Order Up! World’s First Test Tube Burger – The Daily Orbit

August 6, 2013

Test tube beef…it’s what’s for dinner!

Could a big breakfast lead to big losses on the scales?

Food producers are going Wonka.

And some smart bathroom humor on the Daily Orbit!

Hello and welcome to the Daily Orbit. I’m Emerald Robinson.

What’s the latest hot burger spot? The laboratory. The world’s first lab-grown burger was shown live yesterday on culturedbeef.net. Researchers took a bite out of their research, which is being developed as a possible food source to address the impending world hunger problem. To produce this “cultured beef,” scientists take a small sample of muscle tissue from a cow. They separate the muscle cells from the fat cells that make up muscle tissue, and the individual muscle cells are cultured and start dividing. From one muscle cell, more than one trillion cells can be grown. The cells naturally merge into strands called myotubes, where they’re placed in a nutrient solution where small strands of meat grow in a cylindrical tube around a hub of gel. This creates a strand of muscle tissue, which, when layered with other strands, creates beef! Sounds yummy, no? No. But the team is working to make it look as authentic and as appetizing as possible. One researcher said “if it doesn’t look like normal meat, if it doesn’t taste like normal meat, it’s not…going to be a viable replacement.” Amen to that sister!

Well, the thought of a looming food shortage seems unfathomable to some who feel like they are constantly losing the war against food to fight the bulge. And what are experts recommending? Eating more! But hold your horses—that’s just for breakfast. They say a balanced breakfast or a “big breakfast” at the start of each day can lead to efficient weight loss. The new study found that overweight and obese women who ate their highest calorie meal for breakfast lost more weight than those who ate a larger dinner—even though both groups consumed the same amount of calories daily. The big breakfast eaters also showed lower levels of the hunger hormone throughout the day, suggesting they were more satisfied and also exhibited lower levels of insulin, glucose, and triglycerides. Guess I’m going to have to start doing better than my typical coffee breakfast.

So after you eat that “big healthy breakfast,” you’re playing on your smartphone while sitting on your smart-toilet trying to pre-order a smart-watch when music starts playing, your deodorizer goes off, the toilet starts flushing over and over and the built-in lighting is going crazy—you’ve been hacked. A new report reveals the advanced technology in the Satis brand toilet can be hacked. Due to an easy to crack Bluetooth pin, the Android app associated with the uber-tech heavy, $5600 Satis- toilet can be hacked to give anyone who has the app access to any Satis toilet. So a hacker could raise or lower the lid, continually flush the toilet, or kick-in the built-in bidet. Who would do such a thing? Not I!

And researchers are sounding like they’re getting a little inspiration from Willy Wonka, which I watched last night—love that movie! Remember the gum that Violet chewed that turned from turkey dinner to turning her into a blueberry? Well, one food producer has grown a new grape variety that tastes like—get this—cotton candy! Growers are looking for a way to compete with the junk feed industry and get people a little closer to the fruit bowl than the cookie jar. Can we work on strawberries that taste like birthday cake? Sweets are my weakness.

And the Smithsonian Biology Institute recently celebrated the birth of a Przewalski (Cha-VAL-skee) horse giving hope to the species that was once thought to be extinct. After a 340-day gestation period, the mother mare named Anne gave birth to a foal that was actually seven years in the making, as scientists worked to understand the best way to inseminate a wild horse. Conservation efforts led to the reintroduction of these horses into the wild two decades ago and now more than 500 roam free. Though numbers are increasing of these rare and endangered horses by natural means, the limited number of mares and stallions in the wild could lead to inbreeding. Scientists hope that artificial insemination will help diversify the population. They’re not horsing around!

And that’s all for the Daily Orbit. See you tomorrow!

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