Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Bananas Non Plus?



The following is from Tyler over at marginal revolution.

'You will never, ever find a seed in a supermarket banana. That is because the fruit is grown, basically, by cloning...Every banana we eat is a genetic twin of every other.

It turns out, by the way, that the world's supply of Cavendish bananas -- the ones we eat -- is endangered by disease (more here) and many experts believe the entire strain will vanish. Most other banana strains are much harder to cultivate and transport on a large scale, so enjoy your bananas while you can. The previous and supposedly tastier major strain of banana -- Gros Michel -- is already gone and had disappeared by the 1950s, again due to disease. Today, European opposition to GMO is one factor discouraging progress in developing a substitute and more robust banana crop.'

I know I would miss my daily banana. Breakfast would lose some of its relevance without it.
Dan Koeppel's Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World is a new title that deals with the journey of this now-ubiquitous fruit. The book is not just about the journey and fate of the banana but also a socio-economic picture of modernity. As a review states:

'...but the biggest mystery about the banana today is whether it will survive. A seedless fruit with a unique reproductive system, every banana is a genetic duplicate of the next, and therefore susceptible to the same blights. Today’s yellow banana, the Cavendish, is increasingly threatened by such a blight—and there’s no cure in sight.

Banana combines a pop-science journey around the globe, a fascinating tale of an iconic American business enterprise, and a look into the alternately tragic and hilarious banana subculture (one does exist)—ultimately taking us to the high-tech labs where new bananas are literally being built in test tubes, in a race to save the world’s most beloved fruit.'
Read more of the book review here.
graph per amazon

Micro to Macro: From the Coffeeshop to the Capital

The following by Hayley Richardson over at New American City blog proved to be the best-written paragraph of the day for me.

'We fill up coffeeshops with jagged haircuts and laptops, we keep boutiques in business and performance houses booked solid. We ride bikes, we do art –sort of. But the question asked of me over and over again by New Hampshirites was a fair one; what am I doing in Philadelphia to better my community? An astounding number of quality of life issues are decided at the local level, yet I was forced to admit that I don’t know the names of my neighborhood council members, have never been to a city council meeting. This post isn’t about the political apathy of my generation; that subject has certainly been exhausted. What I’m more concerned with is how to harness the power of the so-called creative class to make a difference that transcends the aesthetic.'

Pointer via creative classroom