The X Prize Foun­da­tion is a non-profit insti­tute that awards rather large prizes to non-governmental organ­i­sa­tions who achieve a num­ber of mile­stones, classed as ben­e­fi­cial to mankind. The most famous of these was the Ansari X Prize awarded to the first NGO to send a reusable manned space­craft into space twice in two weeks — this was even­tu­ally won by the Tier One project, and they were awarded with the $10,000,000 prize in 2004.

Today it appears that everyone’s favourite ani­mal rights group, PETA, is get­ting in on the action too; they have offered a $1,000,000 prize to the first organ­i­sa­tion to cre­ate and mar­ket in-vitro chicken meat within the next four years. As El Reg puts it:

PETA announced today it will offer $1m to an orga­ni­za­tion that can suc­cess­fully cre­ate and mar­ket “in vitro meat,” i.e. mus­cle tis­sue grown with­out the pesky ani­mal attached.

To col­lect PETA’s $1m car­rot, sci­en­tists must develop a com­mer­cially mar­ketable in vitro meat in just four years. At least they’re first set­ting the bar down to cre­at­ing a chicken flesh sub­sti­tute, which report­edly tastes like every non-traditional ani­mal in the known universe.

This brings to mind my favourite Thread­less t-shirt… Meat is mur­der. Tasty, tasty mur­der.