October 07, 2004

• Well, technicallysettle. I'm not gonna touch that.
• HLIAHAHALAUAGHAALUAGAHA
• HLIAHAHALAUAGHAALUAGAHA
• Very funny. He does have breasts you know. And a mangina.
• There will ALWAYS be a banana!!!
• Evil.
• *cowers*
• Because existing banana plants are reproduced from cuttings, there is little genetic diversity. So, we can't genetically modify these bananas? We do it with everything else, right?
• No more banannas right now. Damn hosting company.
• Snuck in here via the Archives. Front page still down, giving message from tracicle via michaelh. All very intriguing.
• Yes, it really works! I just re-entered again using the back door!
• First we have people putting "bananas" in their mouth, now entering "through the back door." Ashcroft is going to start asking for sanctions against New Zealand. And watch out American monkeys, we're all about to be "permenantly detained"
• You know, I bet Ray Bradbury has written a hard-boiled but poignant short-story about the day the last banana is eaten by a race of post-human simians living in space-jungles who have progressed beyond material wants.
• Snopes disagrees.
• Great link Cropshy, I feel more at ease now. Although I'm still suspsicious I might be permenantly detained...
• Apple flavoured bananas? Mmmmm!
• I might have to consider man-bananas.
• You mean... mananas? PS. when I am king all words ending with 'an' will require an 'ana' appended. My simianana clanana will spanana from Japanana to Iranana! OK, that's stupid.
• Scope doesn't disgree - they are just pointing out that the Cavendish, what most westerners would think of as the basic banana, is the only variety that is affected by the new variety of the Panama disease. This is good news for subsistence farmers and others who rely on the other bananas as a major staple crop. However, any damage to the banana industry could be very bad for economies of countries who rely on exporting Cavandish bananas for our sweet tooths. And there is still a threat to other varieties that I think Scopes is underplaying. As the originally linked article points out, the fungus, 'Black Sigatoka', attacks other varieties, and could become resistent to anti-fungal treatments. This is no email forward about the end of the world for Scopes to disprove (in which case skepticism is always good), but a serious Africa news site quoting a New Scientist article. I think we should be worried, though I don't really understand what alternatives/solutions are being posed, except the need to diversify the genetic stock of banana plants, and to introduce more crop rotation and less monocropping (monocopping makes it easier for parasites).
• As Snopes says, the Cavendish banana became the #1 banana (the Big Banana, if you will) when the Gros Michel went under due to the Panama fungus. The Cavendish sytle banana then became the #1 contender. If it happens again with the Cavendish, there will be other varieties available as replacements. Hopefully, we can get out of the process of cloning, since it seems to make the popular bananas we know and love far more vulnerable to extinction. So, the experience of eating a tasty banana, which we monkeys obviously find to be one of the more pleasurable experiences in life, will not go quietly into the night. It will simply reinvent itself.
• The Cavendish sytle banana then became the #1 contender. Just ignore that repetition of thought. Wee!
• *sings Yes, we have no bananas ... This is not a good thing.