We've written about lab-grown meat before on Neatorama, but that holy grail for carnivores that love the taste of burnt flesh yet squeamish about killing animals is one step closer to reality, thanks to Prof Mark Post of Maastricht University:
Prof Post is using cells called myosatellites - a form of muscle stem cell that is normally used by the body to repair damaged muscle.
Myosatellite cells can be extracted from a mature animal without killing it and have numerous advantages. Firstly, they are "one way" cells, in the sense that they can only become muscle cells.
Secondly, as the muscle cells proliferate they have an innate tendency to organise into muscle fibres. All that Prof Post has to do to form a strip of muscle is provide anchor points for the fibres to grow around, and the muscle forms by itself. "It's a bit like magic," he said.