以下是幾種水果和蔬菜在人們選擇育種前后的樣子

以下是幾種水果和蔬菜在人們選擇育種前后的樣子

Lately, there’s been quite a big movement against genetically modified foods (GMOs). And while the process of genetically modifying certain food is rather recent, humans have been playing around with the genetics for centuries. The difference is that they did it by means that required much more time and patience. As far as human agriculture goes, everyone’s been trying to grow the bigger, better and more nutricious source of food and that’s how selective breeding allowed us to enjoy the fruits (literally) of a hundreds of years of labor.

最近，有一場(chǎng)反對(duì)轉(zhuǎn)基因食品的大運(yùn)動(dòng)。雖然對(duì)某些食物進(jìn)行基因改造的過(guò)程是最近才開(kāi)始的，但人類對(duì)基因的研究已經(jīng)有幾個(gè)世紀(jì)的歷史了。不同的是，他們做這件事需要更多的時(shí)間和耐心。就人類農(nóng)業(yè)而言，每個(gè)人都在努力找到更大、更好、更營(yíng)養(yǎng)的食物來(lái)源，這就是選擇性育種讓我們享受數(shù)百年勞動(dòng)果實(shí)的原因。

Some fruits and vegetables featured here show a variety of plants that could be considered a great-great-great-great-grandpa of the modern day equivalent. While others, like the banana we know today, are relatively new to our cuisine.

這里的一些水果和蔬菜展示了各種各樣的植物，這些植物可以被認(rèn)為是現(xiàn)代意義上的曾祖父。而其他的，比如我們今天認(rèn)識(shí)的香蕉，對(duì)我們的菜系來(lái)說(shuō)是比較新的。

Wild watermelons

野生西瓜

Image credits: christies

A crop of a 17th-century painting by Giovanni Stanchi shows watermelons in a completely different form than we’re familiar with. The artwork which was painted between 1645 and 1672, depicts watermelons haing swirly shapes embedded in six triangular pie-shaped pieces, as well as large seeds and the inside that is dominated by the white flesh that most of us consider inedible nowadays.

喬瓦尼·斯坦奇在17世紀(jì)的一幅油畫(huà)中展示的西瓜形狀與我們所熟悉的完全不同。這幅創(chuàng)作于1645年至1672年間的作品描繪了西瓜的形狀，西瓜呈漩渦狀嵌在6個(gè)三角形的餅狀瓜塊中，瓜子很大，里面的果肉是白色的，我們大多數(shù)人現(xiàn)在都認(rèn)為是不能吃的。

Modern watermelons

現(xiàn)代的西瓜

Image credits: Scott Ehardt

Over time, humans bred watermelons to be much more appealing and mouth-watering. Nowadays, we can easily get watermelons that are perfectly ripe, bright red and juicy and there are even varieties that are seedless. Those are produced by crossing diploid and tetraploid lines of watermelon, with the resulting seeds producing sterile triploid plants.

隨著時(shí)間的推移，人類培育出了更有吸引力、更令人垂涎的西瓜。如今，我們很容易就能買到熟透的西瓜，鮮紅多汁，甚至還有無(wú)籽西瓜。它們是由西瓜的二倍體和四倍體雜交產(chǎn)生的，由此產(chǎn)生的種子產(chǎn)生不育的三倍體植株。

Wild banana

野生香蕉

Image credits: geneticliteracyproject

Banana’s ancestors date back as far as 10,000 to 6,500 BP as researches found numerous phytoliths of bananas at the Kuk Swamp archaeological site. But before banana was what it is today, a creamy, sweet fruit (well, technically a berry), it went through a lot of changes through selective breeding. One of the biggest differences in the wild variety of the fruit is large seeds that take up most of the fruit. Quite difficult to imagine eating that, right?

研究人員在庫(kù)克沼澤考古遺址發(fā)現(xiàn)了大量的香蕉植物巖，香蕉的祖先可以追溯到10000到6500個(gè)BP。但在香蕉成為今天的樣子之前，它是一種柔滑、香甜的水果(確切地說(shuō)，是一種漿果)，它通過(guò)選擇性育種經(jīng)歷了很多變化。在野生品種的果實(shí)最大的區(qū)別之一是大的種子，占據(jù)了大部分的果實(shí)。很難想象吃那個(gè)，對(duì)吧?

Modern banana

現(xiàn)代的香蕉

Image credits: Christian Dembowski

The fruit that we now call banana has one of the most tumultuous histories ever. The mass production of bananas started only in 1834 when the fruit was moved to the Caribbean. However, at the beginning of the previous century the massively produced bananas were struck by a crisis, a fungus infection that started wiping out entire plantations. That’s when researchers developed a banana that was able to withstand the fungus infection, the Giant Cavendish, which is what we currently know as bananas.

我們現(xiàn)在稱之為香蕉的水果有著最混亂的歷史。香蕉的大規(guī)模生產(chǎn)始于1834年，當(dāng)時(shí)香蕉被運(yùn)到了加勒比海。然而，在上個(gè)世紀(jì)初，大量生產(chǎn)的香蕉遭遇了一場(chǎng)危機(jī)，真菌感染開(kāi)始摧毀整個(gè)種植園。就在那時(shí)，研究人員研制出了一種能夠抵御真菌感染的香蕉——巨型卡文迪什香蕉，也就是我們現(xiàn)在所知的香蕉。

Wild eggplant

野生茄子

Image credits: Nepenthes

Throughout history, eggplants had a variety of shapes and sizes before appearing on our dinner tables as round, fleshy vegetables. Some of the earliest versions of eggplant were recorded in ancient China. The first generations of plants used to have spines on the place where the plant’s stem connects to the flowers, which quite an extreme look, when you think of it. As bad-ass as the wild eggplant might look it also lacks the size and other preferable qualities of the modern day equivalent.

縱觀歷史，茄子有各種各樣的形狀和大小，然后才出現(xiàn)在我們的餐桌上，成為圓形的肉質(zhì)蔬菜。一些最早的茄子版本記錄在古代中國(guó)。第一代植物的莖與花相連的地方有刺，當(dāng)你想到這一點(diǎn)時(shí)，你會(huì)覺(jué)得這是一種很極端的樣子。雖然野生茄子看起來(lái)很丑，但它也沒(méi)有現(xiàn)代茄子的大小和其他優(yōu)點(diǎn)。

Modern eggplant

現(xiàn)代的茄子

Image credits: lchunt

The modern day eggplant is big, long and meaty (haha!). With the limited number of seeds and plenty of flesh, the eggplant shows just how wonderful selective breeding can be!

現(xiàn)代茄子又大又長(zhǎng)又肉(哈哈!)由于種子數(shù)量有限，果肉豐富，茄子的選擇育種是多么美妙!