'Extra Ear - 1/4 Scale,' by Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr in collaboration with Stelarc. Created from biodegradable polymer and human chondrocytes cells. All images are courtesy of the Tissue Culture & Art Project
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In an era of robots, aspirational cyborgs, and regenerative biology, it's comforting to believe solid lines can be drawn between man and machine, the organic and the synthetic, the living and the dead. But advances in science and art are dissolving these boundaries. To wax nostalgic about a "natural world" elides our present reality: one in which scientific design and bioengineering are silently (but significantly) reshaping the way we see ourselves and the world around us.Related: They Told Me I Could Be Anything When I Grew Up, So I Became A Cyborg
'Victimless Leather' a prototype of stitch-less jacket grown in a Technoscientific "Body." Created from biodegradable polymer skin and bone cells from human and mouse
Oron Catts and a scientist colleague harvesting pig mesenchymal cells (bone marrow stem cells).
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'Tissue Engineered Steak No.1.' This was the first attempt to use tissue engineering for meat production without the need to slaughter animals.