BOSTON, MA — After decades of work culminated in the invention of lab-grown beef, Dr. Joshua Patel was humiliated after realizing cows already exist.

"Oh, man. I completely forgot about cows," lamented Dr. Patel. "This is mortifying."

Over the years, Dr. Patel and his team had poured tens of thousands of hours into attempting to create beef. "After all those sleepless nights, we finally had our big breakthrough," explained Dr. Patel. "I'm all set to announce to the world that we invented beef, when all of a sudden, it dawns on me - cows are beef. There are literally huge slabs of beef walking all over the place. I'm such an idiot."

According to sources inside the research team, questions about cows had surfaced several times over the years. "I thought there must be some other point to the project," said research assistant Melanie Stephens. "There's a ranch like ten minutes from here with beef as far as the eye can see. Who could be so dumb as to spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to invent beef? The answer is: us. We are that dumb."

At publishing time, Dr. Patel had regrouped and announced a new project to develop lab-grown lamb chops.

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