Growing A House From Meat

baosol writes "From the boundary-pushing team of archi-visionaries who brought us the fabulous Fab Tree Hab comes a new (and somewhat disgusting) way to grow a structure — using animal flesh! The In Vitro Meat Habitat is a futuristic concept home composed of meat cells grown in a lab. The creator of the concept, Mitchell Joachim, is a futurist with a twist– he says he is actually developing the concept in a lab."

Minerals

[TheKidWho]

We need more mineralssssssssssssss.

Re:

[Jarik C-Bol]

that was the first thing i thought when i saw this during his TED talk. "godamn it we are not the zerg, take your meat house and get the hell off my lawn" what is worse is the fact that he tacked this meat house onto this talk about growing homes from trees that are guided into the shapes we need, so your house is a living plant, *and he tried to make the meat house sound like a better idea than the tree house*

Re:

[xmousex]

i want zerg house now!

article says this is all okay because the house isnt sentient though. "no sentient animals or something were harmed in the process of whatever the fuck it said"

too bad because thats exactly what i need. it needs to think for itself and it needs to talk to me.

Order Please

[Have Brain Will Rent]

My dog says he would like to place an order for one of these!

Re:

[maxwell demon]

The need to feed the house would be an ongoing problem.

Well, the real problems start when the house figures out how to feet itself, and discovers that there are great sources of proteine and fat directly inside it. :-)

mmmmmm Beefy!

[e2d2]

mmmmmm Beefy!

I am curious though, how does this do against Bears? Black bears of course because they are best.

Better Off Ted

[kannibal_klown]

But does it taste like despair [tv.com].

Not perfectly related, but whenever I hear about advancements in meat I can't help but think of that episode.

Poor Better off Ted, you will be missed.

WTF

[Xacid]

I don't even want to write a long intelligent response to this. I just want to say WTF over and over again.

Re:WTF

[butterflysrage]

then let me just say two words: Beef Curtains.

Re:

[liquiddark]

GAH! Why do I never have mod points when I need them!!!

Re:

[geekoid]

udderly disgusting.

Re:

[Monchanger]

... and a doorbell that goes "moooooooo".

Re:

[dadioflex]

It'll come, regardless of the current response. The alternative is... soylent green, and that ain't happening. Bio-engineering? Meh. I've been reconciled to this since Nemesis the Warlock from 2000AD. Then there was Farscape, and later Battlestar Galactica.

What's the problem? We eat meat, we dress in meat by-products, most of our sports' stars have meat between their ears... easy adjust.

Fatal Flaw

[Tebriel]

Once I get one, how will I keep from eating my bacon house?

Re:

[confused one]

The house might bite back...

Re:

[flaming error]

And what will keep the house from eating its occupants?

DO NOT WANT:

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

For fenestration, or openings of windows and doors, he envisions sphincter muscles that can open and close

Nothing like coming home from work to squeeze your way into a clenched asshole.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

There are some people who enjoy that you insensitive clod!

Mmmmm... yeah baby...

Re:DO NOT WANT:

[Monkeedude1212]

Isn't that the goal of every man?

Re:

[clem]

Not that door. There's a reason it's labeled "Exit Only".

Why?

[camperdave]

A house made of meat?

Why?

Re:

[Bugamn]

So we can have houses that look like what is expected by humans. -- Overmind

Re:

[Saxerman]

"They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"Meat. They're made out of meat."
http://baetzler.de/humor/meat_beings.html [baetzler.de]

Re:

[frank_adrian314159]

Yeah. It sounds like a pretty jerky idea.

This is a terrible, terrible idea.

[Revotron]

[Dr. Joachim] envisions a wall in which tissues, skin and bones replace insulation, siding, and studs respectively. For fenestration, or openings of windows and doors, he envisions sphincter muscles that can open and close.

First thoughts that come to mind:

1) Newlywed Couples. "First thing I'm doing once we're married is picking you up and carrying you through the sphincter!"

2) Invasions of privacy. "My neighbors are really starting to get nosy. I was standing in the kitchen cooking dinner, and ther

Re:

[guruevi]

Well, bones are a very strong structure (density and weight wise compared to their relative flexibility). If you could build a house with some very dense bones, I think that would stand up to a lot of things. The meat/skin/tissue part of it would probably be gross and attract insects and vermin but it might be a good alternative in places like the North Pole where the stuff won't rot and people need to keep warm.

Zerg!!!

[bgweber]

Have we not learned from the errors of the Xel'Naga?

Spam Spam Spam

[Linker3000]

There's no place like Hormel

Growing building eh?

[easterberry]

Next step? My own TARDIS!

Farscape!

[B5_geek]

Prior Art:

Farscape: Moya
Lexx: Lexx

And every Star Wars geek knows a TomTom will do in a pinch. (And you thought they smelt bad on the outside!)

Re:

[julesh]

You call yourself a B5 geek and didn't think of Vorlon ships? Shame.

Re:

[B5_geek]

Damn you are right. Now my life does suck.
=)

Re:

[thethibs]

Babylon 5: Vorlon Technology

Re:

[natehoy]

No, a Tauntaun would be a TENT. We're talking about HOUSES here.

Delicious

[Anonymous Coward]

....just don't eat yourself out of house and home.

Does this mean the house meat eats for nourishment? If so - does it poop?

Is it only me?

[khraz]

The pictures of these houses are making me hungry. Mmm, tasty flesh.

The build quality...

[Reason58]

...looks to be well done.

Re:

[BattleApple]

these houses are actually quite rare

Re:

[adolf]

Mmm. Barbecue.

I'm flabergasted

[Dynedain]

If this technology becomes widespread, I'll eat my shoe!

Re:

[Revotron]

By that time somebody will have created shoes made out of meat.

Re:

[shadowrat]

i already have shoes made out of meat. i call them feet.

Re:

[XnavxeMiyyep]

Live in meat!
Eat your shoes!
Wear your house!

But never fix the Idle CSS

Mmmmm... Arson

[Anonymous Coward]

The tastiest house fire ever!

I think I get it...

[Billy the Mountain]

I think ideally the structure would have a fur coat exterior or some sort of hide. Otherwise the bare meat would get infected. Still you'd have trouble with things like fleas. How would the structure fend off mosquitoes and other parasites? Might prove to be a maintenance nightmare.

BTM

Re:I think I get it...

[Revotron]

I think ideally the structure would have a fur coat exterior or some sort of hide.

Good thinking! The vegans and fur activists will go around painting houses for free.

Hrmmm hrmm hrhrmmmhm

[nu1x]

The dogs.

That is all.

confused

[confused one]

I am both intrigued and disgusted at the same time.

Roast Beef Curtains

[ground.zero.612]

on the windows?

And in the closet . . .

[wrencherd]

. . . skirt steak? (Could be weird depending on who does or does not live there.)

I'm not entirely sure why but. . .

[rev_sanchez]

somehow it seems really important to know which of my house's orifices my toilet is connected to.

Perfect!

[natehoy]

Now we just need to develop the technology to bake a sufficiently large bun, and we finally have a burger large enough for even the American market.

Meat?

[breakfastpirate]

"They're made out of meat." "Meat?" "Meat. Their houses are made out of meat." "Meat?" http://www.setileague.org/articles/meat.htm [setileague.org]

Look at it this was....

[ch-chuck]

Imagine that trees could walk around, talk, and needed shelter. Suddenly, some Tree Scientist suggests that their houses should be make out of WOOD!!! Ahhhhh!! How disgusting!!!!!

Re:

[natehoy]

Depends on which trees are intelligent. If all of them are, then they'd just start slaughtering each other for wood. Probably form various religions around leaf shapes or bark color it to make it cool with everyone first, though.

Otherwise, if there were various levels of intelligence, then the smart trees would simply start farming the dumb ones, like we do with cows and chickens.

Mmmmm

[SnarfQuest]

Bacon!

Why does my house keep disappearing on me just before breakfast?

Returning to the womb

[izomiac]

I seem to remember some psychological theory that men, at heart, just want to return to the womb. At the time I thought it was ridiculous. Now I realize that they were onto something and this is what's ridiculous.

IMHO, at some point you just need to accept that a human life costs the lives of many tasty animals, tons of plants, and innumerable microorganisms. Is a tree's life worth more than the grass this structure kills by blocking the sun? How about the detrivores that live on dead plants? Or the

Re:

[Reason58]

I seem to remember some psychological theory that men, at heart, just want to return to the womb.

They do, but not in the way you are thinking.

House of meat's been done many times . . .

[wrencherd]

. . . the one in NYC was called, "Studio 54".

PETH

[Unka Willbur]

Join my new organization, P.E.T.H. People for the Ethical Treatment of Houses!

T-rex returns

[n0w0rries]

What happens when nature evolves a new predator to eat this abundance of protein? Maybe aliens gave cavemen this technology just to watch the t-rex's go to town?

Exoskeleton

[Anonymous Coward]

Meat is a silly idea for many reasons. The smarter move would be growing an exoskeletal structure. Instead of meat imagine hard plates. I think that kind of bio-engineering will happen one day but it's decades if not centuries off. Once it happens we could see fully recyclable houses that can biodegrade. Instead of cutting down forests they would be grown using a nutrient mixture and could be grown on location. The final structure would be like a cross between a geodesic dome and a large insect. The structu

Re:

[Jarik C-Bol]

while still disturbing on several levels, your idea is far less disgusting than the meat house.

Re:

[WillDraven]

Perhaps beehive style complex structures could replace larger structures like apartment complexes and skyscrapers. Of course I'd hate to think what it would be like living in a building that has the flu.

Next Step:

[ducomputergeek]

Soylent House! It's made of people!

Perhaps vegetarian has its advantages

[CityZen]

Instead of meat, what about bioengineering trees to grow into more house-like shapes?

At least, if the tree dies, you've still got a solid wood structure.

Re:

[ZosX]

Yeah. How many dead trees remain standing for years and years?

Moya in making?!

[Codeyman]

Anyone else thinks that this gets us one step closer to a real Moya?! (any farscape fan here.. ?)

Pest Control

[__aajfby9338]

So, instead of becoming infested with mice, it'll become infested with dogs? Well, I guess that's an improvement.

Sci-Fi did this

[Andtalath]

In many other sci-fi series, the idea of living structure has been used already.

The idea is not entirely without merit, however, it does bring a lot of problems as well.

Lexx is probably the coolest example, but Farscape did it very well too.
Heck, even stargate atlantis did it decently.

Re:

[Lohrno]

I forget which book it was from, but in one of the books I read, the settlers of a planet often used a "fast coral" plant to grow their houses...

In case of a housing market slump

[thodelu]

you at least have something to eat.

I dunno about houses...

[RobertM1968]

...but I've pitched quite a few tents with my meat... ;-)

Safety

[XSpud]

If it's made of muscle fibre I'm not sure I'd want to be in it when the electrical wiring develops a fault.

Re:

[Jarik C-Bol]

"oh hey what happened to bob?" "his wife dropped the blow dryer in the tub and his house crushed him."

South Park did this...

[TeethWhitener]

...and now I'm waiting for my Shakey's Pizza clone.

Monster House DVD

[Drakkenmensch]

Watch it.

Zerg!

[Fantastic Lad]

Somebody already made the joke in the article's comment section which I will paste here. . .

This is great! Now I can start building that Zerg colony I always wanted! Prepare to get zergling rushed, n00bz!

-FL

Moya

[nurb432]

Hey, it worked on farscape..

They're made out of meat?

[karlandtanya]

That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat. [terrybisson.com]

predators

[roman_mir]

I dare you to live in something that's meat in an environment that still has any predators like bears, wolves, tigers, alligators or crocodiles, lions etc.

Re:

[marika]

That house will make it easy for the wolf to take care of... it might save the pig though.

Finally!

[Fieryphoenix]

A house can be condemned because it does not meat building code.

Oh yeah...

[migdiaz]

...Meat trees. I wonder what's the vegan stance on this...

Wraith

[masshuu]

So we start building our homes and spacechips like the Wraith in Stargate Atlantis.
And then when your stranded in the middle of space, you can just eat your ship

Tract homes?

[kindbud]

We can't imagine that these residences are going be replacing suburban tract homes anytime soon, but it sure is a provocative idea!

But what about digestive tract homes?

Vacation

[SlothDead]

When I go on vacation, will I have to ask the neighbor to feed the house for me?

And will the house live longer than myself or will I end up living in a stinking house corpse?

Life imitates Kingdom of Loathing

[sco08y]

Now I want to paste a bitchin' meat car together.

A serious note

[Yvanhoe]

The title and most of the commentaries so far are humorous but I think it fails to acknowledge how much a good idea this is. Obviously, anyone with basic marketing commonsense will not call it a "meat house" but something like "organic house". I don't see the interest of using meat cells, but I would love to GM trees growing to become rooms, hallways, stairs...

That would be far more easy to sell and make accept.

Dig into your steakhouse now!

[freaker_TuC]

I know people would love to live with their daily steak but this is really going over the edge .. living inside your steak!

Redefines a bbq speciale for sure!

Sterling's Schismatrix

[sphere]

See the latter part of Schismatrix for interesting and, uh, creative applications of fleshly living quarters....

Re:

[cayenne8]

I'm guessing when you drive through the older neighborhood of 'meat' houses....it all just smells like jerky??

Re:Prior Art

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Either that or Rot. I find it hard to believe they've synthesized a high-protein cell that can beat cellulose for structural strength and permanence.

Re:

[Hylandr]

Silly man, Jerky is what you get when you've milked the bull!

- Dan.

Yea I know that was bad pun, please don't mod me down. :)

Re:

[Dolphinzilla]

are you classified as human ? ummm no, I am a meat Popsicle

Re:

[doti]

what about http://www.rathergood.com/demon [rathergood.com]

Mitchell Joachim: self promoting huckster?

[spun]

It seems that whenever this 'futurist' gets a brain fart, he thinks the entire world needs to hear it. As his ideas always seem to be of the most out-there, fringe, wing-nutty type, I am left wondering, is he simply incredibly narcissistic or is he attempting to milk some venture capitalists? Either way, if I never hear another brain dead idea from this goofball, it will be too soon. There are plenty of real engineers out there toiling away in obscurity trying to come up with viable sustainable technology,

Re:

[maxwell demon]

If you put a nail in the wall, will it bleed? Will the house feel pain?

Re:

[Dekker3D]

no nerve cells and no brain cells for any would-be nerve cells to connect to. it's grown purely from meat cells, and cells don't usually revert back to stem cells without some odd treatment or so. Not sure how oxygen and such would get transported without veins though... IANAB.

Re:

[orangesquid]

If someone falls asleep at the wheel and drives into the side of your house, can they be charged with assault?
How about brats with spray paint? Battery?
If they spray-painted 'idiot', that's like putting a sign on someone's back, and they're mocking a living being that is publicly known to have no cerebrum by making a public display on the defenseless body of that being. Now we have a potential hate-crime.

I think law school enrollment just shot through the roof.