美国《大西洋月刊》“转基因食品有非常真实的危险”

Update 1/12: Thanks to science and biology bloggers, Christie Wilcox and Emily Willingham at the Scientific American blog network and The Biology Files, respectively, we've learned of the scientific inconsistencies made in Ari LeVaux's most recent Flash in the Pan column, which is syndicated by a number of newspapers and magazine websites. This column has been expanded and updated for AlterNet, with LeVaux discussing specific improvements in the comments.

在食用大米的人体血液和器官中，中国的研究人员已经找到了一种来自大米的微小核糖核酸片段。这个以南京大学为基地的研究团队称：这种遗传物质会粘附在受体的肝脏细胞上，并且左右人体从血液中清除胆固醇。

Chinese researchers have found small pieces of rice ribonucleic acid (RNA) in the blood and organs of humans who eat rice. The Nanjing University-based team showed that this genetic material will bind to receptors in human liver cells and influence the uptake of cholesterol from the blood.

此种核糖核酸因其本身非常小，被称作微小核糖核酸（缩写为miRNA）。miRNA是在十年前才被发现的，之后进行了广泛研究，并且己被确认为是癌症、老年痴呆症和糖尿病等多种人类疾病的诱因。这些miRNA通过压制或关闭特定基因来发挥作用。中国专家的研究，首次展示了植物中的微小核糖核酸能通过人类消化道而不被降解、首次找到了这些来自植物组织的活性微小生物基因信息物质对人类细胞发号施令的例子。

The type of RNA in question is called microRNA (abbreviated to miRNA) due to its small size. MiRNAs have been studied extensively since their discovery ten years ago, and have been implicated as players in several human diseases including cancer, Alzheimer's, and diabetes. They usually function by turning down or shutting down certain genes. The Chinese research provides the first in vivo example of ingested plant miRNA surviving digestion and influencing human cell function in this way.

如果该研究中的关键点能通过严格的科学评审------它将会颠覆许多以往的研究结论。因为它意味着，我们吃下去的不只是维生素、蛋白质和能量，可能还包含有基因调控因子。

Should the research survive scientific scrutiny -- a serious hurdle -- it could prove a game changer in many fields. It would mean that we're eating not just vitamins, protein, and fuel, but gene regulators as well.

这个新发现将会加深科学家对许多研究领域的理解，其中包括：跨物种的信息交流方式、协同演化和细胞的吞噬-关联等问题。它还可能提出代谢紊乱的新模型，甚至解释某些草药和现代药物是如何发挥功能的。

That knowledge could deepen our understanding of many fields, including cross-species communication, co-evolution, and predator-prey relationships. It could illuminate new mechanisms for some metabolic disorders and perhaps explain how some herbal and modern medicines function.