We made a meat-leaf to demonstration of the cutting edge of regenerative medicine, and bioengineering. And maybe as the first stop on the road to meat-robots.

The big take away I get from Thought Emporium's biotech videos is that there really isn't any legal barrier to getting the equipment to do some really radical gene editing and tissue science. So many other forms of hobby science are either heavily legislated (like radio) or pretty much guarantee intrusive law enforcement home visits based on your purchasing history.

Sure it's incredibly hard and expensive to pull something off but compare that to trying to stock a decent hobby-chemistry lab and getting random check ins and confiscations from the boys in blue since it's assumed you're either brewing drugs, distilling spirits, or making something energetic.

Without any real oversight, it becomes apparent that there's really no hard barrier to someone wanting to say, rapidly cultivate antibiotic-resistant strains of diseases in a manner similar to this famous Harvard Med School demonstration.. There's no secret tech here, just a basic gel setting and seeding protocol that isn't above a focused teenager's level of ability along with ~7 days of waiting to get a dangerous strain of a target bacteria that's wholly resistant to whatever antibiotics you choose.

I guess I expected more legal gatekeeping from suppliers and impossible to source high-tech tooling roadblocks since what you see in labs looks so futuristic. Though I guess all those robots and pipette trays are just tools to automate the (basic in terms of skill) physical, rote work that has to be repeated ad nauseam to get a successful culture.