20130803

Cows in the corner



I don't know if you can even see the animals in the upper left corner. Perhaps you can make out some flecks of brown and white. For shots like these I do miss my old power-zoom point-and-shoot.

There are these bits of land around Villigen that are used to pasture animals during the summer months. I should try to find out more about how the system works.

Today's side topic is lab-grown meat. I quote from The Independent newspaper (link) in the UK, to describe how it came about:
... the culmination of years of work by Mark Post, a medical physiologist at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. 
And about the points in favor of the stuff:
One assessment, published in 2011 by scientists from Oxford University, estimated that cultured meat uses far less energy than most other forms, apart from chicken, and some 45 per cent less energy than beef, the most environmentally destructive meat.
They also found that synthetic meat needs 99 per cent less land than livestock, between 82 and 96 per cent less water, and produces between 78 and 95 per cent less greenhouse gas. In terms of relative environmental damage, there was no contest. 
I think the greatest challenge will be to get people to eat it. But for the sake of the world, I hope something will change in the meat business.

20130720 e-p2

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