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Dutch researchers make giant meatball using mammoth DNA

A team of scientists on Tuesday unveiled a meatball made from the DNA of an extinct mammoth at the NEMO science museum in the Netherlands. (Associated Press)

Dutch researchers were able to create a massive meatball of flesh grown using the DNA of a wooly mammoth this week.

A team of scientists put the fleshy blob on display at the NEMO science museum in the Netherlands. The team manufactured the girth with the help of an Australian cultured meat company, Vow, which has entertained the possibility of mass production and sale of the meat.

"We wanted to create something that was totally different from anything you can get now," Vow founder Tim Noakesmith told Reuters. "Its protein is literally 4,000 years old. We haven't seen it in a very long time. That means we want to put it through rigorous tests, something that we would do with any product we bring to the market."

Vow's team used sheep cells as a base for the growth before inserting a single myoglobin gene from a mammoth. Myoglobin is responsible for the smell, color and taste properties of meat. The team says the meat currently smells similar to crocodile flesh.

SCIENTISTS WANT TO CLONE THIS EXTINCT, FROZEN PREHISTORIC HORSE

Researchers used extinct wooly mammoth DNA to cultivate a flesh glob, which it put on display at a museum in the Netherlands.