The reason behind this experiment is of course to open dialogue about how we impact the environment with our current way of handling cattle and meat production. It’s supposed to show people that lab-grown meat can be a viable alternative to the more classic agriculture that we so rely on today. Considering how food production is responsible for 30% of our global greenhouse emissions, being able to severely reduce those will be good for everyone in the long run.
In order to create the pretty big ball of meat, scientists had to sequence the entire mammoth genome. It shouldn’t be eaten because despite being able to recreate literal mammoth meat, scientists haven’t yet figured out what eating mammoth meat would do to our modern immune systems. Let’s be honest: that just sounds like a cheap excuse to launch a “Mammoth Meat Ball” challenge on TikTok in a few months.