On a cool morning in early October, a 2,400-pound black bull named Alpha struts around a pasture east of the Panhandle town of Canyon as if he’s royalty. His parentage, though, is a mystery. Alpha is quite literally the son of a steak. Cloned in 2012 from a prime carcass procured from a slaughterhouse by West Texas A&M University animal science professor Ty Lawrence, Alpha is the first step in a process that could change the beef industry from pasture to plate.At the moment, the project is small-scale. Alpha was mated with three cows cloned from a different prime carcass, and in mid-2015 they birthed thirteen calves—nine bulls and four heifers. Seven of those were slaughtered this past May, and the results were impressive: the…The post Why, That Son of a Steak! appeared first on Texas Monthly.