Building the Perfect Christmas Tree

Thursday, 06 December 2012 | by Pat's Picks

There’s an awesome story in the New York Times this morning about the great challenge for Christmas tree scientists. The burning question is how to genetically engineer a tree that will keep its needles from Thanksgiving to Christmas. The latest project to explore “needle retention” is a $1.3-million RNA-sequencing trial hoping to determine which genes are linked to shedding so they can be phased out. Says the lead scientist: “It’s probably the largest single-funded Christmas tree project in U.S. history.”

SOURCE: New York Times