Apple Gene for Red Color Found

FiReaNGeL writes "Researchers have located the gene that controls the red color of apples — a discovery that may lead to bright new apple varieties. 'The red color in apple skin is the result of anthocyanins, the natural plant compounds responsible for blue and red colours in many flowers and fruits,' says the leader of the CSIRO. By identifying master genes that were activated by light, they were able to pinpoint the gene that controls the formation of anthocyanins in apples. 'As well as giving apples their rosy red hue, anthocyanins are also antioxidants with healthy attributes, giving us plenty of reasons to study how the biochemical pathway leading to apple color is regulated,' researchers said."

Comments

marketing?

[Turn-X Alphonse]

"Colour is a very important part of fruit marketing," she says. "If fruit doesn't look good, consumers are far less likely to buy it, no matter how good it might taste.

Dear marketing department : Shove it!

If people won't buy things that arn't perfect they don't deserve to enjoy the taste of it. Apples are the way they are because that's how they are best within our system. If you start messing with the genes who knows what side effects will happen? Just leave the damn things alone and go leech money off something else. Plant life is quite happy not being pretty to consumers.

I guess next they'll be making coconuts with soft shells because "It's so difficult to open one"