Stem Cells with a Side of Fries

“Fifty years hence we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.” That’s what Winston Churchill said in 1932. It’s been more than fifty years but today, a few taste testers sat down to sample a hamburger created in the lab. The meat-like substance was created by scientists who placed the stem cells of a cow into a nutritional broth. Google’s Sergey Brin was the project’s backer, and the burger cost him a cool $325,000 (and he didn’t get fries with that). This marks an important step forward for lab meat, but the effort still pales in comparison to the invention of the tater tot.

+ More from the BBC on how to make a stem cell burger, and what one tastes like.