When an organization I despise does something productive, I have to give props. PETA announced a contest with a $1 million prize for the first scientist to produce and bring to market in vitro meat.

Scientists around the world are researching or seeking the funds to research ways to produce meat in the laboratory—without killing any animals. In vitro meat production would use animal stem cells that would be placed in a medium to grow and reproduce. The result would mimic flesh and could be cooked and eaten. Some promising steps have been made toward this technology, but we’re still several years away from having in vitro meat be available to the general public.

This is exactly the kind of thing PETA should have been doing all along, rather than hectoring people into following their chosen lifestyle. I’ve long said that people in general will only consider killing an animal for food to be wrong when they can hold that view and still eat a nice juicy steak without being a hypocrite.