Cell Farming is Honest Work
Reddit seems to be OK with lab-grown meat and meat alternatives. (reddit)
Bill Gates thinks that lab-grown meat is about quality, not quantity, because the environmental benefits are "sketchy." (vegconomist)
Cell farmers want to be regulated by the USDA and the FDA. (vox)
Wild Earth got $550,000 from Mark Cuban on Shark Tank! Congratulations! (techstartups)
Hell's Kitchen Freezes Over
Beyond Meat wants to make plant-based protein cheaper than meat from legacy sources. (forbes)
Meat-Free Foods joins Cannabis Production and Virtual Reality as big trends to throw your Canadian dollars at. (capital)
And then Gordon Ramsay goes, "veganism is on the rise, we’ve got to adapt and eat a slice of humble pie." Really. (livekindly)
Work is under whey at Northern Alberta Institute of Technology to veganize the world's nastiest cheese. (livekindly)
It's a protein! It a binding agent! It's a patented chickpea concentrate! (vegconomist)
Minnesota food companies are looking for someone to make them a good, plant-based cheese. (startribute)
Big Meat is making small investments in meat alternatives. (vox)
Humans-On-Chips
Data, AI and hardware are taking jobs away from lab animals. (techaeris)
A pharmacology student overcomes cognitive dissonance by giving herself a compassionectomy. (ndsmcobserver)
More human-on-a-chip developments. But no Voight Kampff test, yet. (biocompare)
TIL Lush offers the "Lush Prize," a global fund that awards lobbyists, scientists, researchers, and advocates who are working to end animal testing. Here is a recording of a panel featuring some winners.
Even more non-animal skin technology for testing cosmetics. (cosmeticsdesign-asia)
I Can't Believe It's Not Corpsehide!
Vegan shoes are kicking ass lately. (glamour)
Your guide to a variety of leather-like materials. (wtvox)
Farmwars
A seasoned veteran of the Animal Agriculture Twitter Wars tells her story. Twist: farmers are people! (vox)
The dark side of stem cell therapy: increasing the productivity of farmed animals. ( wisbusiness)
We love veganism. We love cryptocurrency. But we're unsure about VeganNation's VeganCoin. (medium)
Are white supremacists more American than "eco-terrorists"? ( theintercept)
Job Listings
The Green Monks Inc./ PLNKTN
We're presently working on an app for our non-profit startup that provides users with the ability to track their ecological footprint. While this app runs on personal devices such as phones, we're now expanding and are developing back-end infrastructure to manage data and interactions with the phone app.
We're looking for developers who have experience designing and implementing robust scalable cloud backends. We haven't made our technology decisions yet, so whomever joins our team will have the opportunity to make pivotal technology decisions that, if we get our way, save the world some day.
You can find more about our app here: www.plnktn.life
If you have these interests/experiences, this project may be for you:
* Experience or interest in deploying scalable applications to clouds like, but not necessarily AWS* Experience with a relevant backend tech such as: Node.js, Python, or Ruby
* Experience in database design and management
* Interest and excitement for fault tolerance, automated fault recovery, microservices, and all that other nerdy cloud stuff
* Experience or deep love for DevOps/System Administration type work
We are a non profit and most work is currently being done out of passion and thanks to people donating their time to get the project off the ground. (We love you. You know who you are.)
We have a budget in place and as donations come in we plan to compensate everyone on the team equally.
If this sounds like the moment you've been waiting for and want to join The Green Monks on their epic journey to save the planet, please email alli@thegreenmonks.org
Factory Farming Awareness Coalition
FFAC is seeking computer programmers with expertise in AI to assist with a cutting-edge new program increasing transparency and awareness of industrial animal agriculture. We are looking for a project lead to liaise with other volunteers and with academic faculty at a top research institution working with us on this project, as well as for volunteers who can dedicate a minimum of 10 hours per month for 6 months to assisting with the AI learning process.
If interested, please email katie@ffacoalition.org with a brief description of your background.
