Great article. Fungi produced the environment we now live in. The symbiotic relationship plants have with fungi is the basis behind the idea of no-till farming. Plants are much healthier and require less input when there is a thriving fungal community in the soil. Tilling kills fungal mycelium and turns the balance to bacteria.
Besides such uses in improving traditional agriculture, I believe that the future of protein production, which is needed to supplement plant-based food, does not stay in making fake meat from animal cell cultures, like many attempt to do today, in order to sell to rich vegans.
In my opinion, with animal cell cultures it is extremely unlikely to ever be able to produce proteins at a competitive cost. By competitive cost I mean that any such proteins should cost much less than chicken meat (per protein content).
What I believe to be the right solution, because this should be able to produce high-quality proteins at lower costs than from any animal source, is to use cultures of genetically-modified fungi, which produce some high-quality proteins, e.g. whey protein or egg white protein. There already exist genetically-modified strains of the fungus Trichoderma, which produce such animal proteins, instead of the enzymes that they normally secreted into their environment. Such proteins can be separated from the fungal culture medium by ultrafiltration, in the same way how one makes from whey or milk whey protein concentrate or milk protein concentrate.
Onego Bio is using fungi to produce ovalbumin, one of the major protein in eggs. Their process seems stable, so it might play a big role especially in industrial food production pretty quickly
It doesn't need to be cheaper than the cheapest meat to be competitive. If there's some social or moral incentive to avoid real meat, that adds value to plant based alternatives.
Fungi protein sounds cool though. I would totally add that to my diet. But I also think insects are an underutilized protein source, so I might be an outlier
Even when your personal budget would allow spending more for food, a price that is higher than that of meat is a serious red flag, indicating that it is likely that such a substitute for meat has greater environmental consequences than producing meat.
There are 3 reasons for avoiding meat. One is the ethical reason, because during the last century meat production has transitioned everywhere to using methods that can hardly be considered anything else but continuous torture. There are also certain health risks associated with meat and there is also the reason that the real cost of meat may be greater than it appears to be, due to negative environmental consequences (i.e. pollution).
If some kind of protein extract or some kind of fake meat is more expensive than real meat (per protein content), you can be rather certain that the negative environmental consequences are worse than for real meat, because the higher cost is likely to be determined by the consumption of more energy and of various kinds of chemicals during the production of the meat substitute.
Economy of scale and subsidies have a major influence on shelf prices. Is is a red flag to be a small producer and/or not profiting from public money? Some wouldn't cold-ban a product only based on it's price, especially if it's pioneering.
Being "certain that the negative environmental consequences are worse" seems an stretch from weak initial judgement.
Higher cost doesn't always indicate negative environmental consequences. It could be (and seems likely to me) that harvesting one cow's worth of plant protein is more labor intensive which isn't necessarily bad for the environment. If you compare two soy crops, one that uses herbicides and another that uses manual labor to pull weeds, the latter will be more expensive and better for the environment
Having it be cheaper would make it a real game changer -- if "chicken nuggets" and "burgers" were functionally equivalent (nutrition, appearance, mouthfeel, etc) and cheaper, then we'd start to see serious changes in animal husbandry.
It will never go away but if it becomes more niche then it's likely that what is produced will be done so more humanely (branding and perception of quality)
Those are at least big enough that you don't have to eat the shells. (Fun aside: Technically, the grouping is closer to the other way around: insects are classed under crustaceans these days.)
>there's some social or moral incentive to avoid real meat, that adds value to plant based alternatives.
This is missing the key point that like 95% of people in the world are not vegans, don't find any moral issues with eating meat, and thus produce zero social pressure. Fungi burgers MUST come with an actual benefit for the majority of people. It needs to be seen as some combination of "Tastey", "healthy", "cost effective". If fungi burgers were $2/lbs and tasted pretty close to a beef burger, then people would flock to them. The problem with Impossible burgers were worse, more expensive, questionably "more healthy" and entirely relied upon the moral/social issues which only mattered in a few small slices of society.
Not everyone craves the flavor/texture of meat, but everyone needs an adequate intake of high quality protein.
Including protein powder as a cooking ingredient does not do much for improving the taste of food (though the food definitely feels more satiating), but it ensures that it is healthy enough.
Even if I liked meat, I never felt any kind of addiction to it. There are many years since the last time when I ate meat and I feel no need to eat again, as long as I have a lot of other options for food that is tasty and healthy.
For several years I have not used any animal protein sources, but this forced too inconvenient constraints on what I could eat, so eventually I gave up and now I use in cooking some whey or milk protein concentrate powder, whenever it is necessary to increase the protein content. This has provided much more freedom in menu choice.
So for me, if instead of having to buy protein extracted from whey or milk (which costs about the same as chicken meat, i.e. many times cheaper than protein concentrates extracted from plants, which must use much more complicated processes than the filtration of whey or milk) there would be the option of buying similar protein from a fungal culture, that would be enough to cover all my needs.
From other comments that I have seen about the fake meat products, I am pretty sure that there are many others like me, who do not care whether they eat meat or not, as long as they eat some good food.
You're missing out on an infinity of great food - great for anyone, vegan or not. Just think of all the Chinese, Latin American, Indian, etc. food that is vegan. Think of many appetizers even in mostly-meat restaurants. And there are world-class restaurants that serve vegan dishes
Eliminating beef, fowl, and fish leaves a universe of foods including all fungi, fruits and vegetables, grains, nuts, and legumes. It also includes all spices and herbs.
Double that. I'll also recommend to try some fungi/bacteria pre-processing as it bumps the taste:
Kimchi & Sauerkraut to wet the appetite.
Don't use salt, use Miso. The darker the better.
Tempeh is awesome and comes with soy (nutty), lentil (strong taste like aged meat), chickpeas (floral), beans (melty), or other legume/cereal/nut. Can include spices and seed for extra taste and crunch.
Nuts cheese tastes "cheesy" in a similar way similar to their diary version (Roquefort, Cheddar, Blue, Camembert, Brie...) depending on the ferment, without the "milky" taste. Nut taste instead, obviously but that can be offset with other oils/fats.
IMHO the Chèvre (goat) [0] and Morbier (bleu) [1] from Jay and Joy are very close. They also comes a bit cheaper in non-organic version [2]. I mostly buy from those guys but the curious may try a few from their local brands: when talking about cheese every recipe is has it's subtlety.
Vegan Chinese food? Ah, if you are vegan and go to China you need to be careful because there isn’t much vegan food, although plenty of veggies and they even have a few vegetarian restaurants in recent years.
Wherever you are, the local Chinese food is an adaptation - there is Indian Chinese, for example. But tofu, for example, has a long history in China, and you can find vegan food in Chinese restaurants in many places. I expect most people on HN don't eat their Chinese food in China.
Ok, that makes sense. You’ll find tofu art in China as well, but it usually doesn’t pass the vegan threshold unless you go to a fancy Singaporean chain (Pure Lotus was the only one I knew of in Beijing). Even then it feels wrong, tofu really shouldn’t taste like chicken.
>Just think of all the Chinese, Latin American, Indian, etc. food that is vegan.
What? Outside of Indian food, which does have many vegan options, but the best food is usually still non-vegan (lots of dairy and butter used). Chinese and Latin American food is almost never vegan. Chinese love meat, and you would have to be a buddhist monk to actually find vegan food in China. Even with a lot of cheap plant protein options, like tofu, most things use some meat for flavor. Latin America loves cooking in animal fats.
> Chinese and Latin American food is almost never vegan.
I've seen plenty of vegan food in restaurants serving those cuisines, so that's not true. Why is it important to you to insist that vegan food is somehow difficult?
If you just mean 'in China', that's irrelevant to this conversation - only a small proportion of people here eat their Chinese food in China. But I acknowledge, lots of people on HN like to demonstrate their worldliness by making sure we know they've been to China, relevant or not.
> the best food is usually still non-vegan (lots of dairy and butter used)
It's a bit hard to make a definitive statement about what is 'best'. Personally, I much prefer Indian without all the ghee. That vegan food exists in many varieties is an objective fact, however.
Someone making Vegan food in the style of Chinese or Latin American food by changing how its normally made, does not mean that its part of that food category by default. Its a new separate category. Sure you can make and eat plenty of Vegan chinese dishes, but it will taste different without the pork and seafood which is almost omnipresent in Chinese food.
You're arguing about categories and semantics now?
I think you know what Mexican or Chinese restaurant means in NY or LA or Topeka or London, and they have vegan dishes. In fact, usually they are run by Mexican or Chinese immigrants. You can hold a sign outside protesting the lack of traditional culinary purity.
> changing how its normally made
This is how it's normally made now. Change is normal.
hen of the woods, shelf mushrooms, look , taste, and have the texture of chicken breast meat, and sometimes grow very prolificaly on large dying hardwoods, ie: fill pickup trucks from one tree.
it also stores very well at room temperature, and just drys out if left in room temp conditions for weeks+
but it if finicky about where and when it grows, like most fungus.
as your typical, on the land outdoors type, I see and examine many different kinds of mushrooms and fungus, of which there seems to be an inexaustable variety.
as another note, I canno longer enjoy many tropical fruits, and other industrial agricultural products, because I can taste mold, just a hint in a lot of it, but pervasive to the point of "why bother"
In my lifetime the conversation has shifted from mineral farming with chemical fertilizers to managing microbes to microbes doing the managing.
There is a case to be made for many species of plants effectively being a previously unidentified manner of lichen. Created on mineral soil much the same way lichen grew on rocks.
Some states only require a piece of mail and checking a box saying you are legally allowed to vote to register. Then when you checkin to vote the workers are not permitted to ask for ID to prove you are the person you claim to be.
At no point during that process is there presentation of proof of citizenship.
Any ballots that are cast under same-day registration are cast as provisional and will go through the full verification process if the election is close enough where those ballots are necessary.
Source: actually ran a fucking election precinct. Non-citizens aren’t casting ballots illegally.
I'm not talking about same day registration. If you are on the rolls and proof of citizenship is not required to register, then how do you as a poll worker know the person on the rolls is a citizen?
You don't, but also you don't have to. Voter rolls are cross referenced with other sources of data to verify citizenship. ID is required to submit a non-provisional ballot even during early voting if you're not in your designated precinct.
Also just generally it's a severe federal crime to vote illegally, so people who are here illegally aren't out en masse publicly tying their identity to federal felonies.
They literally just charged someone in Philadelphia for illegally voting in every federal election since 2008. Non-citizen, ordered deported back in 2000 but still in the country.
There's not been a reliable audit to show the extent to which this happens (probably not enough to affect even local elections), but to say that it isn't happening is just a lie.
One of voter ID's biggest advocates, the Heritage Foundation, could only find 68 cases of non-citizens voting since 1980. Even if all of them are repeat offenders, that's a few hundred bad ballots out of billions cast. As you said, it is also possible to catch these people. Our election integrity is not threatened by non-citizen voters. It just doesn't happen on the scale that Republicans insist it must be happening, and the fact that they keep repeating it doesn't make it true, it means that they have an agenda that benefits from making you think it's true.
The Heritage Foundation's database on fraud was explicitly described as not exhaustive, but merely demonstrating that the potential (and reality) is there. It's not like they've got exhaustive access to both voter registration rolls and votes cast.
In states that bother, millions have been removed from voter rolls who weren't eligible in recent years, but the DOJ hasn't done anything with the data either.
If the Heritage Foundation's goal was to merely demonstrate the possibility of voter fraud, then they should have saved themselves the effort. Of course it's possible, and of course it happens; and when it happens, it tends to get discovered and handled. They have a much higher bar to clear to convince me that the issue warrants any greater scrutiny than it already receives.
As for the removal of millions from various voter rolls, you'll have to be more specific; most of these are administrative tasks being performed as they are meant to be performed, and very few of the millions removed are non-citizens. Most are removed because they've died, or moved, or failed to respond to inquiries, etc. Oregon, for example, recently moved to remove 800,000 voters from their rolls, but again, this was an administrative move; the voters were already marked as inactive and inactive voters in Oregon do not receive ballots. Removing them wasn't a priority, but now it is, so they're doing it. The point is that millions being removed is not really a cause for alarm or a sign of fraud; it's just a sign that you're unaware of how the system works.
If you listen carefully to the "ballot access" side of this argument (actually informed people and politicians, not random on the internet), you will see they don't ever say it does not happen.
What they say is that it does not happen enough to plausibly come close to affecting the outcome. And this is widely supported, including by right-wing organizations (as a sibling comment observes).
As with most issues, there is a trade-off here. As you tighten controls to prevent improper voting, you prevent some people from realistically being able to vote (it's just too hard, time consuming or expensive for them to meet the documentation requirements), and discourage others. This is particularly bad for the 1-2 elections after the rule change, which most people won't know about until they show up to vote. IMO, this is really the point of the changes.
And you have to weigh that negative against the supposed benefit. But that benefit is really hard to find. It's very clear that intentional voter fraud (fraud in registration, or in-person impersonation) is extremely rare, and does not come anywhere close to affecting outcomes. It's already a crime, and we seem to be pretty good at catching it.
The other argument for a benefit is that it improves voter confidence in elections. I reject this, since the only reason the public at large has any real concerns is because of intentional misinformation by the right. You can't lie to people to convince them there is a problem, and then use that to justify your heavy handed solution.
> Source: actually ran a fucking election precinct. Non-citizens aren’t casting ballots illegally.
So, you can see people are actually claiming that it doesn't happen. Further,
> It's already a crime, and we seem to be pretty good at catching it.
How can we be good at catching it if it is too hard for our own citizens to actually get proof that they are citizens? We hear about the cases that happen, but we don't hear about the people go go undetected, because they go undetected.
Ok? And yet, they were caught. Dude's a shithead, swung zero elections, and got caught. They catch people all the time voting illegally. I would make a strong guess that they counted zero of his ballots as they were all provisional.
He should go to jail and yet his existence is not proof that there are hoards of African deportees voting in state and federal elections.
That is the documentation they ask for in the application. It's enough for them to understand who you claim to be. They then consult their own records to establish if that identity is eligible to vote. Then finally, on Election Day, you show you are that person.
At that last part, Election Day identification, is not even that important, since the same person can't vote twice. So if you impersonate another person that will be quickly detected. It's not a useful strategy to alter the outcome of an election.
Adding a lot of weigh in the form of buildings causes land to sink. Apparently 1-2 mm/year on average. How much of "New York has been underwater since 2010" is the land sinking and how much is water rising from climate change?
The majority of early explorers and researchers sought philanthropist to support their desire to explore. They sold the dream to pay for their plan. The frontiers are more specialized now. Getting funding to "explore Africa" would be a hard sell.
This was also National Geographic’s modus operandi. They kickstarted exploration. Much of it would have happened eventually but it’d nice to have historical glimpses of what used to be.
SciHub is an amazing resource. I have read so many papers from varied topics out of my personal interest. That would not be possible for me without SciHub. The hold on new papers has stopped me from keeping current. If I were able to also publish papers that others could review that opens "science" to everybody. Then the only benefit of research institutions would be a concentration of big brains. That completely changes the landscape for scientific progress.
SciHub has shown us a new way to spread knowledge to all that are interested. I don't have the rigor for publishing but other individual experimenters might. It would be great if they could contribute to building human knowledge.
I think the only real solution is a distributed federated publishing and review platform. A node would be a library of papers for the host's interests. Just like physical journal collections, bigger institution would host more topics. Anybody can participate in the publication and review process. SciHub nailed storage and retrieval. Review is the hard part. Any rating system can be gamed. It would be very hard to convince people it is trustworthy.
There shouldn't be any prestige in publishing a paper. The prestige comes from being proven correct, from building our knowledge.
We are pretty lucky in that regard. It is by design. Open trade among the states was a primary point of argument in ratification of the US Constitution. States were concerned with a federal government having any power to restrict the engine of their own success.
As a result the US system was designed to prohibit restricting trade between states and encourage restricting trade at the national border through tariffs. The goal was to encourage internal trade and production that builds national wealth and skills. The government was to make profit off of international trade through tariffs. That structure encouraged government to protect the economic engine domestically to continue profiting from international trade.
I really wish that companies would just sell their products instead of doing the business relationship 2-step. It is an unnecessary waste of time to sell product.
It looks like these sensors have just enough range to be effective for lidar terrain scanning. I would have bought a Movia S right now just to try it out.
Drones over 250 grams or for any drone operated commercially under part 107 registration is required. But, its easy to just build your own or desolder the id chip if you dont want it.
It’s easy to build your own, but it’s impossible to build one to be as stable as a DJI one, or as cheaply. E.g. with an FPV drone hitting the lens would be much harder (but you could use spray instead of a stick to make it easier). Removing remote id ‘chip’ is plain impossible since it’s implemented by the same radio that does video link.
It includes what most would call quarries and it doesn't include anywhere near all of them (there are basically infinite invisible quarries everywhere to make concrete because it doesn't transport well).
The more you ask around the more you will find the real divide in the US is the same as it always has been. There are those that believe a more powerful government will solve all the problems and those that just want the government to leave them alone to solve their own problems.
Thomas Sowell's Conflict of Visions describes the difference well.
You make a really good point I think, if the government just leaves us alone then we can solve all of our own problems with the friendly assistance of ma bell/standard oil/google/facebook.
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