I was told years ago that if you do something once, it is an event; if you do it twice it is a tradition. Using that kind of logic I will tell you I have noticed a new trend from the science bloggers I follow. Many science bloggers are now active on Twitter, and the micro-blog is now as important, it seems, as the full blessay. Twitter can be used for making quick announcements, and many science bloggers also use it as a way to link to their full blog. The trend I was alluding to earlier is that some bloggers are now blogging their weekly tweets and other bloggers are listing all their re-tweets as a quick blog entry.

I’m not going to blog just a review of the tweets. If you want that, you can follow me directly on Twitter. I pointed out in an earlier blog that if you wish to keep up with the latest genomics information, you can go directly to Genome Alberta’s Facebook application ‘GenOmics’. Today, I am highlighting a few recent tweets that have caught my attention as being of more general interest. My hope is that this can become a kind of tradition for you educators talking to your students about fun and exciting developments in the field.

• I like this project! RT @mikesgene S. Florida scientists work to decode the genetics of chocolate... http://ga.newsi.us/?x=nm

The genomics of cacao is being studied by scientists in South Florida. The project is headed up by Dr. Raymond Schnell of the Chapman Field, Subtropical Horticultural Research Station of the USDA Agricultural Research Service. This research was stimulated in part by a disease outbreak in cacao in 1998. Florida has had a quarantine station since the 1950s to stop the movement of cacao diseases among the Americas, Asia and Africa. DNA testing is helping to re-organize the collection of cultivars and to make exploitation of a cultivar's qualities possible, from subtle flavor nuances to disease or pest resistance. The end result of this project will be a delight to all of us chocoholics looking for the ultimate in taste and texture when we put a delicious morsel on our tongues.

• Genome Study Provides a Census of Early Humans http://bit.ly/8jfGy9 (New York Times)

If you have been following my blog, you know I often write about the contribution genomics makes to our understanding of the peopling of the earth. Just as powerful telescopes looking out to the stars are a window back in the time of the universe, so too DNA analysis is our time machine when it comes to looking back in time at life on earth. A paper by Chad D. Huff and Lynn B. Jorde generated many tweets, blogs and science news articles showing excitement over the findings which verified predictions made as early as 1988 about the very small human populations 1.2 million years ago.

• palaeopolyploid ... ancient polyploid .Genome sequence of the palaeopolyploid soybean http://icio.us/1ycuef

There has been a great deal of excitement this past month about the sequencing of the soybean. Many reasons make this important. Soybean is an important food source, nitrogen fixer and potential biofuel for the future. I chose this tweet as it ties into the time machine aspect I mentioned previously. Additionally, I like the way this paper illustrates that genetic changes are not just from simple point mutations but can involve entire genomes changing in a generation. Humans have been manipulating polyploid plants for many years. Here is an example of it happening without human intervention far in the past, thus the description palaeopolyploid.

I will be talking about these and many other examples of genomic science at this year’s Calgary City Teachers Convention (Telus Convention Centre, Telus 103). I also encourage you to keep up with genomics by following my blogs, my tweets @gwardis and our Facebook application, GenOmics.