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  3. The Belgian blue is an ugly but tasty cow that has 40% more muscle than it should have. It is the product of random mutation fol

The Belgian blue is an ugly but tasty cow that has 40% more muscle than it should have. It is the product of random mutation fol

admin2014-09-05  7
问题     The Belgian blue is an ugly but tasty cow that has 40% more muscle than it should have. It is the product of random mutation followed by selective breeding—as, indeed, are all domesticated creatures. But where an old art has led, a new one may follow. By understanding which genetic changes have been consolidated in the Belgian blue, it may be possible to design and build similar versions of other species using genetic engineering as a short-cut. And that is precisely what Terry Bradley, a fish biologist at the University of Rhode Island, is trying to do. Instead of cattle, he is doing it in trout. His is one of two projects that may soon put the first biotech animals on the dinner table. The other project is led by Aqua Bounty.
    It is one thing to make such fish, of course. It is quite another to get them to market. First, it is necessary to receive the approval of the regulators. In America, the relevant regulator is the Food and Drug Administration(FDA), which Aqua Bounty says it has been petitioning for more than a decade and which published guidelines for approving genetically engineered animals in 2009. Aqua Bounty has now filed its remaining studies for approval, and hopes to hear the result this year. Dr Bradley has not yet applied for approval.
    The FDA is concerned mainly with the healthfulness of what people put in their mouths, and it seems unlikely that the new procedures will yield something that is unsafe to eat. But what happens if the creatures escape and start breeding in the wild? For that to be a problem, the modified fish would have to be better at surviving and reproducing than those honed by millions of years of natural selection. On the face of it, this seems unlikely, because the characteristics that have been engineered into them are ones designed to make them into better food, rather than lean, mean breeding machines.
    But there is a chink in this argument. As Mark Abrahams, a biologist at Memorial University in Newfoundland, points out, it is not just the fish that have been modified by man, but also the environment in which they could escape. Many of the creatures that eat salmon and trout, such as bears and some birds, have had their ranks thinned by human activity. Dr Abrahams thinks it possible that fast-growing salmon could displace the natural sort in places where predators are rare.
    Aqua Bountyis addressing such concerns by subjecting developing eggs to high pressures.
    The result, if all goes well, will be that animals follow plants down the biotech route. Whether people will actually want to buy or eat the new fish is a different matter—though they buy the meat of Belgian blue cattle at a premium. Perhaps clever marketing could make "double-muscled" fish into a premium product, too. If people will pay extra for meat from a monstrosity like the Belgian blue, anything is possible.
What is the author’s attitude towards the market prospect of double-muscled fish?
选项 A、Confident.
B、Ambivalent.
C、Expectant.
D、Indifferent.
答案B
解析 作者对于双肌鱼市场前景的描述集中在最后一段。作者对于人们是否愿意购买双肌鱼持怀疑态度，但是文中最后一段话又说既然人们愿意为比利时蓝牛多掏腰包，那么他们也还是有可能买双肌鱼的。通过前后这两句话，可以看出作者对双肌鱼的前景的态度并不明朗，正确答案为[B]。
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