据路透社报道，当地时间3月28日，一个巨大的肉丸在荷兰国家科学博物馆亮相，它是用灭绝已久的猛犸象（mammoth）DNA经细胞培育而成的肉制成的。↓

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A giant meatball made from flesh cultivated using the DNA of an extinct woolly mammoth was unveiled on Tuesday at Nemo, a science museum in the Netherlands.

 

报道称，这款肉丸由澳大利亚一家人造肉公司Vow开发。该公司表示，“这不是愚人节玩笑”，他们希望通过此举引发人们对人造肉的关注，并称人造肉是真正肉类的更可持续替代品。

The meatball was created by Australian cultured meat company Vow which - promising this was not an April Fools' joke - said it wanted to get people talking about cultured meat, calling it a more sustainable alternative for real meat.

公司创始人诺克史密斯表示：“我们想创造一种与当前世界上任何存在都完全不同的东西。”他补充说，选择猛犸象的另一个原因是，科学家们认为猛犸象的灭绝是由气候变化造成的。

 

"We wanted to create something that was totally different from anything you can get now," Vow founder Tim Noakesmith told Reuters, adding that an additional reason for choosing mammoth is that scientists believe that the animal's extinction was caused by climate change.

据报道，这种肉丸是由绵羊细胞（sheep cells），结合猛犸象肌红蛋白（myoglobin）的DNA序列（DNA sequence）混合而成的细胞培育结果。不过，由于获取的猛犸象DNA序列有部分缺失，因此也插入了一些非洲象的DNA来补齐它。该公司首席科学官詹姆斯·赖尔声称：“肉类的色泽和味道与肌红蛋白有关。”   

 

The meatball was made of sheep cells inserted with a singular mammoth gene called myoglobin.

Since the mammoth's DNA sequence obtained by Vow had a few gaps, African elephant DNA was inserted to complete it.

"When it comes to meat, myoglobin is responsible for the aroma, the color and the taste", James Ryall, Vow's Chief Scientific Officer explained.

赖尔还称，“就像他们（科学家）在电影《侏罗纪公园》中所做的类似”，最大的区别在于，他们不是在创造真实的动物。

"Much like they do in the movie Jurassic Park", Ryall said, stressing the biggest difference is that they were not creating actual animals.

据悉，虽然制造人造肉通常意味着使用死牛犊的血液，但该公司使用了另一种方法，在制作猛犸象肉丸的过程中没有杀死任何动物。

While creating cultured meat usually means using blood of a dead calf, Vow used an alternative, meaning no animals were killed in the making of the mammoth meatball.

不过，目前这颗带有鳄鱼肉香味的肉丸还不能食用。

The meatball, which has the aroma of crocodile meat, is currently not for consumption.

诺克史密斯表示，肉丸里的蛋白质已经有4000年的历史了，在该产品被推向市场前，必须要进行严格的测试。

"Its protein is literally 4,000 years old. We haven't seen it in a very long time. That means we want to put it through rigorous tests, something that we would do with any product we bring to the market," Noakesmith said.

另据CNN报道，猛犸象大约在5000年前灭绝，它们的尸体在永久冻土（permafrost）中被发现保存得非常完好，血管里还有血液。

The carcasses of mammoths, which went extinct about 5,000 years ago, have been found so well preserved in permafrost, they still had blood in their veins.

 

斯德哥尔摩大学古遗传学中心的进化基因组学教授洛夫·达伦曾对世界上最古老的猛犸象DNA进行测序，他声称自己知道猛犸象肉的实际味道。

Love Dalén, a professor of evolutionary genomics at Stockholm University’s Centre for Paleogenetics who sequenced the world’s oldest mammoth DNA, knows what mammoth meat actually tastes like.

该教授讲述说，在2012年西伯利亚亚纳河的一次实地考察中，他尝试了一小块从一头小猛犸象的部分尸体上取出的冻肉。虽然他认为Vow公司的这个肉丸项目没有多少科学价值，但如果猛犸象肉真的上市的话，他一定会尝尝，“毫无疑问，我很想试试！它不可能比真正的猛犸象肉更难吃。”

During a field trip to the Yana River in Siberia in 2012, Dalén said he tried a small piece of frozen meat taken from partial carcass of a baby mammoth. While he said couldn’t see great scientific value in the meatball project, were they to ever go on sale, Dalén said he would definitely taste one.

“Without doubt I would love to try this!” he said. “It cannot possibly taste worse than real mammoth meat.”

CNN报道称，全球约三分之一的温室气体排放来自食品生产系统，其中大部分来自畜牧业。人造肉支持者希望通过人造肉减少屠宰动物作为食物的需求，并认为这有助于应对气候危机。

Advocates hope cultured meat will reduce the need to slaughter animals for food and help fight the climate crisis. The food system is responsible for about a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, most of which result from animal agriculture.

Vow公司希望尽快获得新加坡监管机构的批准，销售该公司在实验室培育的鹌鹑肉。新加坡是首个批准人造肉的国家。而在美国，食品及药物管理局也已经表示，实验室培育的鸡肉可以供人类食用。

Vow hopes to soon get regulatory approval in Singapore, the first country to approve cultured meat, to sell lab-made quail meat it has developed. In the United States, the FDA has said that lab-grown chicken is OK for human consumption.

不过，据欧洲新闻电视台等外媒报道，意大利政府3月28日晚通过了一项立法草案，旨在禁止包括人造肉在内的合成食品在意大利的生产和销售。意大利农业部部长表示，此举的目的是保护该国的农业食品遗产。

 

Italy's government has approved a bill banning the production and use of lab-grown food and feed.

The aim is to protect the country's agri-food heritage, according to the country’s agriculture minister.
 

该草案称，如果该提案在议会获得通过，意大利工业将不允许“用来自脊椎动物的细胞培养物或组织”生产食品或饲料。

 

根据这一法案，违反禁令可能会面临多种类型的处罚，例如会受到最高6万欧元的罚款，并在三年内失去获得公共资金的权利。发生违规行为的工厂将被关闭。
 

If the proposal is passed by parliament, Italian industry will not be allowed to produce food or feed "from cell cultures or tissues derived from vertebrate animals", the bill said.

The bill stipulates that anyone who violates the new law can be fined up to €60,000 euros, losing the right to public funding for up to three years. Factories where violations occur can be shut down.
 

综合来源：路透社，CNN，欧洲新闻电视台，环球时报，参考消息