BARTLARDINOIS

Now, we have seen familiar project as this one. Take for example the Cultured Beef (2013) from Maastricht University. They made new flesh out of cow body cells. So what does this mean? Are we desperately searching for new was to procreate? Are we looking for ways so we can all become vegetarians? Or have we just run out of invention for our basic needs and has creativity run out of hand? Whatever the cause may be, I think it’s amazing. The future is already here.

“If you have garbage, call me and let’s see what we can build.” It’s the end of an unbelievable Ted-talk I saw last week from Andrew Pelling. Since he was young he had a curiosity for garbage, especially for CD-rom drives. He has always been looking for useful things in what others may find useless. And then this happened.

 

So he started a lab where he and some others, are just playing with (mostly electronic) garbage. They don’t want to solve particular problems and they are not looking for ways to cure diseases. They are just playing. And that is what brings out the creativity he thinks. So while they made useful stuff out of garbage, scientist got interested in their lab. One day Pelling thought: “Could I treat biology like hardware?” He took an apple and put human cells in it. The cells started growing and the cells of the apple made place for human cells. So then someone asked him: “So you can make body parts out of apples?” And then it happened. He asked his wife to carve out some human ears out of apples, he put human cells in it and the result was amazing. The cells started growing and the apple turned in to human cell structure. So, they are not completely there yet, but who knows it the start of a whole new source for curing diseases and growing body parts.

EARS OUT OF APPLES