Science Matters

Here are the Science Matters Topics of 2020

Monday February 17 at 1.30: Artificial Meat: Its content, nutritional value and taste

Anthropologists think that meat has been an important component of hominin diets for over 2 million years.  They say that meat gave humans a concentrated source of energy and protein with the best balance of nutrients that allowed the evolution of our large brains and relatively small stomachs. We are thus one of the class of animals classed as omnivores. Forward to the 21st century and some people look at meat with suspicion because of concerns for animal welfare, low efficiency of feed conversion from grains to meat, or problems with greenhouse gas (methane) emissions from cattle and sheep.

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This represents a business opening for artificial meat.  The ‘Impossible’ and ‘Beyond Meat’ burgers may now be purchased in our supermarkets and fast food shops.  What are they made from, how are they made and what is their nutritional value? Most importantly, do they taste like meat?  This is the subject of the first science talk for 2020.  I hope to have some cooked samples for a blind taste test.

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The March 16  Professor Bill Hutchinson from Edith Cowan University, WA, who will talk on the Theory and Practice of Modern Organised Deception (as in propaganda, psychological warfare, information warfare and cyber-deception).

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