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Mars Candy Sequences Chocolate Genome for $10M
envirovore.com — It seems the chocolate barons are scared of what climate change may do to cocoa, and are looking into genetics as a method of protecting their investment.
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- Asvetic, on 06/30/2008, -2/+9Very cool, this might open windows for mapping other plants.
Other News sources...
NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story ...
New York Times: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/a-genetic ... - samoan27, on 06/30/2008, -10/+17I love the bit of politics the author throws in at the end, "So Mars - how about sending some sugar back to your workers by going fair trade with them?"
Hey Heather, how about sending $1 down to some charity every time you buy chocolate instead of telling someone else to so they have to raise prices $1. Remember change starts with your actions, not telling someone else.- Gemfinder, on 06/30/2008, -0/+3Good suggestion. Dugg.
- jec68, on 06/30/2008, -0/+4Excellent point, cannot be repeated enough. I constantly used this argument against drooly deodorant-eschewing liberals (and I am a liberal myself!) and my prof in a recent class who tried to suggest that fair trade was somehow a better way for markets to function. I told this prof that because he bought a $40 fair trade shirt from Canada, he had simply misallocated $30 dollars from a charity to some low-skill worker in Canada. He gave me a C on the midterm :(
- WiseLittleOwl, on 07/02/2008, -0/+1Somoan27, I rarely buy chocolate, so my donations in that category would be pretty skimpy. My point is that what people eat (including chocolate) is limited to what is available. You can go anywhere in the world and get a Mars Candy bar - but not the organic, fair-trade kind. Why not?
Because we all want cheap food - and so we don't look too closely at what is REALLY making that food so cheap. So here's a different suggestion: how about we all cut down on our useless-crap-purchasing and spend some money on what really matters - what actually keeps us alive - food. And the people who grow it.
And corporations respond to what consumers, media, and government demand of them - so I don't think my suggestions to Mars are off-base.
- maddvibe, on 06/30/2008, -1/+5They have to protect their investments. I'm sure they can afford this and fair trade if they wanted. I don't buy much chocolate, so I don't care if that makes it more expensive or not..
- phorty40, on 06/30/2008, -3/+5MMMMmmm Genetically altered M&M's *drool*
- mecharabbit, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1I am firmly against the cloning of those talking M&M's for any purpose.
- nastronomical, on 06/30/2008, -4/+5Or they are trying to patent certain things that might pop up in the future...chocolate grows in hot regions...so lets be real here it will grow even more.
Enviro spin = total unintelligent BS - Mikhail101, on 06/30/2008, -8/+2What a waste of money
- Brainmodder, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2Not really, now that chocolate DNA is safely stored on some server somewhere, we could revive it in case of say nuclear war. Oh yeah, who knows what cool possible drugs could come from this.
It would be a very good idea to sequence every organism on Earth.
- Brainmodder, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2Not really, now that chocolate DNA is safely stored on some server somewhere, we could revive it in case of say nuclear war. Oh yeah, who knows what cool possible drugs could come from this.
- SolidBones, on 06/30/2008, -4/+0Priorities, people.
- RobotLeAwesome, on 06/30/2008, -0/+13oh god, we're going to have super-addictive ultra chocolate
- Gemfinder, on 06/30/2008, -0/+3Now if only the chocolate industry would allow cacao plants to be imported into the U.S. We can only import dried beans, not living plants. We could hothouse them and join the industry as a producer.
Sure, they're growing it on Hawai'i (check out Vintage Hawai'ian Chocolate Company — their product flat-out rawks, taste-wise), but not on the mainland.- Imascienceguy, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2Won't work. Do you have any clue how big of a hothouse you'd need? Each tree puts out around 100 lbs of beans, that's main crop, mid crop is about 20% less.
- Gemfinder, on 07/01/2008, -0/+1The Guittard factory in San Bruno CA has a (non-fruiting) one in its lobby, which makes it less than 8 feet tall. I've seen it in person. Cacao is an understory tree. We're not talking oaks here.
- Imascienceguy, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2Won't work. Do you have any clue how big of a hothouse you'd need? Each tree puts out around 100 lbs of beans, that's main crop, mid crop is about 20% less.
- burjzyntski, on 06/30/2008, -0/+0That didn't take long at all.
- moxley, on 06/30/2008, -0/+6"stoners everywhere sat on their couch and gazed at the wall, planning to be the first person to sequence the cannabis indica genome......if they could only get off the couch...."
- HairyFotr, on 06/30/2008, -1/+3But you can't get off the couch... the floor is lava!
- Amadeus2490, on 07/01/2008, -0/+1What's the difference between Cannabis Sativa and Cannabis Indica?
- Black6x, on 07/01/2008, -1/+1A couple of letters in that second word.
- moxley, on 07/01/2008, -0/+1http://www.weedfarmer.com/growing_guide/cannabis_i ...
- corkdorkdan, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2Wow, I really thought this was going to be a joke headline from The Onion. Not that it's not a great idea!
- MattFromSeattle, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2This has great potential in future genome mappings for other plants and working towards a cure for numerous diseases. Plus it'd just be cool to have on a hot cocoa mug.
- Kenzan, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2That's great.
I now know that my favorite happy-happy food is produced by indentured farmers and slave labor.
The world is dead to me now.... - keppj0nes, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2Somebody call me when they make a chocolate that triggers orgasms
- HeyArnold, on 06/30/2008, -1/+1MMMMM, genetically modified SUPER CHOCOLATE!
/droooooooool - sfacets, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2And then they will be able to charge even more than their already ridiculous prices.
- unkyduck, on 07/01/2008, -0/+2Fine. Look how great it turned out for bananas and honeybees. Biodiversity is more important than fractionally-higher-for-now profits.
- LemurHorde, on 07/01/2008, -0/+1Motives aside, I'm happy they're sequencing it. This may be the only plant in the order Malvales other than cotton to have its genome extensively sequenced. In the second article Asvetic above mentioned, it says the research and the sequence will be made public. The data produced and the computational tools developed for this will no doubt be used for lots of other purposes.
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