204: understanding trees better

This is an interesting little story. As CBS News reported today, the New York Botanical Garden is embarking on a new endeavour to map the genetic code of the world's tree species. Starting with a two-year project called TreeBOL (tree barcode of life), the garden's scientists and others from 40 institutions across the world will capture the DNA of thousands of species across the US, Malaysia, India and South Africa. This will form the basis of a new DNA database, which it is hoped will ultimately contain the DNA of all the world's tree species (some 100,000 or so). Why is this useful? Well, as the CBS article points out, we need to understand trees better to know what they offer us, where they thrive and how to protect them. TreeBOL offers all that, apparently for just $600k! Money well spent, I reckon. (Photo from AP/CBS News.)