DNA chocolate

The U.S. food company Mars, producing popular chocolate bars, announced that is going to decrypt the genetic code of cocoa. The research project carried out jointly with the Ministry of Agriculture and the U.S. company IBM, is aimed at improving the quality of cocoa products.As scientists expect, project, entitled "Chocolate Genome Project", will help in drawing up new programmes for breeding chocolate trees. In addition, knowledge of DNA experts will help the plant increase its resistance to various parasites, disease and drought - results, which may soon lead to global warming.According to Howard-Yana Shapiro, director units Mars, responsible for botanical research, start the project "will significantly improve the trees, will lead to a better quality cocoa, as well as increase farmers' income." Therefore, the study was well received by African farmers who produce two-thirds share of cocoa around the world.Dr. Shapiro added that he could not guarantee that after receiving the results of the work in the world will not appear genetically modified chocolate. "Scientists around the world will have access to the results of our work on cocoa genes. What do they do with them, I can not verify," - he warned. According to experts, computation and analysis of DNA cocoa may take about five years. However, all current results of the work will be open to the public for free.The initiative of American Scientists praised academicians of other countries. According to Doctor John Orcharda natural resources from the Institute of English county Kent, he agreed that in view of significant global climate warming is very important to show more sustainable forms of chocolate tree because of its high susceptibility to various diseases. clic here