PETA has announced a $1 million dollar prize to any researchers who could come up with a commercially viable "in vitro meat" product by 2012.  (The LATimes has more details on the offer.)

It seems like an unusual offer from PETA, which typically promotes vegetarianism. Perhaps they're coming to terms with the fact that some of us just aren't willing to give up our beloved meat, although widespread vegetarianism would admittedly be better for both animals and the environment. In vitro meat--there seems to be a consensus on the message boards that it needs a new name--would solve both these problems. It's also a topic that we covered last year in our Global Lifestyles project (subscribers only).

This decision apparently inspired a near-civil war within PETA, dividing the vegetarian purists and the animal rights advocates. Despite the internal controversy, this appeal to carnivores takes "cruelty-free" meat beyond free-range chicken.

Think this sounds like a half-baked sci-fi plot? William Saletan of Slate points out that scientists have already done some pretty impressive work on other body parts (hearts, livers, etc.), so in terms of science, this really isn't so out of the question.

Image: VirtualErn (Flickr) 

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Iran’s online world is more vibrant than you might expect. While Reporters Without Borders ranked Iran’s press as the fourth least-free in the world, its blogosphere is full of lively conversation and rife with political dissent, as revealed in a new Berkman Center for Internet and Society (full disclosure: my former employer before I came to Social Technologies)  report on the state of the Internet, the blogosphere, and its affect on democracy in conservative, religious Iran.

 The report found that:

• Iran's blogosphere is male-dominated and incredibly diverse in content, and often features heated discussions about politics, religion, and pop culture.
• While the Iranian government vigorously censors the Internet and has arrested bloggers for expressing dissenting opinions, the report found a significantly smaller percentage of blogs being blocked than they expected: only about 15% of what the report deemed “reformist” (anti-government) blogs were blocked.
• Women are a significant minority in the Iranian blogosphere, except in poetry-themed blogs. (Poetry is a very popular form of expression for Iranians.)
• Even with the threat of arrest, Iranian bloggers don't write anonymously nearly as much as expected: for instance, the majority of "reformist" bloggers wrote under their own name, while the majority of "conservative" bloggers wrote anonymously.
• Young Iranian bloggers tend to be conservative and religious, while older bloggers tend to be reformist and secular.

What has emerged is a portrayal of an engaged, lively online community in Iran, a country where freedom of expression isn’t exactly valued. It's fascinating to see how a somewhat open Internet can change the way the citizens of an authoritarian regime are able to express themselves. It is also clear that while the Iranian government has attempted to block the most contentious blogs online, it lacks the resources to get all of them. And while it might be overly optimistic, the fact that this kind of honest and open dialogue can exist (with limits, of course) gives many the hope that the Internet can foster change in Iran, beyond just expression of personal opinions.

Image: Sander (Flickr)

There I was driving through the Atlanta suburbs on February 10 when I started seeing teenagers with handmade signs and masks. In a few seconds I came over a hill and saw around 75 people with signs and face masks standing across the street from a line of police in riot gear outside of the local Church of Scientology. Later, I discovered that I had found the local version of a worldwide anti-Scientology protest held that day, organized by a group simply calling themselves "Anonymous."

Anonymous is a group of Internet users from across the globe who are organizing a series of protests against Scientology using basic Web technologies. What began as a simple series of hacks against Scientology's websites has turned into an international movement occurring in both cyberspace and in the real world. The amazing part of this story is how easily the group has managed to organize worldwide protests without a central leader or group telling everyone what to do.

Click to read more ...

Three weeks ago, at the height of the British-Iran face-off over those sailors, the following graffiti appeared in Dupont Circle here in DC:

A couple of days later, someone vandalized the message by crossing it out and adding a peace sign:

The graffitists must have reached some kind of détente as there were no new messages until this week:

(This reads: "Bin Laden was a scapegoat".)

("Ayatollahs were the only ones behind the 9/11 attack")

For all the talk of social networking sites such as Twitter, sometimes good old-fashioned graffiti is still the best tool for the job. Dupont Circle is a busy place. It hosts one of the more active metro stops in the city, is home to cultural attractions (museums, movie theaters), a thriving nightlife scene, and some of the most prestigious policy organizations in the world (Brookings Institution, the Carnegie Endowment, and a certain futures firm you are likely familiar with).

Thousands of people walk by this wall daily and see this message, and they don’t need to sign up, register or log-in to do so. Furthermore, as its presence over the past three weeks indicates, the message persists, while new information is added, the old information remains visible.

The use of public space for political messages is as old as civilization. (The Romans were quite adept at politically motivated, scurrilous graffiti). And, for all the enthusiasm in some circles for social networking, this graffiti highlights its current limitations: users are a self-selected group with only those choosing to participate able to receive messages. This is only a temporary limitation as wireless access expands and the social networking ethos is incorporated into the architecture of a growing number of software applications. But as much as I enjoy these applications, I am cheered to see someone is still kicking it old school. Too bad he is a crank.

Who that crank may be is still a mystery—maybe an angry Brit? A frustrated Persian exile? Or perhaps it’s just a hip guerrilla marketing campaign to get the kids fired up for another war. (Images: Social Technologies)

If you aren't aware of the emerging genre of serious games, you should be. To quote a recent Global Lifestyles brief on the subject mentioned below, "Serious games—games that provide players with opportunities to learn and understand complex situations or different points of view—have emerged as a distinct subset of video games. Creators of these games are taking the definitions of “play” and “learn” in new directions, often blending the two creatively."

Two items caught my eye recently on the topic: announcements about the second annual Serious Games Summit, coming up next month in San Francisco, and the creation of a new academic degree at Michigan State University in serious games design. While a lot of column inches and blogs have been consumed with discussion of sexier games like Second Life lately, the serious games movement has been spreading from a core of more political games into a more complex family tree of genres, as seen in the table to the left.

While serious games such as Darfur Is Dying and A Force More Powerful are among the best known examples, politics and advocacy are only two of the categories these games belong to. Interesting development is now happening in health care, for example, where serious games are being developed as both educational tools and simulators, and also for pain relief, as in the case of Free Dive, a game designed to distract young patients during painful medical procedures. (My children's' dentist has been on to this idea for some time, allowing his patients to play with Gameboys during some procedures to take their attention away from his tools and their throbbing teeth -- thanks Dr. Ed!) Serious games are also being used to help returning Iraq war veterans cope with the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder by simulating the sensory stress of combat conditions in a safe environment.

Where do serious games go in the near future?  Two of the half dozen possible directions we identified are:

• Broader applications—In only a few years the spectrum of applications for serious gaming has broadened to include everything from aiding cancer research to learning how to topple a government. Growth will likely be strongest in applications for job training, education, and “advertorial” content.
  
• More commercial use—Commercial uses for serious games have yet to take off, but the ability to attract new customers via advertorial games with a serious edge will be a strong lure for business. Companies need to be careful treading in this area, however. The tool may cut both ways as some consumers take offense at the blatant mix of commercialism and "education". One can imagine a pharmaceutical company using a game that raises awareness of a health condition while touting a brand-name drug, for example.
  

Those buzzkills at the Center for Science in the Public Interest have been systematically suing the food industry, and have seemingly been getting some results:

In recent months, CSPI has turned to litigation to get food companies to market their products more honestly. It has negotiated out-of-court settlements with Tropicana, Quaker, Frito-Lay, and Pinnacle Foods and was credited (along with Heideman Nudelman & Kalik) with being the catalyst for an agreement to get soda out of schools that the industry reached with former President Clinton and others. CSPI will likely soon sue Cadbury-Schweppes for rebranding 7UP as "all-natural" (it's not) and is currently suing the maker of a fungus-based meat substitute called Quorn. for failing to inform consumers that the product can cause severe vomiting, diarrhea, and breathing difficulties. Also, CSPI and the Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood are having discussions with Kellogg about marketing junk food to young children and may ultimately sue that company and Viacom/Nickelodeon.

This would in part explain some of the recent changes in the food industry we have been discussing at S)T.

Now CSPI is turning their attention to KFC, over the level of trans-fats in fried chicken. If this pattern holds up, KFC will settle out of course and announce a "healthier" reformulation  of its frying oils.

While some may question CSPI's vision of healthiness, the organization can be a rather useful tool for keeping one step ahead of food industry change.