The research on artificial meat has been prompted by concerns that current methods of meat production are unsustainable in the long term.

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It is the biggest Sunday night audience on record since 1992, when current research methods began.

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These shorter studies have been based on methods that are very different from the Harvard-OSU research, but in the 2, 000 years that they overlap, the results have been basically the same.

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More worrying, from the scientists' point of view, is that new areas of bioscience may become classified, that the government is considering reviewing work prior to publication (with an option on refusing permission to publish) and that it might insist that the methods sections of some research papers are removed.

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In 2006 a review by America's National Research Council endorsed points Mr McIntyre and his colleagues made on some methods used to make the hockey stick, and on doubts over a specific set of tree rings.

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Research on procedural methods for narrative, behaviour, and motivation exist, they just haven't had the time and investment to develop into stable commercial systems.

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Or how about we levy a special tax on newspapers and magazines and direct the money into a New Media Trust Fund out of which bureaucrats can support research on new non-dead-tree methods of disseminating news?

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