I was hopeful that you were correct about chickens being gassed, but unfortunately that only seems to be the case[1] in the UK:
> The majority of poultry (chickens, hens and turkeys) in the UK s are now killed using gas.
> UK law states that animals must be killed, not just stunned, using this method.
From the same source, here is the method used most widely due to cut costs:
> Birds are hung upside down by their legs on metal shackles along a moving conveyor belt.
> They move along the production line to a stunning water bath; when the bird's head makes contact with the water, an electrical circuit between the water bath and shackle is completed, which stuns the bird.
> The conveyor belt then moves the birds to a mechanical neck cutter, which cuts the major blood vessels in the neck.
> Live bird shackling causes pain, and hanging birds by their legs is stressful for them.
I was able to find many sources that confirm this just by googling "how are chickens slaughtered." I'm skeptical of PETA and other radical-seeming groups, but I found a source that seems to be pro-chicken that acknowledges this, as well[2]. It says:
> Birds are stunned (rendered unconscious and unaware of pain) and then slaughtered with a quick, single cut to the throat.
However, researching this process reveals many articles about it's ineffectiveness - particularly in the stunning of the birds.
> Brain activity indicates that these animals may be capable of experiencing pain first when they receive a paralyzing electric shock that induces tonic muscle seizures, then when their throats are forced against a sharpened blade. [3]
Furthermore, sometimes the throat-slitting process, too, fails. The next step in the production line is the boiling of the bird carcasses to remove feathers, which means that many birds are boiled alive, hanging upside down from their legs. The Washington post reports the number to be around a million a year in 2013[4].
I always hope that animals are treated humanely, and until very recently I had few qualms with animal products. However, I personally have found that every time I investigate these matters, I am faced with a bleak truth - animals are being tortured constantly, in the millions.
I know you never claimed that all chickens were painlessly gassed, but I feel that dismissing the issue as being more humane than nature (and I agree that nature is brutal) will only deepen the problem.
It's very easy to see that this is a publicity stunt (and a quite sexist one, at that). Allegations have been made that Andrew Chael contributed 850kloc, but this is clearly bizzare. Analyzing the git repo[1] shows that this enormous contribution was actually data used to train the probabilistic imaging model used in creating the image. Chael has also addressed this attack campaign on his twitter [2], making it clear that Katie Bouman played a vital role in the EHT project.
I’ve been using crystal for moderately sized personal projects for a few months now - I’ve never experienced any unreasonable compilation times. If you tried crystal a long time ago, I’d recommend giving it another shot!
This particular article is referring to cryogels, not cryogenics, although I can’t say I haven’t made the same mistake in the past. Cryogels are much like aerogels in that they are an air-pocketed foam-like substance, but cryogels are made by a different process (freeze drying). If I understand correctly, the cells aren’t being put into any form of sleep at all, merely being preserved and fed within the gel.
> The majority of poultry (chickens, hens and turkeys) in the UK s are now killed using gas. > UK law states that animals must be killed, not just stunned, using this method.
From the same source, here is the method used most widely due to cut costs:
> Birds are hung upside down by their legs on metal shackles along a moving conveyor belt. > They move along the production line to a stunning water bath; when the bird's head makes contact with the water, an electrical circuit between the water bath and shackle is completed, which stuns the bird. > The conveyor belt then moves the birds to a mechanical neck cutter, which cuts the major blood vessels in the neck. > Live bird shackling causes pain, and hanging birds by their legs is stressful for them.
I was able to find many sources that confirm this just by googling "how are chickens slaughtered." I'm skeptical of PETA and other radical-seeming groups, but I found a source that seems to be pro-chicken that acknowledges this, as well[2]. It says:
> Birds are stunned (rendered unconscious and unaware of pain) and then slaughtered with a quick, single cut to the throat.
However, researching this process reveals many articles about it's ineffectiveness - particularly in the stunning of the birds.
> Brain activity indicates that these animals may be capable of experiencing pain first when they receive a paralyzing electric shock that induces tonic muscle seizures, then when their throats are forced against a sharpened blade. [3]
Furthermore, sometimes the throat-slitting process, too, fails. The next step in the production line is the boiling of the bird carcasses to remove feathers, which means that many birds are boiled alive, hanging upside down from their legs. The Washington post reports the number to be around a million a year in 2013[4].
I always hope that animals are treated humanely, and until very recently I had few qualms with animal products. However, I personally have found that every time I investigate these matters, I am faced with a bleak truth - animals are being tortured constantly, in the millions.
I know you never claimed that all chickens were painlessly gassed, but I feel that dismissing the issue as being more humane than nature (and I agree that nature is brutal) will only deepen the problem.
[1]: https://www.rspca.org.uk/adviceandwelfare/farm/slaughter/fac... [2]: https://www.chickencheck.in/faq/how-chickens-slaughtered-pro... [3]: https://m.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/chickens-slaughtered-consc... (my apologies for a mobile link) [4]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/usda-plan-to-speed-u...