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Science and Technolgy.
科技。
Artificial meat.
人造肉。
Hamburger junction.
人造漢堡的誕生。
Muscle grown in factories could soon be appearing in a supermarket near you.
工廠培養的肉可能很快出現在你周圍的超市了。
A QUARTER of a million euros is rather a lot to pay for a hamburger, but that will be the cost of the patty which Mark Post proposes to stick in a bun this October. The burger in question-not so much a quarter-pounder as a quarter-million-pounder-will be so expensive because it will be made from meat that has been grown from scratch in a laboratory.
25萬歐元去買一個漢堡包確實是相當貴，但這只是今年十月Mark Post計劃內夾在面包片中一塊肉餅的價格。那關于這個漢堡——就不僅僅是一個0.25磅重的漢堡了，相當于250000磅漢堡的價格——這么貴是因為它所用的肉是從實驗室里培養出來的。
Dr Post, who works at Eindhoven University in the Netherlands, belongs to a group of people who hope to disrupt one of mankind's oldest industries-animal husbandry. In fact, they wish not so much to disrupt it as to destroy it.
Post博士任職于荷蘭霍芬大學，現從屬于一個課題組，該課題組致力于中止人類最古老的行業之一——畜牧業。實際上，他們不僅僅希望去中止它而是去終結該產業。
Raising animals is a resource-intensive process. About 30% of the world's ice-free land is used for it. Yet of the nutrients in the plants these animals eat, only around 15% is turned into meat. As the human population grows, and grows richer, demand for meat is increasing. Dr Post hopes to satisfy at least part of that demand by making the stuff in factories, in a way that converts about 50% of the nutrients into something people can eat.
飼養動物就是一個資源富集的過程。世界上大約30%的非冰覆陸地都在進行此過程。而動物吃掉植物后，只能把其中15%的營養變成肉。當人口不斷增長時，對肉類需求也在增加。Post博士希望通過把50%的營養轉換成可食用肉的方法，使工廠生產的肉至少能滿足人們的部分需求。
For now, that something is not exactly fillet steak. Dr Post's cultures, grown from stem cells, are sheets 3cm long, 1.5cm wide and half a millimetre deep. To make the world's most expensive hamburger 3,000 of them will be needed.
現在那些東西未必是正宗的菲力牛排了。Post博士的做法是，把干細胞培養于3厘米長，1.5厘米寬，0.5毫米深的基槽內。所以需要3000個培養基才能做成這個世界最貴的漢堡包。
The stem cells themselves are extracted from cattle muscle and then multiplied a millionfold before they are put in Petri dishes and allowed to turn into muscle cells. When they have done so, they are encouraged to exercise and build up their strength by being given their own gym equipment (pieces of Velcro to which they can anchor themselves in order to stretch and relax spontaneously). The fatty cells of adipose tissue, needed for juiciness, are grown separately and then combined with the muscle cells before the whole thing is cooked. In theory, one cow could thus supply as many hamburgers as a million slaughtered animals can today.
那些干細胞從牛肌肉中提取，在放入培養皿和變成肌細胞之前，干細胞還要經過上百萬次繁殖。完成這個階段后，它們還要經過鍛煉來增加自己的強度，也就是為它們提供一些“健身器材”（為了能讓它們自發地伸展和放松，需把它們固定在維可牢上）。那些脂肪組織的脂肪細胞需要具有多汁性，則要進行單獨培養，在整個被烹調之前，還要把它和肌肉組織結合在一起。理論上，以這種方式一頭牛能提供的漢堡量比得上當今屠宰一百萬頭牛的產量。
Producing meat in Petri dishes is not commercially viable, but Dr Post hopes to scale things up-first by growing the cells on small spheres floating in tanks and ultimately by using scaffolds made of biodegradable polymer tubes, which would both add the third dimension needed for a juicy steak and provide a way of delivering nutrients and oxygen to the steak's interior.
在培養皿中生產肉不具有商業可行性，但Post博士希望把規模成倍擴大——首先把細胞培養在大容里面的球形漂浮物上，最后再使用可降解聚合物試管做支承，這樣既能增加多汁牛肉所需的視覺真實感，還能提供傳遞營養和氧氣到牛肉內部的通路。
The nutrients themselves could come from conventional crops, but Dr Post also has plans to use algae, which grow faster than vascular plants, to provide the necessary amino acids, sugars and fats. The upshot would be a world with fewer stock animals. Not only would that liberate land, it would reduce greenhouse-gas emissions (cattle are notorious sources of methane, which is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide). Moreover, you do not even have to kill a cow to obtain stem cells from it. A biopsy will do. That might mean that vegetarians would be able to enjoy meat, too.
那些營養物質可以從普通農作物中獲取，但Post博士計劃使用藻類，因為它們比那些維管植物長的要快，以此提供所需的氨基酸、糖類和脂肪。這樣最終結果將是世界再也不必飼養那么多動物，不僅可以解放土地，還可以減少溫室氣體的排放（牛是臭名昭著的甲烷釋放源，且甲烷是比二氧化碳更嚴重的溫室氣體）。此外，你也不必再為獲得干細胞而殺掉一頭?！铙w切片法便可做到。這意味著素食主義者也可以享用肉類了。
