WHAT’s yellow, bent and is about to spill all its secrets? Yes, the humble
banana will be the first edible fruit to have its genetic code unravelled.
The first plant genome to be sequenced was the mustard cress Arabidopsis
thaliana. Rice was next, but the companies that sequenced it have been
criticised for not making the data freely available
(New Scientist, 3 February, p 6).
Now bananas—genus Musa—are go. A global consortium of
publicly funded institutes met in Washington DC this week to finalise details.
They plan to have the job done within five years, and will…
