It seems that science is growing closer to being able to grow meat in a lab.
The piece is pretty fascinating. As Jonah Goldberg points out, the propsect of meat without animals raises fascinating questions:

...I am curious what the animal rights and eco-types would say to the proposition of lab grown meat -- assuming they could get past their deep luddism. After all, the suffering of farm animals would be sharply curtailed if not eliminated. Forests wouldn't need to be cleared for cattle and billions(?) of acres of forest land around the world could be allowed to revert to wilderness, improving the quality of our air and water.
Of course, even if we perfected the technology overnight (which we wouldn't), there are some obvious downsides: millions of farm animals would probably have to be killed since their would no longer be much economic utility in feeding them. Worse, billions of people around the world would have their traditional social, political and economic arrangements shattered. Our attachment to the land would be even more attenuated. Whole new quasi-religions and political movements would develop around the need to eat "authentic" meat. Anyway, it's an interesting topic for lazy-day pondering.

All true. But those questions pale in comparison to the most important one of all: would such laboratory-grown meat be kosher? Would stakes genetically from cattle and bison, without the intermediate steps of existence as a living animal and shechitah, be kosher? What about grown pork - would the non-existence as an actual pig be enough to render it kosher?
I need to research this issue a little more closely.