奇速英语

人类需要找到新的食物来源养活自己

People need to find out new foods because the world has so many mouths to feed. Now there are more than seven billion people on Earth, according to the United Nations. And by 2100 that number may double, according to some predictions. Feeding all of these people means not only improving the way food is grown, but also finding new sources of foods. This need is becoming ever more urgent. If nothing changes, within 35 years, the world’s appetite will be greater than the amount of food produced. That’s according to a report, prepared by the Global Harvest Initiative, a private agriculture group based in Washington, D.C.

All over the world, researchers are racing against the clock to figure out how best to feed more people in the future world. Two years ago, scientists showed the first hamburger made from meat produced in a lab, rather than taken from an animal body. Other researchers are developing seeds that can manage to live even during high temperatures and drought. Still others are finding ways to change the genes of meat animals, so they produce more meat.

For example, researchers in South Korea and China have an idea: the super-pig. These researchers have changed the genes in a type of pig to create an animal that becomes bigger and heavier, packing on more muscle. Typically, muscle tissue is the part of an animal that becomes meat for food. Biologist Jin-Soo Kim at Seoul National University in South Korea leads super-pig research there.

Kim sees many possible uses for the editing technology. Such gene correction, he says, might help improve crops, fish and animals kept on a farm. “We’re now working on changing genes in other large animals, such as dogs and cows,” he says.

However, animals with genes changed in the lab haven’t yet been approved for eating. More studies would be needed to make sure that they’re safe. But Kim and his workmates hope that day won’t be far away.