushing them
beyond the Hayflick Limit or something. // Most
cultured eukaryotic cells are tumoury - either
tumour-derived, or transformed. |
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I think the problem with vat grown meat is the extensive and expensive precautions one must take with these cells when isolated from the immune system that protects them from fungi. Animals have so many echelons of protection against decomposition: cells in vats have none. |
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Really the stuff to grow in vats for food is yeast. Yeast will deal with other fungi and bacteria. They do not have fussy nutritional requirements like animal cells. |
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He took another sip of the powerfully yeasty beer, and held the glass up to the light. The swirling yeast looked a lot like the dust storms that plagued the planet. Also, the yeast and the beer itself was reddish, flavored with a pinch of that same dust. The yeast loved the minerals. |
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The last drink in the glass required holding it at 45 degrees for several seconds as the clumped yeast at the bottom slid down and into his mouth. It was decent beer, but to drink Martian style it helped to be born to it. The colonists got three quarters of their protein and half their calories from this beer. Most of them had so much alcohol coming off of them that their vapor capture devices never needed sterilization. It made for shaky Martians when they travelled off world, but for the sort of physical labor required of them at home ethanol was fine fuel. |
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It was his second week Marsside, so his liver was probably in second gear by now. He pushed his glass forward for a refill. Bread in a bottle! |
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I like, reminds me of something else posted here perhaps by
you, [bungston] - have you got a novel in the works? If not,
maybe you should have. |
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What about operating theatre-like conditions? Presumably
that'd work for a while. Or loads of antibodies against likely
offenders in the dish? |
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It's not particularly hard to culture human cells.
HeLa cells are easy - you just need a flask with a
stirrer, sterile and with a cotton-wool bung, and
some culture medium which contains essential
salts, amino acids etc; it's usually supplemented
with foetal calf serum which provides various
growth factors, though FCS-free media exist. All
at 37°C, obviously. |
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You could probably bulk-grow HeLa cells for a few
dollars a litre, or maybe less, if it were done
industrially. |
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If I remember correctly (it's been a couple of
decades), you grow them up to about 10^6 or
10^7/ml. That's maybe 1-2ml of packed cells per
litre of culture medium, so you'd need several
hundred litres of culture to give you a kilo of goop. |
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Out of interest, is there evidence that results from studies performed on HeLa cells (which are weird and tumorous) are transferable to normal cells? |
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The ancient Egyptians produced beer by sealing bread in a pottery jar and letting it ferment. |
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They also ate huge amounts of onions. |
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Interestingly, they also built a great many open-plan buildings with lots of free ventilation ... |
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// [bungston] - have you got a novel in the works? If not, maybe you should have.// |
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Totally. I'd read more of that. |
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//Animals have so many echelons of protection against decomposition: cells in vats have none. // |
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Hmm. Maybe some sort of lymphoma - then it could protect itself. |
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To be honest, I'm not sure HeLa cells are the way to go for human consumption. Regardless of whether it's officially cannibalism, I suspect it would create an unnecessary additional 'yuck factor' for the average consumer. It's not like cows, sheep or pigs never get cancer. |
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" Incidentally, correct me if I'm wrong " |
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// It's not like cows, sheep or pigs never get cancer // |
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They do, but it's rare - the reason being they don't live long enough. |
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Juvenile animals tend to suffer from extremely aggressive cancers that kill them quickly. Apart from that, cancer is a disease of old age. Dogs get cancer because in human homes they live up to five times as long as they would in the wild. Humans live two to three times as long as the estimated lifespan of early hominids, based on skeletal remains. |
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Cancer isn't a major cause of mortality in wild populations (apart from abberant cases like the unfortunate Tasmanian Devil, where it's caused by a virus) because the moment a wild animal gets a bit slow and off the top line, something else generally eats it. |
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Elephants would be interesting as, by and large, as adults they have no natural predators. |
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//Elephants would be interesting as, by and large, as
adults they have no natural predators.// |
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Which reminds me - Sturton says hello. He is
definitely natural; at least, nobody would set out to
make something like him on purpose. |
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//Dogs get cancer because in human homes they live up to five times as long as they would in the wild. [...]
... like the unfortunate Tasmanian Devil, where it's caused by a virus// |
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Actually, no. Devil facial tumour disease is caused by transmission of cancer cells. Check the wikipedia article if you don't believe me. Read the scientific papers if you don't believe wikipedia.
Interestingly, there's an infectious cancer of dogs (Canine transmissible venereal tumor) too. |
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//[MB] gets thrown into a gorge.// Because why?
Admittedly, I'd have guessed that Devil facial tumours
were viral, but I don't think I said that... |
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There are definitely some known viral cancers (for
instance, HPV can trigger cervical cancer). I'd bet
that there are also some others waiting to be
discovered. But most cancers aren't viral. |
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I thought the score on Henrietta Slacks was up
to several million tons? Possibly taking the
bbw aesthetic a little too far? |
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Well, let's see. I probably grew 100 grams of
Henrietta Lacks (pelleted cell mass) back in the
day during a 3yr PhD. There were probably ten or
so other people in
my department using HeLa cells, so say a kilo over
three years. |
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Assume that HeLa cells were used from (guessing)
the 1970's onward. That would be maybe 15kg of
HeLa in one smallish university department. |
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Guesstimate 3 such departments in the university.
That's about 50kg. Times that by maybe 100 to
account for other universities and research
institutes in the UK, and you're up to maybe 5
tons. |
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Assuming the UK is 5% of worldwide research,
you're up to about 100 tons of Henrietta in toto.
Maybe 1000 tons max. |
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There are a couple of citations in the Wikipedia article for the "20 tons" estimate but it's probably all guesswork. |
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I liked it better when they grew hamburger in a petri dish. |
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