At Nature we recently got very excited by the platypus genome, and now another important genome sequencing project has been announced.
Not quite so important from a biological science perspective, but important to millions of sweet toothed people and the developing-country farmers who rely on their appetites. The US Agricultural Research Service has announced a new partnership with IBM and Mars (of the bars fame) to sequence the cacao genome in five years.
Mars is putting up the money and IBM is going to use one of its supercomputers to analyse the genome. An end result could be drought and disease resistant cacao trees with higher yields.
“Sequencing the genomes of agriculture crops is a critical step if we want to better understand and improve a crop,” says Judy St. John or the US Department of Agriculture (Reuters).
I was initially worried that Mars might end up owning the genome of chocolate. But according to the NY Times the results will be freely available through the Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture.
For those interested in such things, the platypus genome was picked up as a story by about 350 news websites. So far the chocolate genome story has featured on about 170.
Headline watch
Unwrapping the Chocolate Genome – Washington Post
Another genome project? Sweet . . . – The Chronicle Herald
Sweet deal: Companies and U.S. team up to map cocoa DNA – Retuers
Image: Punchstock