A Thanksgiving Sequence

Finally, a team of researches have decided its time to sequence the turkey genome! According to this article the international consortium of scientists will commence with the effort using a new state of the art Roche GS-FLX(tm) sequencer. The goal is to get a complete turkey genome sequence to help scientists understand how to breed better, healthier, more disease resistant
birds. As the chicken genome has already been sequenced, this will allow for comparative studies between the two animals. According to the National Turkey Federation, turkey was the fourth most popular choice of "meat protein" for consumers in the United States in 2007 with an estimated 271 million turkeys will be raised in 2008.