The Price of Perfect Chocolate

Candy manufacturer Mars is going on a quest to improve one of life’s favorite guilty pleasures: chocolate. The company is investing $10 million to unlock the secrets behind the chocolate genome. Yep, your eyes aren’t playing trick on you. $10 million. US. American. A genome is the entire genetic hereditary makeup of an organism, and by decoding this for chocolate, scientists are hoping to understand every aspect of the cocoa tree’s life. This information may help growers protect their crops from disease and combat pests. Read more about this epic quest at the Times Online.

Maybe someday the secrets unlocked in this quest for chocolate’s holy grail can make each plant produce tastier chocolate? Cocoa DNA crossed with graham cracker RNA and marshmallow nuclei? S’mores. We all know how delicious these are, but with modern science, we could be growing real ones in our backyard by next year. The possibilities are endless.