The latest issue (6/2011) of Scientific American has an article on the prospects for producing meat in vitro ("test tube" meat). The article points out that doing so could free up a hell of a lot of land for either producing food for people directly, producing plants for biofuels or reforestation. Doing so would also be a lot more efficient, both in energy use and greenhouse gas emissions (especially methane).
It's an interesting concept. Assuming that the economics of in-vitro meat production warrants scaling it up, there is an "ick" factor that will have to be overcome. Yet if the taste is good and if the price is better, look for it to show up some day in meat section. After all, it wasn't too long ago that the only ground meat for burgers was beef.
Scientific American also has a page where they look back at issues for 50, 100 and 150 years ago. In the look at the June, 1911 issue, the topic was the transcontinental railroads, of which the article said that there were seven.
What were they? How close can you come? I came up with six, but as to what the official answer was, I don't know. My answers after the jump:
Union Pacific-Central Pacific
Southern Pacific
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy-Denver & Rio Grande Western-Western Pacific
Northern Pacific
Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific (the Milwaukee Road)
The one I missed: Great Northern Railway.
All that's left is the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe. The Milwaukee Road went out of business in the 1980s. A good chunk of its route to the Pacific is now various rail trails.
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In vitro meat would present a conundrum to vegetarians and vegans. I'd love to hear the arguments on either side of that issue.
I imagine it would also vastly reduce the amount of cow shit in our meat.
It does present a conundrum for them, doesn't it? For obtaining the cell line for the in vitro meat would only require a biopsy. And somewhere, say fifty years on, there would only be an atom or two in each cell from the original steer.
The seventh was Great Northern.
My strong suspicion is people become vegans to irritate their friends or their parents. At least, that's how the behaviour usually manifests itself. Be that as it may, I'm confusled about the railroads--UP, SP, ATSF, Milwaukee Road all those don't strike me as "transcontinental". Class 1 railroads, yes. But most of those roads' had their eastern terminus in Chicago (or St. Louis). The Eastern Class 1 roads (B&O, NYC, Pennsylvanian hauled the stuff to Chicago and Dt. Louis and the western roads picked it up there.
Yeah, part of that was the 100 mile rule and what you have to do with the crew of a steam engine. But really, until the Conrail break-up you didn't see UP or BN engines east of Chicago that often, and I never recall seeing SF power in Cleveland. I wonder if they're defining transcontinental as "crossing the Rockies"
William, I suspect that back in the day, "transcontinental" meant "from the Mississippi (or Missouri) River to the Pacific." The eastern rail network was pretty well on its way to being completed by 1865, at least in the North.
Anyone read Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake? Test-tube meat sounds like one of the squirm-inducing ideas from that dystopic novel.
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