#49:
the time/money/energy saved by putting untold thousands out of work would more then cover the increased energy costs or whatever else would make vat grown meat expensive.

You sure about that? You are basically arguing that methods for producing animal cells in a totally artificial enviroment are cheaper/less energy intensive/less labor intensive than producing animal cells in an animal which has evolved for millions of years to do just that. I find that highly unlikely.

To grow cells, you need:
A temperature, humidity and atmosphere-controlled incubator
Compressed CO2 gas
gobs of antibiotics
Culture medium.

DMEM, a common culture medium includes highly purified
CaCl2
Fe(NO3).9H2O
KCl
MgSO4
NaCl
Na2HPO4.H2O2
D-Glucose
Phenol red
Sodium Pyruvate
L-Arginine.HCl
L-Cystine.2HCl
L-Glutamine
Glycine
L-HistidineHCl.H2O
L-Isoleucine
L-Leucine
L-Lysine.HCl
L-Methionine
L-Phenylalanine
L-Serine
L-Threonine
L-Tryptophan
L-Tyrosine.2Na.2H2O
L-Valine
D-Ca Pantothenate
Choline Chloride
Folic Acid
i-Inositol
Niacinamide
Riboflavin
Thiamine HCl
Pyndoxine HCl

The inorganic salts will presumably be synthesized from components that are mined. The vitamins and amino acids will be synthesized or purified from animals.

That's just to get a simple mass of cells. If you want something palatable, it will require more technical refinements.

I'm willing to bet that pound for pound, vat-meat will be more labor intensive and more damaging to the environment than even the worst corn-fed feedlot beef.

I'm with #23. Euthanize means to kill as painlessly as possible, so in the context of a mass of fibroblasts, it is completely meaningless.

re: #43, In addition to the fetal calf serum, cultured cells require constant levels of antibiotics to prevent mold and bacteria taking over the culture. The culture medium generally includes defined concentrations of highly purified inorganic salts, amino acids, etc which are not trivial to produce.

Even if it were feasible to grow vat-meat, it would be much, much more environmentally friendly to buy grass fed beef or free-range chicken from your local farmer's market.

I think I'll stick with real live hickory trees and a bird feeder outside my window. Grumble, grumble, Fake windows... hell in a handbasket, etc. *shuffles off to read Last Child in the Woods and Biophilia

Getting back to the book...

I managed to score one of the ARCs that PNH gave away. For some reason, I've always bounced off Doctorow's fiction that I've read online. I assumed it was his writing style, but now I wonder if it was some effect of the format. I couldn't put Little Brother Down.

It reminded me a bit of a Heinlein juvenile with its competent, intelligent young protagonist, but Marcus is much less naive (regarding both women and life in general) than Heinlein's boy scouts. There's even a character (a journalist) who somewhat parallels the older mentors in the Heinlein juvies.

The other book that has something of the same flavor is one of my favorites: Steven Gould's Jumper. As in Jumper Doctorow's character fights the government, but Doctorow's villains are significantly more vicious. I can't imagine Marcus becoming friends with his tormentor in a sequel.

The didactic content of the book is handled well, and infodumps aren't objectionable or two obvious. However, too much Neal Stephenson may have blunted my sensitivity to infodumps.

I wanted to stand up an applaud when Marcus, presumably echoing Doctorow's viewpoint, argued with a despicable teacher regarding the Bill of Rights.

One word of warning if you are considering the book for a young teenager who is not your child: Marcus and his girlfriend have sex, and while Doctorow draws a veil across the finale, the foreplay is fairly explicit. It's not more explicit than things I read at age 13, but it may be more explicit than what my parents wanted me to be reading. Parental guidance may be warranted.

Other than store clerks counting the contents of a cash register, do many people here in the U.S. actually carry wads of cash large enough that they need to count the bills? My wallet usually doesn't contain more than $20, and quite often it's just a few 1-dollar bills plus a credit card.

The obvious solution to the aeration problem would be a sump hidden in the stand containing a wet-dry filter. However, the specs say it has a canister filter and an air pump. I suspect that the owner will have to exercise willpower not normally seen in aquarists and keep it understocked relative to a normal aquarium. Either way, if the power goes out for any length of time, the fish may go to the big pond in the sky.

And those lower segments would be bad for any of the many aquarium fish (e.g. Corydoras, labyrinth fish) that want access to air. Looks kind of cool, not a very good choice for animal welfare.

Miss Dreadful:

When I was a kid (in the early 80s), I carried a garter snake across the Atlantic in my hand luggage. At the time, the flight attendant just told me not to let it out on the plane. I guess if a 10-year-old kid tried that now, they'd probably tase him and add him to the no fly list..

Yes, when I think of the Garden of Eden, bedraggled giant rats are the first things that spring to mind.

A couple of years ago, I dropped my wallet while on vacation in Miami. At the time, I didn't have a cell phone. A kid found the wallet, took it home, and gave it to his mother. She called my workplace in another state, using a phone number in the wallet. Co-workers gave her my hotel phone number, and I was reunited with my wallet, including the all-important photo ID without which I wouldn't have been able to fly home.

I really doubt that a cop would have taken the time and effort to track me down, so I'm glad she didn't turn the wallet in to the police.

"Kerr said at an October intelligence conference in San Antonio that he finds concerns that the government may be listening in odd when people are ``perfectly willing for a green-card holder at an (Internet service provider) who may or may have not have been an illegal entrant to the United States to handle their data.''"

That's so idiotic. A Green Card is the final step before naturalization, at which point the person could get a job with US intelligence. If we can't trust Green Card holders, what makes Kerr think we can trust citizens?

And since when did the U.S. start handing out green cards to illegal immigrants?

Drowse #7:

People leave photos in the oddest places. I once found some fairly grotesque nude polaroids in 20 feet of water off the beach at Nice. I think someone was trying to dispose of them by tossing them off the rocks into the sea but didn't realize that a) the water is crystal clear, and b) those particular rocks were a favorite diving spot for the local kids.

One of the bacteria species that Kurtz is accused of illegally obtaining is Serratia marcescens. He probably could have grown a culture by swabbing around the bottom of his bathtub. If you ever see a pinkish stain where water collects in your sink or tub, that's almost certainly Serratia. I even find it in the cat's water bowl if I forget to wash it out every few days.

Presumably, he wanted to purchase a pure culture rather than risk culturing something nasty from the mixed population in his tub, so he is screwed for being careful.

Phasor3000:
a copy of the ATCC's MTA is here:
http://www.atcc.org/common/documents/mta/mta.cfm

I'd guess the "couple of devices you don't even want to know about" are bloodless castraters. Ewww.