Main content

Laboratory-Grown Meat

Is it a solution to global emissions or a distraction? And, will people actually eat it?

Professor Ben Garrod guest presents.

As a new 'meaty rice' is created and Fortnum & Mason launch a scotch egg made with cultivated meat that they hope to have on sale as early as next year, we investigate the world of laboratory-grown meat.

Mark Post made the first ever synthetic meat in 2012 to the tune of £200,000. He tells us how these lab-grown meats are made and how, he thinks, they could play an important role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and feeding a growing population. Jenny Kleeman, author of Sex, Robots and Vegan Meat, is more sceptical, citing concerns over food security and if the public really want to eat this stuff.

A stingray called Charlotte has become pregnant, despite there being no other stingrays in her tank at the Aquarium & Shark Lab in North Carolina. Marine biologist Dr Helen Scales considers how this may have happened.

And cosmic minerologist Sara Russell from the Natural History Museum tells us how astronomers tracked and found a particularly unusual asteroid entering Earth’s atmosphere and what we might learn from it. 

Presenter: Professor Ben Garrod
Producers: Hannah Robins, Florian Bohr, Alice Lipscombe-Southwell and Jonathan Blackwell
Editor: Martin Smith
Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth 

´óÏó´«Ã½ Inside Science is produced in collaboration with the Open University.

Available now

28 minutes

Last on

Thu 22 Feb 2024 21:00

Broadcasts

  • Thu 22 Feb 2024 16:30
  • Thu 22 Feb 2024 21:00

Explore further with The Open University

´óÏó´«Ã½ Inside Science is produced in partnership with The Open University.

Podcast