Can Cultured Meat Save the Planet?
Lab-grown meat in a Petri dish and test tube.
In September, California governor Jerry Brown signed a bill mandating that by 2045, all of California's electricity will come from clean power sources. Technological breakthroughs in producing electricity from sun and wind, as well as lowering the cost of battery storage, have played a major role in persuading Californian legislators that this goal is realistic.
Even if the world were to move to an entirely clean power supply, one major source of greenhouse gas emissions would continue to grow: meat.
James Robo, the CEO of the Fortune 200 company NextEra Energy, has predicted that by the early 2020s, electricity from solar farms and giant wind turbines will be cheaper than the operating costs of coal-fired power plants, even when the cost of storage is included.
Can we therefore all breathe a sigh of relief, because technology will save us from catastrophic climate change? Not yet. Even if the world were to move to an entirely clean power supply, and use that clean power to charge up an all-electric fleet of cars, buses and trucks, one major source of greenhouse gas emissions would continue to grow: meat.
The livestock industry now accounts for about 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, roughly the same as the emissions from the tailpipes of all the world's vehicles. But whereas vehicle emissions can be expected to decline as hybrids and electric vehicles proliferate, global meat consumption is forecast to be 76 percent greater in 2050 than it has been in recent years. Most of that growth will come from Asia, especially China, where increasing prosperity has led to an increasing demand for meat.
Changing Climate, Changing Diets, a report from the London-based Royal Institute of International Affairs, indicates the threat posed by meat production. At the UN climate change conference held in Cancun in 2010, the participating countries agreed that to allow global temperatures to rise more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels would be to run an unacceptable risk of catastrophe. Beyond that limit, feedback loops will take effect, causing still more warming. For example, the thawing Siberian permafrost will release large quantities of methane, causing yet more warming and releasing yet more methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas that, ton for ton, warms the planet 30 times as much as carbon dioxide.
The quantity of greenhouse gases we can put into the atmosphere between now and mid-century without heating up the planet beyond 2°C – known as the "carbon budget" -- is shrinking steadily. The growing demand for meat means, however, that emissions from the livestock industry will continue to rise, and will absorb an increasing share of this remaining carbon budget. This will, according to Changing Climate, Changing Diets, make it "extremely difficult" to limit the temperature rise to 2°C.
One reason why eating meat produces more greenhouse gases than getting the same food value from plants is that we use fossil fuels to grow grains and soybeans and feed them to animals. The animals use most of the energy in the plant food for themselves, moving, breathing, and keeping their bodies warm. That leaves only a small fraction for us to eat, and so we have to grow several times the quantity of grains and soybeans that we would need if we ate plant foods ourselves. The other important factor is the methane produced by ruminants – mainly cattle and sheep – as part of their digestive process. Surprisingly, that makes grass-fed beef even worse for our climate than beef from animals fattened in a feedlot. Cattle fed on grass put on weight more slowly than cattle fed on corn and soybeans, and therefore do burp and fart more methane, per kilogram of flesh they produce.
Richard Branson has suggested that in 30 years, we will look back on the present era and be shocked that we killed animals en masse for food.
If technology can give us clean power, can it also give us clean meat? That term is already in use, by advocates of growing meat at the cellular level. They use it, not to make the parallel with clean energy, but to emphasize that meat from live animals is dirty, because live animals shit. Bacteria from the animals' guts and shit often contaminates the meat. With meat cultured from cells grown in a bioreactor, there is no live animal, no shit, and no bacteria from a digestive system to get mixed into the meat. There is also no methane. Nor is there a living animal to keep warm, move around, or grow body parts that we do not eat. Hence producing meat in this way would be much more efficient, and much cleaner, in the environmental sense, than producing meat from animals.
There are now many startups working on bringing clean meat to market. Plant-based products that have the texture and taste of meat, like the "Impossible Burger" and the "Beyond Burger" are already available in restaurants and supermarkets. Clean hamburger meat, fish, dairy, and other animal products are all being produced without raising and slaughtering a living animal. The price is not yet competitive with animal products, but it is coming down rapidly. Just this week, leading officials from the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have been meeting to discuss how to regulate the expected production and sale of meat produced by this method.
When Kodak, which once dominated the sale and processing of photographic film, decided to treat digital photography as a threat rather than an opportunity, it signed its own death warrant. Tyson Foods and Cargill, two of the world's biggest meat producers, are not making the same mistake. They are investing in companies seeking to produce meat without raising animals. Justin Whitmore, Tyson's executive vice-president, said, "We don't want to be disrupted. We want to be part of the disruption."
That's a brave stance for a company that has made its fortune from raising and killing tens of billions of animals, but it is also an acknowledgement that when new technologies create products that people want, they cannot be resisted. Richard Branson, who has invested in the biotech company Memphis Meats, has suggested that in 30 years, we will look back on the present era and be shocked that we killed animals en masse for food. If that happens, technology will have made possible the greatest ethical step forward in the history of our species, saving the planet and eliminating the vast quantity of suffering that industrial farming is now inflicting on animals.
A woman receives a mammogram, which can detect the presence of tumors in a patient's breast.
When a patient is diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer, having surgery to remove the tumor is considered the standard of care. But what happens when a patient can’t have surgery?
Whether it’s due to high blood pressure, advanced age, heart issues, or other reasons, some breast cancer patients don’t qualify for a lumpectomy—one of the most common treatment options for early-stage breast cancer. A lumpectomy surgically removes the tumor while keeping the patient’s breast intact, while a mastectomy removes the entire breast and nearby lymph nodes.
Fortunately, a new technique called cryoablation is now available for breast cancer patients who either aren’t candidates for surgery or don’t feel comfortable undergoing a surgical procedure. With cryoablation, doctors use an ultrasound or CT scan to locate any tumors inside the patient’s breast. They then insert small, needle-like probes into the patient's breast which create an “ice ball” that surrounds the tumor and kills the cancer cells.
Cryoablation has been used for decades to treat cancers of the kidneys and liver—but only in the past few years have doctors been able to use the procedure to treat breast cancer patients. And while clinical trials have shown that cryoablation works for tumors smaller than 1.5 centimeters, a recent clinical trial at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York has shown that it can work for larger tumors, too.
In this study, doctors performed cryoablation on patients whose tumors were, on average, 2.5 centimeters. The cryoablation procedure lasted for about 30 minutes, and patients were able to go home on the same day following treatment. Doctors then followed up with the patients after 16 months. In the follow-up, doctors found the recurrence rate for tumors after using cryoablation was only 10 percent.
For patients who don’t qualify for surgery, radiation and hormonal therapy is typically used to treat tumors. However, said Yolanda Brice, M.D., an interventional radiologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, “when treated with only radiation and hormonal therapy, the tumors will eventually return.” Cryotherapy, Brice said, could be a more effective way to treat cancer for patients who can’t have surgery.
“The fact that we only saw a 10 percent recurrence rate in our study is incredibly promising,” she said.
Urinary tract infections account for more than 8 million trips to the doctor each year.
Few things are more painful than a urinary tract infection (UTI). Common in men and women, these infections account for more than 8 million trips to the doctor each year and can cause an array of uncomfortable symptoms, from a burning feeling during urination to fever, vomiting, and chills. For an unlucky few, UTIs can be chronic—meaning that, despite treatment, they just keep coming back.
But new research, presented at the European Association of Urology (EAU) Congress in Paris this week, brings some hope to people who suffer from UTIs.
Clinicians from the Royal Berkshire Hospital presented the results of a long-term, nine-year clinical trial where 89 men and women who suffered from recurrent UTIs were given an oral vaccine called MV140, designed to prevent the infections. Every day for three months, the participants were given two sprays of the vaccine (flavored to taste like pineapple) and then followed over the course of nine years. Clinicians analyzed medical records and asked the study participants about symptoms to check whether any experienced UTIs or had any adverse reactions from taking the vaccine.
The results showed that across nine years, 48 of the participants (about 54%) remained completely infection-free. On average, the study participants remained infection free for 54.7 months—four and a half years.
“While we need to be pragmatic, this vaccine is a potential breakthrough in preventing UTIs and could offer a safe and effective alternative to conventional treatments,” said Gernot Bonita, Professor of Urology at the Alta Bro Medical Centre for Urology in Switzerland, who is also the EAU Chairman of Guidelines on Urological Infections.
The news comes as a relief not only for people who suffer chronic UTIs, but also to doctors who have seen an uptick in antibiotic-resistant UTIs in the past several years. Because UTIs usually require antibiotics, patients run the risk of developing a resistance to the antibiotics, making infections more difficult to treat. A preventative vaccine could mean less infections, less antibiotics, and less drug resistance overall.
“Many of our participants told us that having the vaccine restored their quality of life,” said Dr. Bob Yang, Consultant Urologist at the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, who helped lead the research. “While we’re yet to look at the effect of this vaccine in different patient groups, this follow-up data suggests it could be a game-changer for UTI prevention if it’s offered widely, reducing the need for antibiotic treatments.”