We’ve seen Christmas trees built out of spare car parts, discarded SCSI drives, OLED panels, and quadrocopter stacked boxes, but Germany? They’re taking the old tannenbaum back to its roots — and tweaking its genetic code. With the aide of a government grant, scientists in Germany are trying to develop a method of tree cloning suited to Nordmann Fir. The native pine is popular for yuletide trimmings, but can be difficult to grow — as much as 40 percent of trees grown for the season wind up the wrong shade of green or have their growth stunted by frost. Plant biologists hope to have a healthy stock of cloned trees ready by 2016, assuming nothing goes terribly wrong. Perfectly cultivated clones or not, we still prefer ‘ol Chuck Brown’s charming twig.
About Shelly Palmer
Shelly Palmer is the Professor of Advanced Media in Residence at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and CEO of The Palmer Group, a consulting practice that helps Fortune 500 companies with technology, media and marketing. Named LinkedIn’s “Top Voice in Technology,” he covers tech and business for Good Day New York, is a regular commentator on CNN and writes a popular daily business blog. He's a bestselling author, and the creator of the popular, free online course, Generative AI for Execs. Follow @shellypalmer or visit shellypalmer.com.