Manufacturing synthetic blood = first step towards zombie quorn?

[The Rumour Mill]

Perhaps hot on the heels of the expansion of its preparedness laws, UK scientists are planning to engage in a research project to investigate whether synthetic human blood can be created from embryonic stem cells. Ostensibly, the research hopes to alleviate the shortage of blood donors and will use leftover human embryos from IVF treatment in order to discover which ones would develop into the O negative blood group.

"In principle, we could provide an unlimited supply of blood in this way." - Professor Turner

Two strands of thought emerge here:

1. Creating synthetic blood is merely the first step of the process and the ultimate goal is to create synthetic human flesh or brains in order to sate and thereby control the legendary zombie hunger, neutralising the threat of attack. This would not be the first time that groups have thought about trying to control zombies through their hunger, although it may well be the first time it has been taken from theory into practice. However, if synthetic flesh/brains have the equivalent taste of quorn, this may not prove as effective as scientists hope as few meat eaters would actually prefer to have a lump of quorn to a juicy steak.

2. Research may possibly need many embryos, providing a convenient cover to use discarded IVF-treatment embryos to feed zombies and control their hunger with "unwanted" flesh. Using embryos in scientific research for human benefit will doubtless raise ethical issues but using them to feed zombies would cause an outrage.

Whatever is going on, it seems that the UK is currently a hotbed of anti-zombie activity. Watch this space.