Somehow, I don’t think the question is whether or not lab-grown meat will ever make it to the supermarket. Rather, the question I think of first is whether or not people would actually buy it and eat it if it did.
Why meat from a petri dish is still a long way from the supermarket: arst.ch/rl7 by @j_timmer—
Ars Technica (@arstechnica) November 14, 2011
First of its kind Dashi Noodle Bar opens in Bellingham dlvr.it/nd4Tp—
Bellingham Buzz (@bellinghambuzz) September 29, 2011
What do you get when you cross an artist from Melbourne, Australia with a banana and the Buddhist concept of impermanence?
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Via Geekosystem:
When most of us are confronted with a ripe banana, we either turn it into banana bread or send it hurtling toward the trash, but Australian artist Jun Gil Park turns your run-of-the-mill banana into astounding works of art by drawing on the fruits with a toothpick. Park uses a standard toothpick to scratch pictures on the skin of bananas; the harder he presses the darker the bruise on the fruit becomes. After about five minutes, the oxidation will start to show, and after a day or two it will become pretty dark, contrasted against the fruit’s yellow skin.
These are some seriously cool bananas, with a lifespan that falls somewhere between a sand mandala and the works of Andy Goldsworthy.
Whether or not the artist intended these works to evoke the transient nature of all things, they certainly strike me as a powerful reminder to avoid attachment to the material world.
It’s been quite some time since I did a Stuff We Don’t Need installment, for reasons I can’t quite explain. I come across stuff we don’t need all the time, but for some reason this one really jumped out at me today.
While I get the idea behind the to-go coffee lid you see here to the right…
Via Gizmodo:
Coffee from your favorite donut shop has a problem. It doesn’t taste as good as it should because the lid traps in the wonderful aroma. Taste is 95% smell, so you’re really missing out.
Mint Urban Technologies has a solution for this sensory shortcoming. It’s designed the Aroma Lid, a new cover that’s infused with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. When you take a sip, you smell and taste a wonderful, full-bodied brew.
…I look at this thing and I think:
So, you know, as I wrote yesterday, just two nights ago I recited the Bodhisattva Vows, which includes the line:
A disciple of Buddha does not intentionally or maliciously kill, and cherishes all life.
Well, I guess I felt like I didn’t have enough ancient twisted karma in my life, so I agreed to go on what may prove to be the most unusual road trip of my life, the main objective of which is to free dive for abalone in the chilly Pacific Ocean waters off the coast of Mendocino, California.
Now, you might say, “Wow, I guess you really must love abalone!” Or, you might even ask, “What the hell IS abalone?”
Well, that rock-looking thing you see in the photo above is an abalone, a marine gastropod mollusk, an edible sea snail, actually, and, the inside of its shell, used for jewelry and inlay on guitars, looks like this:
Also, I’m told, once the insides are pounded for tenderizing and cooked in a particular way, they are one of the most delicious things a human could ever ingest.
Do I particularly like shellfish?
Well, no, not really.
Do I like putting on a wetsuit and diving without an oxygen supply in cold water, fighting the pull of the tide to keep from getting smashed onto the rocky shore?
No, not especially.
Oh, but did I mention that the diving is really just the excuse for a two-day, two-night, all-guy camping and party extravaganza, with legendary music jam sessions around a campfire?
It’s a two-day drive, with a stop in southern Oregon, there and back, and I’ll be on day two of the drive a week from today.
So, will this abalone dive involve the very intentional or malicious killing that, as a disciple of Buddha, I vowed to to refrain from?
Probably.
And yet, when I consider that I will actually be risking my own life in order to take the life of a faceless creature that I will eat for sustenance, the equation gets a little fuzzy.
