Combinging two of my favorite things - chocolate and genomes

Well, the Mars company has really done it now (see Unwrapping the Chocolate Genome -from washingtonpost.com). They are planning to sequence the cacoa genome. Genomes and chocolate. Man are they going to get every bioinformatics person I know to apply to help out with this project ...

Some little notes on the project:

• They plan to release the data for public use: "Mars plans to make the research results free and accessible through the Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture, a group that supports agricultural innovation, as they become available. The intent is to prevent opportunists from patenting the plant's key genes."
• They are doing this in a collaboration with IBM
• Good quote by Howard Shapiro: "We have the ability as a private company to take charge of the future," Howard-Yana Shapiro, global director of plant science for Mars, said."

So -even though I pondered whether this was science by press release, a friend of mine convinced me it was not and this was just getting out the word on the project. For other details see

• Genome Technology 
• BBC News
• Fungal genomes blog
• For the love of chocolate
• Another genome project? Sweet . . .
• A Genetic Quest for Better Chocolate