DailyTech - Japanese Make "Delicious", Nourishing Steaks From Human Feces Nasty! I'm not sure if this is for real... I didn't see anything helpful on Snopes yet but Japan scientist synthesizes meat from human feces - Yahoo! News picked up on it. Some of these crazy recent Japanese inventions sort of reminds of me of http://www.amazon.com/101-Unuseless-Japanese-Inventions-Chindogu/dp/0393313697.
You would need to separate beer drinkers poop from the other poop to make genuine Kobe steaks. The best part of the article is the comments. I liked this one....."Waiter! There's corn in my steak! But seriously, doesn't Jack-in-the-Box already use this in their burgers?
Hate to break the news to anyone, but ALL steaks come from feces. Composting feces produces fertilizer, which helps grass and other crops grow, which should be fed to cows. Any attempts to shorten or modify this progression are fraught with hazards.
Well,...yes. Theoretically it is possible to extract protein from any cell. Cooties are another matter. Corwyn, yes, absolutely. Los Angeles' Hyperion sewage treatment plant processes their 'solids' for sale as fertilizer. It may be a much more widespread activity. Drinking water on the International Space Station comes from ? You'll want to know before you book your trip.
I was going to suggest that it sounded like it should be in The Onion, and there it is at Onion-like Headlines in Real Life Onion-like Headlines in Real Life
This is off topic, but I don't agree with using human waste as fertilizer. This is environmentalism run amok. Another similar thing is reclaimed water. In reclaimed water, you still have traces of human pharmaceuticals which leads to pathogens that become resistant to such things as antibiotics. Additionally, the water is chlorinated. By chlorinating something that originally had a high population of pathogens derived from human waste, you are creating an environment where those pathogens can become resistant to chlorine. Then you spray that water close to human populations. Basically it is a breeding ground for superbugs which can become aerosolized when it is sprayed using sprinklers. You will never have a 100% proper composting rate for humanure. The same thing will happen. You need to eliminate the circular cycle of the same product because that will lead to a major problem of biomagnification via feedback. We don't practice cannibalism for a reason. We don't marry close relatives for a reason. We shouldn't take a human derived product and reintroduce it into the bodies of humans, however indirectly. Most E. Coli outbreaks are traced to raw vegetables. In the processing plant, the E. Coli is spread due to bad practices. But the original point source is from the low-wage workers who picked the produce and had no where else to go to the bathroom. The E. Coli hitched a ride on the produce and spread through its distribution system. We know to cook meat properly in order to reduce the spread of diseases. This doesn't prevent prions from getting destroyed since they can even survive an autoclave at times. We've stopped feeding Cows to Cows, but do you know we are still feeding Pigs to Pigs? You may argue that I need my tinfoil hat, but the problem of feedback ought to be apparent to anyone who's set up a mic and a speaker before. You don't put the mic in front of the speaker. So it's not a problem yet but who is to say it can't be? Technologies and studies exist that have solved these problems, but you know that companies circumvent best practices and common sense in the name of profits. They will probably lobby to pass legislation saying it is legal and safe and have no liability. The problem is then on us. You may be for or against it, but we are constantly engineering our own demise as a species. We have 6-7 billion people on earth. We are all very closely identical in terms of genetics. Only 1 superbug is enough to decimate our population. Those who are genetically blessed will survive. That will be evolutionary. Superbugs, the Problem of Drug Resistant Germs in Treated Sewer Water (Reclaimed) « Save Our Aquifer – Rockledge, Florida
The issue of antibiotic resistance is very real. It seems to me that the pressure on them to evolve comes mostly from feed-animal dosing and human dosing (with the protocol not followed). The much smaller levels that have become detectable very widely in soil and water are not posing a strong evolutionary pressure. At least that's how it looks to me. Prions and some viruses do appear to have some potential to spoil even the best-laid plans for 'recycling' when humans are in the loop. Certainly bears watching, but the amount of phosphorus moving through humankind (and being peed out) is notably large. In not many decades I think that agriculture will need to close that loop. But the purpose of this thread is more to try our humor against the 'stuff on a shingle' offered by these scientists. So let 'er rip.
Actually it's red, LOL. Since they dye it red to look more like beef, like they colored Soylent Green green to make people think it was something else.
