Over at The Rough Guide to Evolution, Mark Pallen is trying to stir up support for a Charles Darwin Genome Project. Pallen says that with the recent mammoth genome being sequenced and Chuck Darwin's beard hair on full display at the Darwin's Big Idea exhibit, the time is right to sequence the old boy, and Pallen offers a road map. He says that Darwin's hair should first be turned over to Svante Paabo for the difficult task of amplification. Next is tracking down Darwin's descendants to provide Y chromosome and mitochondrial genome data. Finally, funding will have to allocated to hire a team to rip up the floor of Westminster Abbey, where Darwin's bones are buried. On this last step, Pallen says that common decency might stall their efforts to unearth Darwin's remains, but he hopes that by Darwin's 500th b-day in 2309, all the red tape should be cleared, so sit tight.
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