title: Shortfin mako shark

text: Of all studied sharks, the shortfin mako has one of the largest brain-to-body ratios. This large brain size prompted New Zealand Sealife Australia and New Zealand senior curator Craig Thorburn of Auckland, New Zealand, and film-maker Mike Bhana to investigate the intelligence of the shortfin mako. From tests involving shape differentiation to electroreception tests and individual recognition, Isuru Somawardana and his team of shark experts discovered shortfin mako are fast-learning sharks, able to determine whether or not the researchers were threatening. The sharks involved in the study (while never the same individuals) after initial caution showed unique and novel behaviors, such as refusing to roll back their eyes during feeding and allowing themselves to be briefly restrained and touched while being offered bait. Shortfin mako also do not rely on electroreception when hunting, unlike the great white shark, based on tests involving wired fiberglass fish designed to emit weak electrical signals resembling real fish of similar size. Instead, they rely on smell, hearing, and most prominently, vision. The results of this research were featured on a documentary presented by Shark Week in 1999 called "Mako: Swift, Smart & Deadly".


title: Shortfin mako shark

text: Mako fishing is a prominent activity around the world. As one of the fastest species in the water they offer acrobatic flips, fast runs, and heavy fights that entertain anglers. Traditionally, the sharks are hooked through the use of chum and baitcasters; however, fly fishing for them has become more popular, particularly in San Diego, where one of the three known worldwide mako rookeries is located. A cottage industry of fishing in this rookery has emerged, specifically catch and release with charter operations out of Mission Bay. For many years the mass commercial boats hunted them for restaurant catch, but through the efforts of many local fishing companies and national organizations such as Orvis, this has been curbed.


title: Shortfin mako shark

text: Of all recorded attempts to keep pelagic shark species in captivity, the shortfin mako shark has fared the poorest, even more so than the oceanic whitetip shark, the blue shark, and the great white shark. At SeaWorld San Diego, a shortfin mako shark ability test failed in the early 1970s. In the summer of 1978, two mako sharks caught off the coast of San Diego failed to evade the wall and both died within three days. The current record is held by a specimen kept at the New Jersey Aquarium for only five days in 2001. Like past attempts at keeping "Isurus" in captivity, the animal appeared strong on arrival, but had trouble negotiating the walls of the aquarium, refused to feed, quickly weakened, and died.


title: Shortfin mako shark

text: ISAF statistics records 9 shortfin attacks on humans between 1580 and 2022, three of which were fatal, along with 20 boat attacks. This mako is regularly blamed for attacks on humans and, due to its speed, power, and size, it is certainly capable of injuring and killing people. However, this species will not generally attack humans and does not seem to treat them as prey. Most modern attacks involving shortfin mako sharks are considered to have been provoked due to harassment or the shark being caught on a fishing line. Sharks can be attracted to spear fishermen carrying a stuck fish, and may slap them with cavitation bubbles from a swift tail flick. Divers who have encountered shortfin mako note, prior to an attack, they swim in a figure-eight pattern and approach with mouths open.


title: Shortfin mako shark

text: The shortfin mako is currently classified as Endangered by the IUCN, having been uplisted from Vulnerable in 2019 and Near-Threatened in 2007. The species is included on Appendix II of CITES which regulates international trade. The species is being targeted by both sport and commercial fisheries, and there is a substantial proportion of bycatch in driftnet fisheries for other species. In June 2018, the New Zealand Department of Conservation classified the shortfin mako shark as "Not Threatened" with the qualifier "Uncertain whether Secure Overseas" under the New Zealand Threat Classification System. In 2019, the shortfin mako was reclassified by the IUCN from being listed as "Vulnerable" to "Endangered" after a review of 58 elasmobranch species.


title: The Breakers

text: The Breakers is a Gilded Age mansion located at 44 Ochre Point Avenue, Newport, Rhode Island, US. It was built between 1893 and 1895 as a summer residence for Cornelius Vanderbilt II, a member of the wealthy Vanderbilt family.


title: The Breakers

text: The 70-room mansion, with a gross area of and of living area on five floors, was designed by Richard Morris Hunt in the Renaissance Revival style; the interior decor was by Jules Allard and Sons and Ogden Codman Jr.


title: The Breakers

text: The Ochre Point Avenue entrance is marked by sculpted iron gates, and the walkway gates are part of a limestone-and-iron fence that borders the property on all but the ocean side. The footprint of the house covers approximately or 43,000 square feet of the estate on the cliffs overlooking Easton Bay of the Atlantic Ocean.


title: The Breakers

text: The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1994. It is also a contributing property to the Bellevue Avenue Historic District. The property is owned and operated by the Newport Preservation Society as a museum and is open for visits all year.


title: The Breakers

text: Cornelius Vanderbilt II purchased the grounds in 1885 for $450,000 ($ million today). The previous mansion on the property was owned by Pierre Lorillard IV; it burned on November 25, 1892, and Vanderbilt commissioned famed architect Richard Morris Hunt to rebuild it in splendor. Vanderbilt insisted that the building be made as fireproof as possible, so the structure of the building used steel trusses and no wooden parts. He even required that the boiler be located away from the house in an underground space below the front lawn.


title: The Breakers

text: The designers created an interior using marble imported from Italy and Africa, and rare woods and mosaics from countries around the world. It also included architectural elements purchased from chateaux in France, such as the library mantel. Expansion was finally finished in 1892.


title: The Breakers

text: The Breakers is the architectural and social archetype of the "Gilded Age," a period when members of the Vanderbilt family were among the major industrialists of America. It was the largest, most opulent house in the Newport area upon its completion in 1895.


title: The Breakers

text: Vanderbilt died from a cerebral hemorrhage caused by a stroke in 1899 at age 55, leaving The Breakers to his wife Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt. She outlived him by 35 years and died at the age of 89 in 1934. She left The Breakers to her youngest daughter Countess Gladys Széchenyi (1886–1965), essentially because Gladys lacked American property; in addition, none of her other children were interested in the property, while Gladys had always loved the estate.


title: The Breakers

text: In 1948, Gladys leased the high-maintenance property to The Preservation Society of Newport County for $1 per year. The Preservation Society bought The Breakers and approximately 90% of its furnishings in 1972 for $365,000 ($ million today) from Countess Sylvia Szapary, Gladys' daughter, although the agreement granted her life tenancy. Upon her death in 1998, The Preservation Society agreed to allow the family to continue to live on the third floor, which is not open to the public.


title: The Breakers

text: It is now the most-visited attraction in Rhode Island, with approximately 450,000 visitors annually as of 2017.


title: The Breakers

text: The pea-gravel driveway is lined with maturing pin oaks and red maples. The trees of The Breakers' grounds act as screens that increase the sense of distance between The Breakers and its Newport neighbors. Among the more unusual imported trees are two examples of the Blue Atlas Cedar, a native of North Africa. Clipped hedges of Japanese yew and Pfitzer juniper line the tree-shaded footpaths that meander about the grounds. Informal plantings of arbor vitae, taxus, Chinese juniper, and dwarf hemlock provide attractive foregrounds for the walls that enclose the formally landscaped terrace.


title: The Breakers

text: The grounds also contain several varieties of other rare trees, copper and weeping beeches. These were hand-selected by Ernest W. Bowditch, a landscape architect and civil engineer based in the Boston area. Bowditch's original pattern for the south parterre garden was determined from old photographs and laid out in pink and white alyssum and blue ageratum. The wide borders paralleling the wrought iron fence are planted with rhododendrons, mountain laurel, dogwoods, and many other flowering shrubs that effectively screen the grounds from street traffic and give visitors a feeling of seclusion.


title: The Breakers

text: The third floor contains eight bedrooms and a sitting room decorated in Louis XVI style walnut paneling by Ogden Codman. The north wing of the third-floor quarters were reserved for domestic servants. Using ceilings nearly , Richard Morris Hunt created two separate third floors to allow a mass aggregation of servant bed chambers. This was because of the configuration of the house, built in Italian Renaissance style, which included a pitched roof. Flat-roofed French classical houses built in the area at the time allowed a concealed wing for staff, whereas the Breakers' design did not permit this feature.


title: The Breakers

text: A total of 30 bedrooms are located in the two third-floor staff quarters. Three additional bedrooms for the butler, chef, and visiting valet are located on the mezzanine "entresol" floor, located between the first and second floor just to the rear of the main kitchen.


title: The Breakers

text: The attic floor contained more staff quarters, general storage areas, and the innovative cisterns. One smaller cistern supplied hydraulic pressure for the 1895 Otis elevator, still functioning in the house even though the house was wired for electricity in 1933. Two larger cisterns supplied fresh and salt water to the many bathrooms in the house.


title: The Breakers

text: Over the grand staircase is a stained glass skylight designed by artist John La Farge. Originally installed in the Vanderbilts' 1 West 57th Street (New York City) townhouse dining room, the skylight was removed in 1894 during an expansion of the house.


title: The Breakers

text: The Breakers is also a definitive expression of Beaux-Arts architecture in American domestic design by one of the country's most influential architects Richard Morris Hunt. The Breakers was Hunt's final project; it is also one of his few surviving works and is valuable for its rarity as well as its architectural excellence. The Breakers made Hunt the "dean of American architecture", as he was called by his contemporaries, and helped define the era in American life that Hunt helped to shape.


title: The Breakers

text: A debate developed when The Preservation Society of Newport County made plans to build a new welcome center within the property's garden. The Newport Zoning Board approved the welcome center in January 2015. On January 9, 2017, the Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled that the Newport Zoning Board of Review was the correct body to determine the permissibility of the project. The Welcome Center opened on June 14, 2018.


title: Cultured meat

text: Cultured meat (also known by other names) is meat produced by culturing animal cells "in vitro". It is a form of cellular agriculture.


title: Cultured meat

text: Cultured meat is produced using tissue engineering techniques pioneered in regenerative medicine. Jason Matheny popularized the concept in the early 2000s after he co-authored a paper on cultured meat production and created New Harvest, the world's first nonprofit organization dedicated to "in-vitro" meat research.


title: Cultured meat

text: Cultured meat has the potential to address the environmental impact of meat production, animal welfare, food security and human health. in addition to its potential mitigation of climate change.


title: Cultured meat

text: In 2013, Mark Post created a hamburger patty made from tissue grown outside of an animal. Since then, other cultured meat prototypes have gained media attention: SuperMeat opened a farm-to-fork restaurant called "The Chicken" in Tel Aviv to test consumer reaction to its "Chicken" burger, while the "world's first commercial sale of cell-cultured meat" occurred in December 2020 at Singapore restaurant 1880, where cultured meat manufactured by US firm Eat Just was sold.


title: Cultured meat

text: While most efforts focus on common meats such as pork, beef, and chicken which constitute the bulk of consumption in developed countries, companies such as Orbillion Bio focused on high end or unusual meats including elk, lamb, bison, and Wagyu beef. Avant Meats brought cultured grouper to market, while other companies pursued additional fish species and other seafood.


title: Cultured meat

text: The production process is constantly evolving, driven by companies and research institutions. The applications for cultured meat led to ethical, health, environmental, cultural, and economic discussions. Data published by the non-governmental organization Good Food Institute found that in 2021 cultivated meat companies attracted $140 million in Europe. Cultured meat is served at special events and a few high end restaurants. Mass production has not yet started.


title: Cultured meat

text: Besides "cultured meat", the terms healthy meat, slaughter-free meat, in vitro meat, vat-grown meat, lab-grown meat, cell-based meat, clean meat, cultivated meat and synthetic meat have been used to describe the product. "Artificial meat" is occasionally used, although that specific term has multiple definitions.


title: Cultured meat

text: Between 2016 and 2019, "clean meat" gained traction. The Good Food Institute (GFI) coined the term in 2016, and in late 2018, the institute published research claiming that use of "clean" better reflected the production process and benefits. By 2018 it had surpassed "cultured" and ""in vitro"" in media mentions and Google searches. Some industry stakeholders felt that the term unnecessarily tarnished conventional meat producers, continuing to prefer "cell-based meat" as a neutral alternative.


title: Cultured meat

text: In September 2019, GFI announced new research which found that the term "cultivated meat" is sufficiently descriptive and differentiating, possesses a high degree of neutrality, and ranks highly for consumer appeal. A September 2021 poll indicated that the majority of industry CEOs have a preference for "cultivated meat", with 75 percent of 44 companies preferring it.


title: Cultured meat

text: The theoretical possibility of growing meat in an industrial setting has long been of interest. In a 1931 essay published by various periodicals and later included in his work "Thoughts and Adventures", British statesman Winston Churchill wrote: "We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium."


title: Cultured meat

text: In the 1950s, Dutch researcher Willem van Eelen independently came up with the idea for cultured meat. As a prisoner of war during the Second World War, Van Eelen suffered from starvation, leaving him passionate about food production and food security. He attended a university lecture discussing the prospects of preserved meat. The earlier discovery of cell lines provided the basis for the idea.


title: Cultured meat

text: "In vitro" cultivation of muscle fibers was first performed successfully in 1971 when pathologist Russel Ross cultured guinea-pig aorta.


title: Cultured meat

text: In 1991, Jon F. Vein secured patent for the production of tissue-engineered meat for human consumption, wherein muscle and fat would be grown in an integrated fashion to create food products.


title: Cultured meat

text: In 2001, dermatologist Wiete Westerhof along with van Eelen and businessperson Willem van Kooten announced that they had filed for a worldwide patent on a process to produce cultured meat. The process empoyed a matrix of collagen seeded with muscle cells bathed in a nutritious solution and induced to divide.


title: Cultured meat

text: That same year, NASA began conducting cultured meat experiments, with the intent of allowing astronauts to grow meat instead of transporting it. In partnership with Morris Benjaminson, they cultivated goldfish and turkey.


title: Cultured meat

text: In 2003, Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr exhibited a few centimeters of "steak", grown from frog stem cells, which they cooked and ate. The goal was to start a conversation surrounding the ethics of cultured meat—"was it ever alive?", "was it ever killed?", "is it in any way disrespectful to an animal to throw it away?"


title: Cultured meat

text: In the early 2000s, American public health student Jason Matheny traveled to India and visited a factory chicken farm. He was appalled by the implications of this system. Matheny later teamed up with three scientists involved in NASA's efforts. In 2004, Matheny founded New Harvest to encourage development by funding research. In 2005 the four published the first peer-reviewed literature on the subject.


title: Cultured meat

text: In 2008, PETA offered a $1 million prize to the first company to bring cultured chicken meat to consumers by 2012. The contestant was required to complete two tasks to earn the prize:


title: Cultured meat

text: In 2008, the Dutch government invested $4 million into experiments regarding cultured meat. The In Vitro Meat Consortium, a group formed by international researchers, held the first international conference hosted by the Food Research Institute of Norway in April. "Time" magazine declared cultured meat production to be one of the 50 breakthrough ideas of 2009. In November 2009, scientists from the Netherlands announced they had managed to grow meat using cells from a live pig.


title: Cultured meat

text: The first cultured beef burger patty was created by Mark Post at Maastricht University in 2013. It was made from over 20,000 thin strands of muscle tissue, cost over $300,000 and needed 2 years to produce.


title: Cultured meat

text: The burger was tested on live television in London on 5 August 2013. It was cooked by chef Richard McGeown of Couch's Great House Restaurant, Polperro, Cornwall, and tasted by critics Hanni Rützler, a food researcher from the Future Food Studio, and Josh Schonwald. Rützler stated, "There is really a bite to it, there is quite some flavour with the browning. I know there is no fat in it so I didn't really know how juicy it would be, but there is quite some intense taste; it's close to meat, it's not that juicy, but the consistency is perfect. This is meat to me... It's really something to bite on and I think the look is quite similar." Rützler added that even in a blind trial she would have taken the product for meat rather than a soya copy.


title: Cultured meat

text: Between 2011 and 2017, many cultured meat startups were launched. Memphis Meats (now Upside Foods) launched a video in February 2016, showcasing its cultured beef meatball. In March 2017, it showcased chicken tenders and duck a l'orange, the first cultured poultry shown to the public.


title: Cultured meat

text: An Israeli company, SuperMeat, ran a crowdfunding campaign in 2016, for its work on cultured chicken.


title: Cultured meat

text: Finless Foods, a San Francisco-based company working on cultured fish, was founded in June 2016. In March 2017 it commenced laboratory operations.


title: Cultured meat

text: In March 2018, Eat Just (in 2011 founded as Hampton Creek in San Francisco, later known as Just, Inc.) claimed to be able to offer a consumer product from cultured meat by the end of 2018. According to CEO Josh Tetrick the technology was already there. JUST had about 130 employees and a research department of 55 scientists, where cultured meat from poultry, pork and beef was researched. JUST has received investments from Chinese billionaire Li Ka-shing, Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang and according to Tetrick also by Heineken International and others.


title: Cultured meat

text: Dutch startup Meatable, consisting of Krijn de Nood, Daan Luining, Ruud Out, Roger Pederson, Mark Kotter and Gordana Apic among others, reported in September 2018 that it had succeeded in growing meat using pluripotent stem cells from animal umbilical cords. Although such cells are reportedly difficult to work with, Meatable claimed to be able to direct them to behave to become muscle or fat cells as needed. The major advantage is that this technique bypasses fetal bovine serum, meaning that no animal has to be killed to produce meat. That month, an estimated 30 cultured meat startups operated across the world.


title: Cultured meat

text: Integriculture is a Japan-based company working on their CulNet system. Competitors included England based Multus Media and Canadian Future Fields.


title: Cultured meat

text: In August 2019, five American startups announced the formation of the Alliance for Meat, Poultry & Seafood Innovation (AMPS Innovation), a coalition seeking to work with regulators to create a pathway to market for cultured meat and seafood. The founding members include Eat Just, Memphis Meats, Finless Foods, BlueNalu, and Fork & Goode. Similarly in December 2021, a group of 13 European and Israeli companies (Aleph Farms, Bluu Biosciences, Cubiq Foods, Future Meat, Gourmey, Higher Steaks, Ivy Farm, Meatable, Mirai Foods, Mosa Meat, Peace of Meat, SuperMeat, and Vital Meat) established Cellular Agriculture Europe, a Belgium-based association that sought to 'find common ground and speak with a shared voice for the good of the industry, consumers, and regulators'.


title: Cultured meat

text: In 2019, the Foieture project was launched in Belgium with the goal of developing cultured foie gras (the name is a portmanteau of 'foie' and 'future') by a consortium of 3 companies (cultured-meat startup Peace of Meat, small meat-seasoning company Solina, and small pâté-producing company Nauta) and 3 non-profit institutes (university KU Leuven, food industry innovation centre Flanders Food, and Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant). Peace of Meat stated in December 2019 that it intended to complete its proof of concept in 2020, to produce its first prototype in 2022, and to go to market in 2023. That month, the Foieture project received a research grant of almost 3.6 million euros from the Innovation and Enterprise Agency of the Flemish Government. In May 2020, Peace of Meat's Austrian-born cofounder and scientific researcher Eva Sommer stated that the startup was then able to produce 20 grams of cultured fat at a cost of about 300 euros (€15,000/kg); the goal was to reduce the price to 6 euros per kilogram by 2030. Piece of Meat built two laboratories in the Port of Antwerp. In late 2020, MeaTech acquired Peace of Meat for 15 million euros, and announced in May 2021 that it would build a new large-scale pilot plant in Antwerp by 2022.


title: Cultured meat

text: In 2019, Aleph Farms collaborated with 3D Bioprinting Solutions to culture meat on the International Space Station. This was done by extruding meat cells onto a scaffold using a 3D printer.


title: Cultured meat

text: In January 2020, "Quartz" found around 30 cultured meat startups, and that Memphis Meats, Just Inc. and Future Meat Technologies were the most advanced because they were building pilot plants. According to "New Scientist" in May 2020, 60 start-ups were developing cultured meat. Some of these were technology suppliers. Growth media reportedly still cost "hundreds of dollars per litre, but for clean meat production to scale this needs to drop to around $1 a litre." In June 2020, Chinese government officials called for a national strategy to compete in cultured meat.


title: Cultured meat

text: In November 2020, Indian start-up Clear Meat claimed it had managed to cultivate chicken mince at the cost of only 800–850 Indian rupees (US$10.77–11.44), while a slaughtered processed chicken cost about 1000 rupees.


title: Cultured meat

text: In the European Union, novel foods such as cultured meat products have to go through a testing period of about 18 months during which a company must prove to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) that their product is safe.


title: Cultured meat

text: In November 2020, SuperMeat opened a 'test restaurant' in Ness Ziona, Israel, right next to its pilot plant; journalists, experts and a small number of consumers could book an appointment to taste the novel food there, while looking through a glass window into the production facility on the other side. The restaurant was not yet fully open to the public, because as of June 2021 SuperMeat still needed to wait for regulatory approval to start mass production for public consumption, and because the COVID-19 pandemic restricted restaurant operations.


title: Cultured meat

text: On 2 December 2020, the Singapore Food Agency approved the "chicken bites" produced by Eat Just for commercial sale. It marked the first time that a cultured meat product passed the safety review (which took 2 years) of a food regulator, and was widely regarded as a milestone for the industry. The chicken bits were scheduled for introduction in Singaporean restaurants. Restaurant "1880" became the first to serve cultured meat to customers on Saturday 19 December 2020.


title: Cultured meat

text: In March 2022, cultured meat producers had reached the level of attempting to gain regulatory approval from European Union supranational institutions coming just before mass goods could be sold to consumers.


title: Cultured meat

text: On April 27, 2022, the European Commission approved the request for the collection of signatures for the European Citizens' Initiative "End The Slaughter Age" to shift subsidies from animal husbandry to cellular agriculture.


title: Cultured meat

text: In addition to these companies, non-profit organisations such as New Harvest, the Good Food Institute, ProVeg International and the Cellular Agriculture Society advocate for, fund and research cultured meat.


title: Cultured meat

text: Note: data in italics refer to unfinished projects or projected capacities in the future; they may shift.


title: Cultured meat

text: Cellular agriculture requires cell lines, generally stem cells. Stem cells are undifferentiated cells which have the potential to become many or all of the required kinds of specialized cell types. Totipotent stem cells have the capacity to differentiate into all the different cell types found within the body. Pluripotent stem cells can mature into all cell types save those in the placenta, and multipotent stem cells can differentiate into several specialized cell types within one lineage. Unipotent stem cells can differentiate into one specific cell fate.


title: Cultured meat

text: While pluripotent stem cells would be an ideal source, the most prominent example of this subcategory is embryonic stem cells which—due to ethical issues—are controversial for use in research. As a result, scientists have developed induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)—essentially multipotent blood and skin cells that have been regressed to a pluripotent state enabling them to differentiate into a greater range of cells. The alternative is using multipotent adult stem cells that give rise to muscle cell lineages or unipotent progenitors which differentiate into muscle cells.


title: Cultured meat

text: Favourable characteristics of stem cells include immortality, proliferative ability, unreliance on adherence, serum independence and easy differentiation into tissue. However, the natural presence of such characteristics are likely to differ across cell species and origin. As such, "in vitro" cultivation must be adjusted to fill the exact needs of a specific cell line.


title: Cultured meat

text: The immortality issue is that cells have a limit on the number of times they can divide that is dictated by their telomere cap—supplementary nucleotide bases added to the end of their chromosomes. With each division, the telomere cap progressively shortens until nothing remains, at which time the cells cease to divide. Induced pluripotency can lengthen telomere cap such that the cells divide indefinitely.


title: Cultured meat

text: Cell lines can be collected from a primary source, i.e., through a biopsy on an animal under local anesthesia. They could also be established from secondary sources such as cryopreserved cultures (cultures frozen after previous research).


title: Cultured meat

text: Once cell lines are established, they are immersed in a culture media to induce them to proliferate. Culture media are typically formulated from basal media that provide cells with necessary carbohydrates, fats, proteins and salts. Once a cell consumes a sufficient amount, it divides and the population increases exponentially. Culture media can be supplemented with additives—for instance sera—that supply additional growth factors. Growth factors can be secreted proteins or steroids that are crucial in regulating cellular processes.


title: Cultured meat

text: Once differentiation begins, muscle fibres begin to contract and generate lactic acid. Cells' ability to absorb nutrients and proliferate in part depends on the pH of their environment. As lactic acid accumulates within the media, the environment will become progressively more acidic and falls below the optimal pH. As a result, culture media must be frequently refreshed. This helps refresh the concentration of nutrients from the basal media.


title: Cultured meat

text: In the case of structured meat products—products that are characterized by their overall configuration as well as cell type—cells must be seeded to scaffolds. Scaffolds are essentially molds meant to reflect and encourage the cells to organize into a larger structure. When cells develop "in vivo", they are influenced by their interactions with the extracellular matrix (ECM). The ECM is the 3-dimensional mesh of glycoproteins, collagen and enzymes responsible for transmitting mechanical and biochemical cues to the cell. Scaffolds need to simulate the characteristics of the ECM. Key properties:


title: Cultured meat

text: Pores are minute openings on the surface of the scaffold. They can be created on the surface of the biomaterial in order to release cellular components that could interfere with tissue development. They also help diffuse gas and nutrients to the innermost layers of adherent cells, preventing a "necrotic center" from forming. A necrotic centeris a phenomenon in which cells that are not in direct contact with the culture medium die from a lack of nutrients).


title: Cultured meat

text: Vascular tissue found in plants contains the organs responsible for internally transporting fluids. It forms natural topographies that provide a low cost way to promote cell alignment by replicating the natural physiological state of myoblasts. It may also help with gas and nutrient exchange.


title: Cultured meat

text: A scaffold's biochemical properties should be similar to those of the ECM. It must facilitate cell adhesion through textural qualities or chemical bonding. Additionally, it must produce the chemical cues that encourage cell differentiation. Alternatively, the material should be able to blend with other substances which have these functional qualities.


title: Cultured meat

text: The degree of a material's crystallinity determines qualities such as rigidity. High crystallinity can be attributed to hydrogen bonding which in turn increases thermal stability, tensile strength (important for maintaining the scaffold's shape), water retention (important for hydrating the cells) and Young's modulus.


title: Cultured meat

text: Certain materials degrade into compounds that are beneficial to cells, although this degradation can also be irrelevant or detrimental. Degradation allows easy removal of the scaffold from the finished product leaving only animal tissue—thereby increasing its resemblance to "in vivo" meat. This degradation can be induced by exposure to certain enzymes which do not impact the muscle tissue.


title: Cultured meat

text: If scaffolds are unable to be removed from the animal tissue, they must be edible to ensure consumer safety. It would be beneficial if they were to be made out of nutritious ingredients.


title: Cultured meat

text: Since 2010, academic research groups and companies have emerged in order to identify raw materials that have the characteristics of suitable scaffolds.


title: Cultured meat

text: Cellulose is the most abundant polymer in nature and provides the exoskeletons of plant leaves. Due to its abundance, it can be obtained at a relatively low cost. It is also versatile and biocompatible. Through a process called "decellularization", it is coated in a surfactant that creates pores. These pores release the plant's cellular components, and it becomes decellularized plant tissue. This material has been extensively studied by the Pelling and Gaudette Groups at University of Ottawa and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, respectively. Through cross-linking (forming covalent bonds between individual polymer chains to hold them together) the plant tissue's mechanical properties can be changed so that it more closely resembles muscle tissue. This can also be done by blending plant tissue with other materials. On the other hand, decellularized plant tissue typically lacks mammalian biochemical cues, so it needs to be coated with compensatory functional proteins. C2C12 growth was not shown to change significantly between the bare scaffold and the same scaffold with a coating of collagen or gelatin proteins, however seeding efficiency (rate at which cells attach to the scaffold) improved. An advantage of decellularized plant tissue is the natural topography afforded by the leaf vasculature. This helps replicate the natural physiological state of the myoblasts which promotes cell alignment. The other ways of doing this are usually quite a bit more expensive including 3d printing, soft lithography and photolithography. Vascularization can also help overcome the 100–200 nm diffusion limit of culture medium into cells that usually produce necrotic centres in muscle conglomerates. Another way to do this is by having a porous scaffold which supports angiogenesis (the development of new blood vessels). While this has been shown to work for Apple Hypanthium, not all plants are nearly as porous. The alternative to plant cellulose is bacterial cellulose which is typically more pure than plant cellulose as it is free from contaminants such as lignin and hemicellulose. Bacterial cellulose has more hydrogen bonding between its polymer strands and so it has greater crystallinity. It also has smaller microfibrils that allow it to retain more moisture and have smaller pores. The substance can be produced using waste carbohydrates (which may allow it to be produced less expensively) and it adds juiciness and chewiness to emulsified meat (which would mean that even if it can't be taken out of the final product, it will contribute to the texture profile).


title: Cultured meat

text: Chitin is nature's second most abundant polymer. It is found in the exoskeletons of crustaceans and fungi. As cellular agriculture is attempting to end reliance on animals, chitin derived from fungi is of greater interest. It has mostly been studied by Pelling Group. Chitosan is derived from chitin in a process known as alkaline deacetylation (substituting out certain amino acid groups). The degree of this process determines the physical and chemical properties of the chitosan. Chitosan has antibacterial properties; in particular, it has bactericidal effects on planktonic bacteria and biofilms and a bacteria static effects on gram negative bacteria such as "E. coli". This is important as it neutralizes potentially harmful compounds without using antibiotics, which many consumers avoid. Chitosan's resemblance to glycosaminoglycans and internal interactions between glycoproteins and proteoglycans make it highly biocompatible. It can easily blend with other polymers in order to select for more bioactive factors. One potential disadvantage of chitosan is that it degrades in the presence of lysozymes (naturally occurring enzymes). But, this can be resisted using deacetylation. This is not entirely negative, as the byproducts produced through degradation have anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties. It is important to match the level that cells rely on the matrix for structure with degradation.


title: Cultured meat

text: Collagen is a family of proteins that makes up the primary structure of human connective tissue. It is typically derived from bovine, porcine and murine sources. Cellular agriculture overcomes this dependency through the use of transgenic organisms that are capable of producing the amino acid repeats that make up the collagen. Collagen naturally exists as collagen type I. It has been produced as porous hydrogels, composites and substrates with topographical cues and biochemical properties. Synthetic kinds of collagen have been produced through recombinant protein production—collagen type II and III, tropoelastin and fibronectin. One challenge with these proteins is that they can not be modified post translation. However, an alternative fibrillar protein has been isolated in microbes that lack collagen's biochemical cues, but has its kind of gene customizability. One focus of recombinant collagen production is yield optimization—how it can be produced most effectively. Plants, in particular, tobacco look like the best option, however, bacteria and yeast are also viable alternatives.


title: Cultured meat

text: Textured soy protein is a soy flour product often used in plant-based meat that supports the growth of bovine cells. Its spongy texture enables efficient cell seeding and its porosity encourages oxygen transfer. Additionally, it degrades during cell differentiation into compounds that are beneficial to certain cells.


title: Cultured meat

text: Mycelium are the roots of mushrooms. Altast Foods Co. is using solid state fermentation to grow mushroom tissue on mycelium scaffolds. They harvest this tissue and use it to create bacon analogs.


title: Cultured meat

text: Nanomaterials exhibit unique properties at the nanoscale. London-based Biomimetic Solutions is leveraging nanomaterials in order to create scaffolds.


title: Cultured meat

text: Cass Materials in Perth, Australia is using a dietary fibre called Nata de Coco (derived from coconuts) to create nanocellulose sponges for their BNC scaffold. Nata de Coco is biocompatible, has high porosity, facilitates cell adhesion and is biodegradable.


title: Cultured meat

text: Immersion Jet Spinning is a method of creating scaffolds by spinning polymers into fibres, It was developed by the Parker Group at Harvard. Their platform uses centrifugal force to extrude a polymer solution through an opening in a rotating reservoir. During extrusion, the solution forms a jet that elongates and aligns as it crosses the air gap. The jet is directed into a vortex-controlled precipitation bath that chemically cross links or precipitates polymer nanofibers. Adjusting air gap, rotation and the solution changes the diameter of the resulting fibres. This method can spin scaffolds out of PPTA, nylon, DNA and nanofiber sheets. A nanofibrous scaffold made from alginate and gelatin was able to support the growth of C2C12 cells. Rabbit and bovine aortic smooth muscle myoblasts were able to adhere to the gelatin fibres. They formed aggregates on shorter fibres, and aligned tissue on the longer ones.


title: Cultured meat

text: Matrix Meats is using electrospinning—a process that uses electric force to turn charged polymers into fibres for scaffolds. Their scaffolds allowed meat marbling, are compatible with multiple cell lines, and are scalable.


title: Cultured meat

text: Another proposed way of structuring muscle tissue is additive manufacturing. Such a technique was perfected for industrial applications in manufacturing objects made out of plastic, nylon, metal, glass and other synthetic materials. The most common variation of the process involves incrementally depositing a filament in layers onto a bed until the object is completed. This method will most likely lend itself best to the application of cultured meat as opposed to other types such as binder jetting, material jetting or stereolithography that require a specific kind of resin or powder.


title: Cultured meat

text: A filament of muscle cells can be printed into a structure meant to resemble a finished meat product which can then be further processed for cell maturation. This technique has been demonstrated in a collaboration between 3D bioprinting solutions and Aleph Farms that used additive manufacturing to structure turkey cells on the International Space Station.


title: Cultured meat

text: 3D bioprinting has been used to produce steak-like cultured meat, composed of three types of bovine cell fibers and with a structure of assembled of cell fibers that is similar to original meat.<ref name="10.1038/s41467-021-25236-9"></ref>


title: Cultured meat

text: Scaffolds are placed inside bioreactors so that cell growth and specialization can occur. Bioreactors are large machines similar to brewery tanks which expose the cells to a large variety of environmental factors that are necessary to promote either proliferation or differentiation. The temperature of the bioreactor must replicate "in vivo" conditions. In the case of mammalian cells, this requires heating to 37 °C (99 °F). Alternatively, insect cells can be grown at room temperature. Most bioreactors are maintained at 5% carbon dioxide.


title: Cultured meat

text: Cells can be cultivated in either in continuous or fed-batch systems. The former entails inoculating and harvesting cells in a constant process so that there are always cells in the bioreactor. Fed-batch systems mean inoculating the cells, culturing them and harvesting them in a single period.


title: Cultured meat

text: Stirred tank bioreactors are the most widely used configuration. An impeller increases the flow, thereby homogenizing the culture media and a diffuser facilitates the exchange of oxygen into the media. This system is generally used for suspended cultures but can be used for cells that require attachment to another surface if microcarriers are included. Fixed bed bioreactors are commonly used for adherent cultures. They feature strips of fibres that are packed together to form a bed to which cells can attach. Aerated culture media is circulated through the bed. In airlift bioreactors, the culture media is aerated into a gaseous form using air bubbles which are then scattered and dispersed amongst the cells. Perfusion bioreactors are common configurations for continuous cultivation. They continuously drain media saturated with lactic acid that is void of nutrients and fill it with replenished media.


title: Cultured meat

text: The culture media is an essential component of "in vitro" cultivation. It is responsible for providing the macromolecules, nutrients and growth factors necessary for cell proliferation. Sourcing growth factors is one of the most challenging tasks of cellular agriculture. Traditionally, it involves the use of fetal bovine serum (FBS) which is a blood product extracted from fetal cows. Besides the argument that its production is unethical, it is also vitiates the independence of the use of animals. It is also the most costly constituent of cultured meat, priced at around $1000 per litre. Furthermore, chemical composition varies greatly depending on the animal, so it cannot be uniformly quantified chemically. FBS is employed because it conveniently mimics the process of muscle development "in vivo". The growth factors needed for tissue development are predominantly provided through an animal's bloodstream, and no other known fluid can single-handedly deliver all these components.


title: Cultured meat

text: The current alternative is to generate each growth factor individually using recombinant protein production. In this process, the genes coding for the specific factor are integrated into bacteria which are then fermented. However, due to the added complexity of this process, it is particularly expensive. Future Fields, a Canadian company focused on overcoming the economic and environmental costs of traditional growth media, is developing serum-free growth factors from fruit flies.


title: Cultured meat

text: The ideal medium would be chemically quantifiable and accessible to ensure simplicity in production, cheap and not dependent on animals. It will most likely be derived from plants and while this may reduce the possibility of transmitting infectious agents, it may induce allergic reactions in some consumers. Such culture sera may also require modifications specific to the cell line to which it is applied. Companies currently invested in developing effective plant based culture includes Multus Media and Biftek.


title: Cultured meat

text: The Good Food Institute (GFI) put out a report in 2019 in support of the concept that cell-based "meat" could be produced at the same cost as ground beef and in 2021 they commissioned a report from CE Delft on the Techno-Economic Analysis of cultivated meat.


title: Cultured meat

text: Another approach is to subject the cell lines to a magnetic field, which stimulates the release of molecules that have regenerative, metabolic, anti-inflammatory and immunity-boosting properties, eliminating the need for serum.


title: Cultured meat

text: A common challenge to bioreactors and scaffolds is developing system configurations that enable all cells to gain exposure to culture media while simultaneously optimizing spatial requirements. In the cell proliferation phase, prior to the introduction of the scaffold, many cell types need to be attached to a surface to support growth. As such, cells must be grown in confluent monolayers only one cell thick which necessitates a lot of surface area. This poses practical challenges on large scales. As such, systems may incorporate microcarriers—small spherical beads of glass or other compatible material that are suspended in the culture medium. Cells adhere to these microcarriers as they would to the sides of the bioreactor, which increases the amount of surface area.


title: Cultured meat

text: In the cell differentiation phase, the cells may be seeded to a scaffold and so do not require the use of microcarriers. However, in these instances, the density of the cells on the scaffold means that not all cells have an interface with culture media, leading to cell death and necrotic centers within the meat. When muscle is cultivated "in vivo", this issue is circumvented as the extracellular matrix delivers nutrients into the muscle through blood vessels. As such, many emerging scaffolds aim to replicate such networks.


title: Cultured meat

text: Similarly, scaffolds must simulate many of the other characteristics of the extracellular matrix, most notably porosity, crystallinity, degradation, biocompatibility and functionality. Few materials that emulate all these characteristics have been identified, leading to the possibility of blending different materials with complementary properties.


title: Cultured meat

text: Cellular agriculture research does not have a significant basis of academic interest or funding streams. Consequently, the majority of research has been undertaken and funded by independent institutions. However, this is incrementally changing as not for profits drive support and interest. Notably, New Harvest has a fellowship program to support graduate students and groups at various academic institutions. Also, a growing number of governments are funding research in cellular agriculture. In August 2020, the Grant Management Services of the European Commission awarded a €2.5 million grant to ORF Genetics. In August 2020, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry granted Integriculture $2.2 million through their New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization. The European Union’s Horizon 2020 R&D funding framework awarded a €2.7 million grant to a consortium led by BioTech Foods. In 2021, the Spanish government granted €3.7 million for Biotech Foods to investigate the potential health benefits of cellular agriculture. The National Science Foundation awarded a $3.55 million grant to a team of researchers at UC Davis for open-access cultured meat research. Non profits also drive support and interest in the field. Notably, New Harvest has a fellowship program to support the research of specific graduate students and groups at various academic institutions and the Good Food Institute funds open-access research through its Research Grant Program.


title: Cultured meat

text: Consumer acceptance of the product is critical. A study looking at acceptance of cultured meat in China, India, and the US "found high levels of acceptance of clean meat in the three most populous countries worldwide."


title: Cultured meat

text: Several potential factors of consumer acceptance of cultured meat have been identified. Healthiness, safety, nutritional characteristics, sustainability, taste, and lower price, are all contributing factors. One study found that the use of highly technical language to explain cultured meat led to significantly more negative public attitude towards the concept. Transparently communicating the science is important, but "oversharing" the wrong aspects of the product could draw unfavourable attention to safety concerns. Thus one of the challenges in how cultivated meat is marketed is striking the balance between transparency of the science behind it, but communicating it in a way that it does not evoke resistance. One study suggested that describing cultured meat in a way that emphasizes the final product rather than the production method was an effective way to improve acceptance. The role of nomenclature is also crucial. Although the 'lab-grown meat' portrayal of cultivated meat is favoured by media, it has been opposed by industry leaders as it seeds an innately unnatural image of cultivated meat in consumer's perceptions.


title: Cultured meat

text: The use of standardized descriptions would improve future research about consumer acceptance of cultured meat. Current studies have often reported drastically different rates of acceptance, despite similar survey populations. Lou Cooperhouse, CEO of BlueNalu, shared on the "Red to Green Podcast" that "cell-based" and "cell-cultured" were suitable terms to differentiate it from conventional meat whilst being clear about the process by which it was made. There also exists a challenge in how to use these descriptions in labelling. For example, in the United States there is no overarching federal legislation that regulates how cultured meat should be labeled for the consumer. While traditional meat producers are attempting to prevent cultured meat companies from using the term "meat," cultured meat producers argue that the word is necessary for consumer acceptance.


title: Cultured meat

text: Global market acceptance has not been assessed. Studies are attempting to determine the current levels of consumer acceptance and identify methods to improve this value. Clear answers are not available, although one recent study reported that consumers were willing to pay a premium for cultured meat.


title: Cultured meat

text: Low percentages of older adult populations have been reported to show acceptance for cultured meat. Green eating behavior, educational status, and food business, were cited as most important factors for this population.


title: Cultured meat

text: There is also a lack of studies relating the methods of producing cultured meat with its taste for the consuming public.


title: Cultured meat

text: Singapore became the first country in the world to approve cultured meat for sale in 2020. The Singapore Food Agency has published guidance on its requirements for the safety assessment of novel foods, including specific requirements on the information to be submitted for approval of cultivated meat products.


title: Cultured meat

text: Regulatory matters must also be sorted out. Prior to being available for sale, the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Canada require approved novel food applications. Additionally, the European Union requires that cultured animal products and production must prove safety, by an approved company application, as of 1 January 2018.


title: Cultured meat

text: Within the United States, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) have agreed to jointly regulate cultured meat. Under the agreement, the FDA oversees cell collection, cell banks, and cell growth and differentiation, while the USDA oversees the production and labeling of food products derived from the cells that are meant for human consumption. Several U.S. states, such as Missouri, South Carolina, and Washington, have passed legislation limiting the use of the term "meat" on cultured meat packaging.


title: Cultured meat

text: Large-scale production of cultured meat may or may not require artificial growth hormones to be added to the culture for meat production.


title: Cultured meat

text: As cultured meat is grown in a sterile environment, there is no need for antibiotics. Today, the widespread use of antibiotics in conventional agriculture is the main driver of antibiotic resistance in humans. According to the World Health Organization, antimicrobial resistance represents "an increasingly serious threat to global public health that requires action across all government sectors and society" – predicting up to 10 million deaths annually by 2050. Cultured meat could provide an effective solution to help mitigate this major risk to human health.


title: Cultured meat

text: Researchers have suggested that omega-3 fatty acids could be added to cultured meat as a health bonus. In a similar way, the omega-3 fatty acid content of conventional meat can be increased by altering what the animals are fed. Research is currently underway in Spain to develop cultivated meat with healthier fats, which could reduce cholesterol and the risk of colon cancer typically associated with red meat consumption. An issue of "Time" magazine suggested that the cell-cultured process may also decrease exposure of the meat to bacteria and disease.


title: Cultured meat

text: Due to the strictly controlled and predictable environment, cultured meat production has been compared to vertical farming. Some of its proponents have predicted that it will have similar benefits in terms of reducing exposure to dangerous chemicals like pesticides and fungicides, severe injuries, and wildlife.


title: Cultured meat

text: There is also a lack of research on the comparison on the health effects of production cultured meat with the industrial meat or the biologic organic meat ways of production.


title: Cultured meat

text: Although cultured meat consists of animal muscle cells, fat and support cells, as well as blood vessels, that are the same as in traditional meat, some consumers may find the high-tech production process unacceptable. Cultured meat has been described as fake or "Frankenmeat". On the other hand, cultured meat can be produced without the artificial hormones, antibiotics, steroids, medicine, and GMOs commonly used in factory farmed meat and seafood, though not used on organic biologic production.


title: Cultured meat

text: If a cultured meat product is different in appearance, taste, smell, texture, or other factors, it may not be commercially competitive with conventionally produced meat. The lack of bone and cardiovascular system is a disadvantage for dishes where these parts make appreciable culinary contributions. However, the lack of bones and/or blood may make many traditional meat preparations, such as buffalo wings, more palatable to some people. Furthermore, blood and bones could potentially be cultured in the future.


title: Cultured meat

text: Animal production for food is a major cause of air/water pollution and carbon emissions. Significant questions have been raised about whether the traditional industry can meet the rapidly increasing demands for meat. Cultured meat may provide an environmentally conscious alternative to traditional meat production.


title: Cultured meat

text: The environmental impacts of cultured meat are expected to be significantly lower than from animal husbandry. For every hectare that is used for vertical farming and/or cultured meat manufacturing, anywhere between 10 and 20 hectares of land may be returned to its natural state. Vertical farms (in addition to cultured meat facilities) could exploit methane digesters to generate a portion of its electrical needs. Methane digesters could be built on site to transform the organic waste generated at the facility into biogas which is generally composed of 65% methane. This biogas could be burned to generate electricity for the greenhouse or a series of bioreactors.


title: Cultured meat

text: One study reported that cultured meat was "potentially ... much more efficient and environmentally-friendly". It generated only 4% of greenhouse gas emissions, reduced the energy needs of meat production by up to 45%, and required only 2% of the land that the global meat/livestock industry does. In Tuomisto's life cycle analysis claimed that producing 1000 kg of meat conventionally requires "26–33 GJ energy, 367–521 m water, 190–230 m land, and emits 1900–2240 kg CO-eq GHG emissions". On the other hand, producing the same quantity of meat "in vitro" has "7–45% lower energy use... 78–96% lower GHG emissions, 99% lower land use, and 82–96% lower water use".


title: Cultured meat

text: The latest study by independent research firm CE Delft shows that—compared with conventional beef—cultured meat may cause up to 92% less greenhouse gas emissions if renewable energy is used in the production process, 93% less pollution, up to 95% less land use and 78% less water.


title: Cultured meat

text: Skeptic Margaret Mellon of the Union of Concerned Scientists speculates that the energy and fossil fuel requirements of large-scale cultured meat production may be more environmentally destructive than producing food off the land. However, S.L. Davis speculated that both vertical farming in urban areas and the activity of cultured meat facilities may cause relatively little harm to the wildlife that live around the facilities. Dickson Despommier speculated that natural resources may be spared from depletion due to vertical farming and cultured meat. One study reported that conventional farming kills ten wild animals per hectare each year.


title: Cultured meat

text: Techniques of genetic engineering, such as insertion, deletion, silencing, activation, or mutation of a gene, are not required to produce cultured meat. Cultured meat production allows the biological processes that normally occur within an animal to occur without the animal. Since cultured meat is grown in a controlled, artificial environment, some have commented that cultured meat more closely resembles hydroponic vegetables, rather than genetically modified vegetables.


title: Cultured meat

text: More research is underway on cultured meat, and although cultured meat does not require genetic engineering, researchers may employ such techniques to improve quality and sustainability. Fortifying cultured meat with nutrients such as beneficial fatty acids is one improvement that can be facilitated through genetic modification. The same improvement can be made without genetic modification, by manipulating the conditions of the culture medium. Genetic modification may be able to enhance muscle cell proliferation. The introduction of myogenic regulatory factors, growth factors, or other gene products into muscle cells may increase production over that of conventional meat.


title: Cultured meat

text: To avoid the use of any animal products, the use of photosynthetic algae and cyanobacteria has been proposed to produce the main ingredients for the culture media, as opposed to fetal bovine or horse serum. Some researchers propose that the ability of algae and cyanobacteria to produce ingredients for culture media can be improved with certain technologies, most likely not excluding genetic engineering.


title: Cultured meat

text: Australian bioethicist Julian Savulescu said, "Artificial meat stops cruelty to animals, is better for the environment, could be safer and more efficient, and even healthier. We have a moral obligation to support this kind of research. It gets the ethical two thumbs up." Animal welfare groups are generally in favor of cultured meat, because the culture process does not include a nervous system and therefore does not involve pain or infringement of rights. Reactions of vegetarians to cultured meat vary. Some feel the cultured meat presented to the public in August 2013 was not vegetarian because fetal bovine serum was used in the growth medium. However, since then, cultured meat has been grown with a medium that does not involve bovine serum. Philosopher Carlo Alvaro argues that the question of the morality of eating "in vitro" meat has been discussed only in terms of convenience. Alvaro proposes a virtue-oriented approach, suggesting that the determination to produce cultured meat stems from unvirtuous motives, i.e., "lack of temperance and misunderstanding of the role of food in human flourishing."


title: Cultured meat

text: Some have proposed independent inquiries into the standards, laws, and regulations for cultured meat.


title: Cultured meat

text: Just as with many other foods, cultured meat needs technically sophisticated production methods that may be difficult for some communities, meaning they would lack self-sufficiency and be dependent on global food corporations. However, some projects are focusing on making cell ag accessible to all. The open source cellular agriculture initiative Shojinmeat Project has for instance a bottom-up approach, teaching members of the project to cultivate DIY cultured meat at home.


title: Cultured meat

text: Establishing a similar parallel with cultured meat, some environmental activists claim that adopting a vegetarian diet may be a way of focusing on personal actions and righteous gestures rather than systemic change. Environmentalist Dave Riley states that "being meatless and guiltless seems seductively simple while environmental destruction rages around us", and notes that Mollison "insists that vegetarianism drives animals from the edible landscape so that their contribution to the food chain is lost".


title: Cultured meat

text: Jewish rabbinical authorities disagree whether cultured meat is kosher, meaning acceptable under Jewish law and practice. One factor is the nature of the animal from which the cells are sourced, whether it is a kosher or non-kosher species and whether, if the cells were taken from a dead animal, slaughter in accordance with religious practice had taken place prior to the extraction of cells. Most authorities agree that if the original cells were taken from a religiously slaughtered animal then the meat cultured from it will be kosher. Depending on the nature of the cells, it may be determined to be kosher even when taken from a live animal, and some have argued that it would be kosher even if coming from non-kosher animals such as pigs.


title: Cultured meat

text: Islamic dietary practices must also be considered. The Islamic Institute of Orange County, California, said, "There does not appear to be any objection to eating this type of cultured meat." In addition, Abdul Qahir Qamar of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy said that cultured meat "will not be considered meat from live animals, but will be cultured meat." As long as the cells are not from pigs, dogs, and other haram animals, the meat would be considered vegetative and "similar to yogurt and fermented pickles."


title: Cultured meat

text: Hinduism typically excludes the consumption of beef, such as steak and burgers. Chandra Kaushik, president of the Hindu Mahasabha, said about cultured beef that he would "not accept it being traded in a marketplace in any form or being used for a commercial purpose."


title: Cultured meat

text: Catholicism, which excludes eating meat in certain days along the year (Lent, Holy Week), has not pronounced on whether cultivated meat is banned (as it happens with meat) or not (as with any other food as vegetables or fish).


title: Cultured meat

text: At the moment, cultured meat is significantly more costly than conventional meat. However, in a March 2015 interview, Post said that the marginal cost of his team's original €250,000 burger was now €8.00. He estimated that technological advancements would allow the product to be cost-competitive to traditionally sourced beef in approximately ten years. In 2018, Memphis Meats reduced the cost of production to $1,700 per pound. In 2019, Eat Just said it cost about US$50 to produce one chicken nugget. The companys cultured chicken nuggets, now available at Singapore restaurant 1880, retail around US$17 as part of a set meal; however, this retail price is below cost. As of 2021, most companies report a production cost of $100 or more per meal-sized serving. A 2019 study estimated that, with current technology, the actual production cost of cultured meat was over $400,000 per kilogram. A 2022 study estimated that, if dramatic advances drove medium costs down to $3.74 per liter, large-scale production costs might optimistically fall to $63 per kilogram over the next few years. The main drivers of cost would be growth medium (accounting for $19.7/kg), labor ($17.7/kg), and bioreactor repairs ($5.47/kg). Competing with wholesale beef ($6/kg) would require reducing all three of these costs.


title: Cultured meat

text: A scientific paper published in "Front. Sustain. Food Syst." addresses the social and economic opportunities and challenges of cultured and plant-based meat for rural producers. According to this research, cellular agriculture offers "opportunities such as growing crops as ingredients for feedstock for cultured meat; raising animals for genetic material for cultured meat; producing cultured meat in bioreactors at the farm level; transitioning into new sectors; new market opportunities for blended and hybrid animal- and alt-meat products; and new value around regenerative or high-animal welfare farming." However, some challenges are also identified, with possible "loss of livelihood or income for ranchers and livestock producers and for farmers growing crops for animal feed; barriers to transitioning into emerging alt-meat sectors; and the possibility of exclusion from those sectors."


title: Cultured meat

text: Some farmers already see the potential of cellular agriculture. For instance, Illtud Dunsford comes from a long line of farmers in Wales and established his cultured meat company Cellular Agriculture Ltd in 2016.


title: Cultured meat

text: In 2015, Maastricht University hosted the first International Conference on Cultured Meat. New Harvest—a 501(c)(3) research institute—as well as The Good Food Institute host annual conferences to convene industry leaders, scientists, investors, and potential collaborators. The two organizations also fund public research and produce educational content. Organizations such as the Cellular Agriculture Society, Cellular Agriculture Canada, Cellular Agriculture France, Cellular Agriculture Australia and Cellular agriculture New Zealand were founded to advocate for cultured meat in their respective countries. Publications such as Cell Agri and the Protein Report have also emerged in order to provide updates concerning the technology and business within the field.


title: Cultured meat

text: Research continues on many fronts, including entomoculture, interactome maps of cardiac tissue, substrate design, scaffold design, nutritional profile, reaction kinetics, transport phenomena, mass transfer limitations and metabolic stoichiometric requirements, and bioprinting process.


title: Cultured meat

text: Multiple venture capital firms and accelerator/incubator programs focus on assisting cultured technology startups, or plant-based protein companies in general. The Big Idea Ventures (BIV) Venture Capital firm launched their New Protein Fund to invest in emerging cell and plant-based food companies in New York and Singapore. They invested in MeliBio, Actual Veggies, Biftek.co, Orbillion Bio, Yoconut, Evo, WildFor and Novel Farms. Indie Bio is a biology oriented accelerator program that has invested in Memphis Meats, Geltor, New Age Meats and Finless Foods.


title: Cultured meat

text: Cultured meat has often featured in science fiction. The earliest mention may be in "Two Planets" (1897) by Kurd Lasswitz, where "synthetic meat" is one of the varieties of synthetic food introduced on Earth by Martians. Other notable books mentioning artificial meat include "Ashes, Ashes" (1943) by René Barjavel; "The Space Merchants" (1952) by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth; "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" (1980) by Douglas Adams; "Le Transperceneige (Snowpiercer)" (1982) by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette; "Neuromancer" (1984) by William Gibson; "Oryx and Crake" (2003) by Margaret Atwood; "Deadstock" (2007) by Jeffrey Thomas; "Accelerando" (2005) by Charles Stross; "Ware Tetralogy" by Rudy Rucker; "Divergent" (2011) by Veronica Roth; and the Vorkosigan Saga (1986–2018) by Lois McMaster Bujold.


title: Cultured meat

text: In film, artificial meat has featured prominently in Giulio Questi's 1968 drama "La morte ha fatto l'uovo" ("Death Laid an Egg") and Claude Zidi's 1976 comedy "L'aile ou la cuisse" ("The Wing or the Thigh"). "Man-made" chickens also appear in David Lynch's 1977 surrealist horror, "Eraserhead". Most recently, it was also featured prominently as the central theme of the movie "Antiviral" (2012).


title: Cultured meat

text: The Starship "Enterprise" from the TV and movie franchise "Star Trek" apparently provides a synthetic meat, although crews from "The Next Generation" and later use replicators.


title: Cultured meat

text: In the ABC sitcom "Better Off Ted" (2009–2010), the episode "Heroes" features Phil (Jonathan Slavin) and Lem (Malcolm Barrett) trying to grow cowless beef.


title: Cultured meat

text: In the videogame "Project Eden", the player characters investigate a cultured meat company called Real Meat.


title: Cultured meat

text: In the movie "Galaxy Quest" during the dinner scene, Tim Allen's character refers to his steak tasting like "real Iowa beef".


title: Cultured meat

text: In "The Expanse" "vat-grown" meat is produced to feed the people who live on spaceships/space stations away from Earth, due to the exorbitant cost of importing real meat.


title: Cultured meat

text: In February 2014, a biotech startup called BiteLabs ran a campaign to generate popular support for artisanal salami made with meat cultured from celebrity tissue samples. The campaign became popular on Twitter, where users tweeted at celebrities asking them to donate muscle cells to the project. Media reactions to BiteLabs variously identified the startup as a satire on startup culture, celebrity culture, or as a discussion prompt on bioethical concerns. While BiteLabs claimed to be inspired by the success of Sergey Brin's burger, the company is seen as an example of critical design rather than an actual business venture.


title: Cultured meat

text: In late 2016, cultured meat was involved in a case in the episode "How The Sausage Is Made" of CBS show "Elementary".


title: Cultured meat

text: In the 2020 video game "Cyberpunk 2077", multiple cultured meat products are for sale, due to the high cost of natural meat. This includes "EEZYBEEF", made from "in vitro" cultured muscle cells taken from cattle, and the flatworm culture based "Orgiatic" which comes in several flavors.


title: Cultured meat

text: Acellular agriculture is producing animal products synthesized from non-living material. Such products include milk, honey, eggs, cheese, and gelatin which are made of various proteins rather than cells. These proteins must be fermented much like in recombinant protein production, alcohol brewing and the generation of many plant-based products like tofu, tempeh and sauerkraut.


title: Cultured meat

text: Proteins are coded for by specific genes, the genes coding for the protein of interest are synthesized into a plasmid—a closed loop of double helical genetic information. This plasmid, called recombinant DNA, is then inserted into a bacterial specimen. For this to happen, the bacteria needs to be competent (i.e. able to accept foreign, extracellular DNA) and able to horizontally transfer genes (i.e. integrate the foreign genes into its own DNA). Horizontal gene transfer is significantly more challenging in eukaryotic organisms than prokaryotic organisms because the former have both a cell membrane and a nuclear membrane which the plasmid needs to penetrate whereas prokaryotic organisms only have a cell membrane. For this reason, prokaryotic bacteria are often favoured. In order to make such a bacteria temporarily competent, it can be exposed to a salt such as calcium chloride, which neutralizes the negative charges on the cell membrane's phosphate heads as well as the negative charges on the plasmid to prevent the two from repelling. The bacteria can incubate in warm water, opening large pores on the cell surface through which the plasmid can enter.


title: Cultured meat

text: Next, the bacteria is fermented in sugar, which encourages it to grow and duplicate. In the process it expresses its DNA as well as the transferred plasmid resulting in protein.


title: Cultured meat

text: Finally, the solution is purified to separate out the residual protein. This can be done by introducing an antibody raised against the protein of interest that will kill bacteria cells that do not contain the protein. Through centrifugation, the solution can be spun around an axis with sufficient force to separate solids from liquids. Alternatively it could be soaked in a buffered ionic solution that employs osmosis to leach the water from bacteria and kill them.


title: 30 mm caliber

text: 30 mm caliber is a specific size of popular autocannon ammunition. Such ammunition includes NATO standard 30×113mmB and 30×173mm (STANAG 4624), Soviet 30×155mmB, 30×165mm, and 30×210mmB, Yugoslav 30×192mm, Anglo-Swiss 30×170mm, and Czechoslovak 30×210mm rounds which are widely used around the world.


title: 30 mm caliber

text: Thirty-millimeter ammunition is typically not used against personnel, but rather as an anti-materiel or armor-piercing round. Rounds of this size can be effective against lightly armored vehicles as well as fortified bunkers. It is also a popular caliber for shipboard close-in weapons systems, such as the Russian AK-630 and Dutch Goalkeeper CIWS.


title: 30 mm caliber

text: The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation use their 30 mm weapons in a variety of vehicles, including the Su-25 attack aircraft, Mi-24 helicopter, Mi-28 attack helicopter, Ka-50 attack helicopter, and the BMP-2, BMP-3, and BTR-90 infantry fighting vehicles. The most modern anti-aircraft gun systems in use by Russia are 30 mm. The U.S. military uses 30 mm weapons in their A-10 Thunderbolt II ground-attack aircraft , AC-130 gunship (AC-130W Stinger II and AC-130J Ghostrider variants), and AH-64 Apache attack helicopter. It was going to be used in the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle until the project was canceled.


title: 30 mm caliber

text: Thirty-millimeter ammunition generally comes in three varieties: armor-piercing (AP), high-explosive (HE), and target practice (TP) rounds. Both AP and HE cartridges commonly possess incendiary or tracer characteristics.


title: Bert and Ernie

text: Bert and Ernie are two Muppet characters who appear together in numerous skits on the long-running PBS/HBO children's television show, "Sesame Street". Originated by Frank Oz and Jim Henson, the characters are currently performed by puppeteers Eric Jacobson and Peter Linz; Oz performed Bert until 2006.


title: Bert and Ernie

text: Bert and Ernie were built by Don Sahlin from a simple design scribbled by Jim Henson, creator of "The Muppets". Initially, Henson performed Bert and Oz performed Ernie, but after just one day of rehearsal, they switched characters. The original idea was to show that even though two people can have totally different characteristics, they can still be good friends.


title: Bert and Ernie

text: According to writer Jon Stone, the relationship between Bert and Ernie reflected the real life friendship between Oz and Henson. Although their names are commonly believed to have been drawn from those of two minor characters in the Frank Capra film "It's A Wonderful Life", sources from within the "Sesame Street" production team suggest that the identical names were coincidental.


title: Bert and Ernie

text: According to A&E's "Biography", Bert and Ernie were virtually the only Muppets to appear in the "Sesame Street" pilot episode, which was screen-tested to a number of families in July 1969. Their brief appearance was the only part of the pilot that tested well, so it was decided that not only should Muppet characters be the "stars" of the show, but would also interact with the human characters, something that was not done in the pilot.


title: Bert and Ernie

text: An ordinary Bert and Ernie sketch involves Ernie coming up with a harebrained idea, and Bert trying to talk him out of it, usually getting him frustrated and Ernie dumbfounded. For example, if Ernie wanted to do something loud if Bert is doing something quiet like reading a book or the newspaper, Bert would teach him how to be quiet; however, Ernie would still make some noise, which would cause Bert to either lose his temper or leave the room.


title: Bert and Ernie

text: "Sesame Street Live" performer Taylor Morgan said in an interview that "I just kind of try to think like a six year old or a seven year old, because that's how old Bert is."


title: Bert and Ernie

text: Bert was initially performed by Frank Oz. Since 1997, Muppeteer Eric Jacobson has been phased in as Bert's primary performer after Oz retired from most of his Muppet duties to focus on directing. Bert is a “hand rod puppet", which means that while the puppeteer's right arm is inserted into Bert's head to control the mouth, the puppeteer's left hand uses rods to control the arms of the puppet. Bert has one large eyebrow, known as a unibrow.


title: Bert and Ernie

text: Ernie was originally performed by Jim Henson until his death in 1990. From 1993 to 2014, Muppeteer Steve Whitmire took on the role of Ernie. From 2014 to 2017, Billy Barkhurst took on the role of Ernie; currently, the character is performed by Peter Linz.


title: Bert and Ernie

text: Ernie is a "live hand puppet", meaning that while operating the head of the puppet with his right hand, the puppeteer inserts his left hand into a T shaped sleeve, capped off with a glove that matches the fabric "skin" of the puppet, thus "becoming" the left arm of the puppet. A second puppeteer usually provides the right arm.


title: Bert and Ernie

text: Ernie's performance of "Rubber Duckie," wherein he sings affectionately about his squeaking toy duck and the joy it brings him during bath time, became a modest mainstream hit, reaching No. 16 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in September 1970.


title: Bert and Ernie

text: Bert and Ernie are among a handful of "Sesame Street"-specific Muppets to also appear on "The Muppet Show", making occasional cameo appearances, such as at the end of "The Muppets Valentine Show", the pilot episode of 1974 for the series. While several other Muppets featured on "Sesame Street" such as Kermit the Frog would cross over into the other program, Bert and Ernie were primarily confined to the occasional cameo.


title: Bert and Ernie

text: Bert and Ernie live together in an apartment located in the basement of 123 Sesame Street. Despite sleeping in separate beds, they share the same bedroom, which has led to some speculation that they are a representation of a gay couple.


title: Bert and Ernie

text: This has repeatedly been denied by Sesame Workshop, and some of Bert's interactions with female characters do appear to show that he is attracted to women, like serenading Connie Stevens in the "Some Enchanted Evening" segment of a first-season episode of "The Muppet Show", and recording a song about his girlfriend, "I Want to Hold Your Ear", which was released on several albums.


title: Bert and Ernie

text: In July 2013, "The New Yorker" magazine chose an image of Bert and Ernie by artist Jack Hunter, titled "Moment of Joy", as the cover of their publication, which covers the Supreme Court decisions on the Defense of Marriage Act and California's . Sesame Workshop was reportedly so outraged by the idea that it was rumored to be considering the possibility of litigation.


title: Bert and Ernie

text: In September 2018, Mark Saltzman, one of the script and songwriters for "Sesame Street", alleged in an interview with "Queerty" that Bert and Ernie were analogues for his own intimate relationship with film editor Arnold Glassman, although he did not begin writing for "Sesame Street" until fifteen years after Bert's and Ernie's first appearance.


title: Bert and Ernie

text: Sesame Workshop responded by asserting that Bert and Ernie have no sexual orientations, because they are puppets. Frank Oz, who previously performed as Bert, stated Bert and Ernie were not gay, saying,


title: Bert and Ernie

text: The Gaystar News reported that fans reacted negatively to this assertion. Frank Oz later tweeted in September 2018,


title: Bert and Ernie

text: From March 30, 1997, to ca. 2002, the parody website "Bert is Evil" displayed Bert in a number of doctored photographs, implicating him in crimes ranging from the Assassination of John F. Kennedy to those of Jack the Ripper. A similar image from another source and featuring Bert conferring with Osama bin Laden was mistakenly included by a Bangladeshi print shop on a series of protest signs in October 2001 and 2002.


title: Bert and Ernie

text: The German comedy sketch series, "Freitag Nacht News" had a recurring sketch called "Bernie und Ert" created by Attik Kargar, who performed the puppets and supplied the voice of Bernie. Bernie and Ert are a parody of Ernie and Bert, and especially redubbed on "Sesamstrasse". The puppets had no nose, one eye each, and swapped hairstyles. Depicting them as a dysfunctional gay couple of petty criminals (Bernie being a promiscuous bisexual), each sketch focused on typically adult themes such as crime, drug abuse, masturbation, and Friday the 13th. In February 2003, "Bernie and Ert" were dropped from the series because of legal concerns; however, older episodes circulate on the internet.


title: Bert and Ernie

text: Bernie and Ert also appeared in a "Freitag Nacht News" sequence called "Bullzeye" in a sketch called "Popo Club". Bernie and Ert both wore black masks and leather jackets, disguised as Unknown No. 1 and Unknown No. 2 respectively, with another character named Winfred, propagating bizarre sexual practices. This skit became popular that it resulted in more skits called "Popo Club" featuring Unknowns No. 1 and 2, with occasional appearances by Winfred.


title: Bert and Ernie

text: The musical "Avenue Q", an adult-oriented parody of "Sesame Street", features a pair of characters named Rod (performed by John Tartaglia) and Nicky (performed by Rick Lyon), who are parodies of Bert and Ernie, respectively. Rod is a conservative investment banker and closeted homosexual, while Nicky is his slacker roommate who suspects that Rod may be gay.


title: Bert and Ernie

text: The film "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946) includes a taxi driver named Ernie and a policeman named Bert. Jerry Juhl, a writer on many Henson projects, said that the film did not influence the creation of these two Muppets: "Despite his many talents, Jim had no memory for details like this. He knew the movie, of course, but would not have remembered the cop and the cabdriver."


title: Bert and Ernie

text: The special by "Sesame Street", "Elmo Saves Christmas", refers to the coincidence: in the special, "It's a Wonderful Life" plays on television continuously and, near the end, the Muppets Bert and Ernie walk by the television set and stop short when they hear their names mentioned in the movie.


title: Bert and Ernie

text: In the pilot episode of "Eerie, Indiana", which aired in 1991, Marshal and Simon are subtly asked for help by a pair of twin brothers named Bertram and Ernest (called Bert and Ernie for short), because their mother has forced them to sleep every night in her "Forever Ware" containers, thus having kept them at age twelve for over thirty years. This could allude to the fact Bert and Ernie have not aged in all the years that "Sesame Street" has aired.


title: Bert and Ernie

text: In April 2013, a pair of high energy neutrinos detected at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, possibly of extragalactic origin, were nicknamed "Bert" and "Ernie". The British soap opera "EastEnders" has confirmed that characters Bert and Ernie Moon are named after the Muppets.


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (album)

text: Oops!... I Did It Again is the second studio album by American pop singer Britney Spears, released on May 3, 2000, through Jive Records. Though much in the vein of her debut album "...Baby One More Time" (1999), a pop, dance-pop, and teen pop record, the album incorporates more funkier sounds. Contributions to the album's production came from a wide range of producers, including Max Martin, Rami Yacoub, Per Magnusson, David Kreuger, Kristian Lundin, Jake Schulze, Darkchild, and Robert John "Mutt" Lange.


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (album)

text: Upon its release, "Oops!... I Did It Again" received positive reviews from music critics, who praised its production, sonic quality, and Spears's vocal performance. The album became a massive commercial success, debuting at number one in over fifteen countries while peaking inside the top ten in various others. In the United States, it debuted at number one on the " Billboard" 200, with first-week sales of 1.319 million copies, becoming the fastest-selling album by a female artist since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking point-of-sale music purchases in 1991. This record was broken fifteen years later by Adele's "25", which sold over 3.38 million copies in its first week of release. It became Spears's second consecutive album to be certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America, denoting sales of over ten million copies in the United States, making Spears at age 18 the youngest artist to have multiple diamond albums. With worldwide sales of over 20 million copies, "Oops!... I Did It Again" is one of the best-selling albums of all-time.


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (album)

text: Four singles were released to promote the album. Its title track was commercially successful in a number of territories, reaching number one in fifteen countries and peaking at number nine on the US "Billboard" Hot 100. Its second single, "Lucky", peaked at number one in Austria, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland, within the top ten in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Romania, and the United Kingdom, and at number 23 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100. Its third single, "Stronger", reached the top ten in Austria, Finland, Germany, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, and peaked at number 11 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100. "Stronger" became the highest-selling single off the album, receiving a gold certification in Australia, Denmark, Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, and the United States. Its final single, "Don't Let Me Be the Last to Know", was moderately successful on the charts, peaking at number one in Romania, and within the top ten in Austria, Poland, and Switzerland, but failed to chart on the US "Billboard" Hot 100. To promote the album, Spears performed on several television shows and award ceremonies, including a controversial performance at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards. She also was the host and musical guest for the first time on "Saturday Night Live". Furthermore, Spears embarked on a concert tour, entitled the Oops!... I Did It Again Tour, starting on June 20, 2000 and ending at the Rock in Rio festival on January 18, 2001.


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (album)

text: After vacationing for six days following the completion of the ...Baby One More Time Tour in September 1999, Spears returned to New York City to begin recording songs for her next album; the majority of the recording took place in November. It featured contributions from Max Martin, Eric Foster White, Diane Warren, Robert Lange, Steve Lunt, and Babyface. The songs "Oops!... I Did It Again", "Walk on By" (later covered by Gareth Gates), "What U See (Is What U Get)", and "Don't Go Knockin' on My Door" were the first to be recorded at Martin's Cheiron Studios in the first week of November; followed by "Stronger" and "Lucky", which were finalized (along with the title track) in January 2000. Spears recorded "Don't Let Me Be the Last to Know" at Robert Lange's villa in Switzerland in December 1999; Lange produced the song. "Where Are You Now" was an outtake from "...Baby One More Time". "Girl in the Mirror" and "Can't Make You Love Me"'s instrumental track and melody were recorded in the fall of 1999 in Sweden, with Spears recording the vocals in mid-January at Parc Studios in Orlando, Florida. Spears returned to New York, linking up with producer Steve Lunt to record Diane Warren's "When Your Eyes Say It" at Battery Studios on Friday, January 28, 2000, which preceded her "TRL" appearance that day. "One Kiss from You" was also recorded at Battery Studios but was later finished at 3rd Floor in New York City. Spears also recorded the last track for the album "Dear Diary" which would later be completed at East Bay Recording in Tarrytown, New York and at Avatar Studios in New York City. Another song recorded during these sessions was "Heart". Her cover of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" was recorded with Rodney Jerkins at Pacifique Recording Studios in Hollywood, California during February 24–26, 2000 after attending the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards.


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (album)

text: By January, the then-untitled album was halfway to completion; Spears had worked on it primarily in the United States and Sweden, and finalized material in New York City. She was heavily pressured after "...Baby One More Time"s huge commercial success, stating: "It's kind of hard following ten million, I have to say. But after listening to the new material and recording it, I'm really confident with it." Upon the release of "Oops!...I Did It Again", Spears said: "I mean, of course there's some pressure", and added: "But in my opinion, ["Oops!"] is a lot better than the first album. It's edgier – it has more of an attitude. It's more me, and I think teenagers will relate to it more." Geoff Mayfield, director of "Billboard" charts, added that the decision to release "Oops!... I Did It Again" less than a year and a half after Spears's debut amounts to "very smart timing. My philosophy is when you have a young fan base, get 'em while they're hot."


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (album)

text: "Oops!... I Did It Again" was considered as a sequel to Spears's debut album, "...Baby One More Time" (1999), percolating with a carefully measured blend of familiar pop, funk, R&B and power balladry. Spears said during an interview that the album has a more mature, R&B-flavored pop sound. "It's not something I changed purposefully", Spears said of the album's sound and added: "It's just something that kind of changed on itself with me being older. My voice has changed a little bit and I'm more confident, and I think that comes across on the material." One of its producers, Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins talked about working with Spears on a Rolling Stones cover, stating: "It's going to shock everybody", adding: "It has flavors of the original, but it's a straight 2000 version — new to the ear. Which I think is cool, because people who appreciate that song are going to love it. And I made it so new and young that the young kids that love Britney are going to love it. It's going to grab both a mature and young audience." Spears worked with Robert "Mutt" Lange on "Don't Let Me Be the Last to Know", telling MTV News: "When you hear the song, it's so pure and delicate. It's just one of those songs that pull you in", and added: "I think they wrote it 'specially for me, because the lyrics of the song, if you really listen … they're more of what I can relate to, 'cause they're kind of young lyrics, I think. I don't think Shania would probably sing some of the words that I'm saying."


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (album)

text: The title track and opening song, "Oops!... I Did It Again", was compared to her debut single, "...Baby One More Time" (1998), featuring a slap-and-pop bassline, synthesizer chord stabs and a mechanized beat. Lyrically, the song sees Spears warning to an overeager prospective lover: "Oops, you think I'm in love/That I'm sent from above — I'm not that innocent." The song also breaks down for a spoken-word interlude, involving a line from the film "Titanic" (1997). The second track "Stronger" is a synthpop and R&B-infused track, which is lyrically a declaration of independence, where Spears leaves a partner who treats her like property. The line "my loneliness ain't killing me no more" makes reference to the verse "my loneliness is killing me" from her song "...Baby One More Time". Another R&B-infused track, which also adds a bit more funk to the mix, "Don't Go Knocking on My Door" finds Spears confidently forging ahead after a breakup. The fourth track, a cover of the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", begins with mushy guitar plucking and breathy coos, until a dry, crackling lockstep is thrown down, turning the song into an urban stomp. The dance-pop version also jettisons the song's final verse and adds some new lyrics ("how white my shirts could be" becomes "how tight my skirt should be"). "[It] was my idea [to record the song]", Spears said. "I was just like, 'I like this song,' and I think it will be a really cool combination working with [hip-hop producer] Rodney [Jerkins] and doing a really funky song like that." The fifth track, "Don't Let Me Be the Last to Know", was co-written by country-pop singer-songwriter Shania Twain and her then-husband, producer Robert "Mutt" Lange, who also produced the track. The ballad, which boasts a slinky keyboard riff and Lange's characteristically lavish production, finds Spears allowing a bit of country twang into her vocals as she begs a lover to reveal his feelings: "My friends say you're into me ... but I need to hear it straight from you", she sings.


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (album)

text: The sixth track "What U See (Is What U Get)" demands respect by rebuking a jealous partner, while the seventh track, "Lucky", is a heart-rending tale of a Hollywood starlet's loneliness, proving that fame can be empty. "If there's nothing missing in my life/Then why do these tears come at night?", she asks. "School crush" is the theme of "One Kiss from You", a track that has a reggae-style beat and lyrics about the feelings of falling in love, and the quickness of it, with Spears cooing that after only one kiss she sees her entire future with her lover. The ballad "Where Are You Now" talks about wanting to know where a previous love is, and what that person is up to, so that she can finally let them go and find closure. Lines on "Can't Make You Love Me", a Europop song, state that fancy cars and money pale in comparison to true love, with Spears singing: "I'm just a girl with a crush on you." The mid-tempo, synth-backed "When Your Eyes Say It", written by songwriter Diane Warren, combines a string section with a loping hip hop beat, while Spears makes her own songwriting debut on the modest, keyboard-driven ballad "Dear Diary", which she said is autobiographical. On the track, she sings of wanting to become "so much more than friends" with a boy.


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (album)

text: In late 1999, Spears promoted then-upcoming "Oops!... I Did It Again" in Europe, appearing on "Smash Hits" in the United Kingdom. In Italy, she did a short interview on the television show "TRL Italy" in early 2000. In Australia, Spears appeared on "Russell Gilbert Live" and "The House of Hits". In the United States, Spears embarked on her (You Drive Me) Crazy Tour on March 8; the tour ended with a free concert in Honolulu, Hawaii on April 24, which aired on Fox as a television special titled "Britney Spears in Hawaii".


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (album)

text: In Japan, Spears had a press event at Kokusai Forum Hall in Tokyo on May 2, and "Oops!... I Did It Again" was released the following day. Spears gave a surprise performance in Paris on May 6. In the US, Spears was interviewed on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" on May 10, hosted and performed on "Saturday Night Live" on May 13, and appeared on "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" on May 15. On May 14, she appeared at MTV's Times Square studios for two hours of "Britney Live", and held her post-"Total Request Live" listening party titled "Britney's First Listen" on May 16, the day "Oops!... I Did It Again" was released in the US. She also performed on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" on May 23, and appeared on "Teen People"'s 25 Under 25 on May 26.


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (album)

text: Spears performed "Oops!... I Did It Again" and "Lucky" on MTV's "All Access: Backstage with Britney", which aired on July 19. On September 7, at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards in New York City at the Radio City Music Hall, Spears gave a memorable live performance, which included a cover of the Rolling Stones's hit single "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" (1965) and her own "Oops!... I Did It Again". While she began her segment in a black suit, she shocked the audience and the media by ripping it off to display a revealing, skin-colored stage outfit with hundreds of strategically placed Swarovski crystals. In Spain, she was interviewed on "El Rayo", which aired on September 8.