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Post by Pem on Jun 25, 2008 21:21:49 GMT -7
The most popular fruit in the world, the Banana could soon be just a memory. Banana's are known as triploid meaning they have three sets of chromosomes instead of the usual two, which allows them to be seedless. However, by not producing seeds the only way to reproduce them is by transplanting pieces of corm (base of plant). Because of this almost all the plants in existence are genetically identical. Now along comes the panama disease, a blight which can kill a plant with little effort and can spread quickly. Having no immunity and almost no natural way to defend itself our beloved fruit could soon be extinct. Scource: www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=attack-on-the-clones
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Post by dkblackhawk on Jun 25, 2008 21:30:28 GMT -7
wow it always occurred to me how bananas were grown.hopefully they don't go extinct....
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Post by millis on Jun 26, 2008 6:48:56 GMT -7
The main fault of genetically identical plants in a species, especially if they cant reproduce in any way. Never was a fan of bananas myself, so i wont really miss them that much if they do go. But the other species will probably replace the cavendish as the retailers choice if it is whiped out.
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Post by Pem on Jun 26, 2008 7:19:17 GMT -7
Another option they are exploring is to genetically modify the cavendish Banana to grant it immunity to the blight, but they are fully aware that some people will be unhappy, but I guess it's either eat GMO or go with out.
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Post by electroshock on Aug 16, 2008 18:49:20 GMT -7
well, if we could map the genome of the banana, we could clone the banana. it's like a science fiction story.
40,000 years from now, when there are no bananas, some person will stumble upon the banana genome and clone it. little did they know, that they had evolved out the immunity to some disease the banana carries. and it's a race against time to find a cure. that would be funny. "attack of the killer bananas", they'd call it.
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Post by Pem on Aug 17, 2008 11:59:47 GMT -7
Actually that's not even science fiction, we could do that today.
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Post by millis on Aug 26, 2008 10:01:28 GMT -7
That they could, though there'd be huge ethical issues about stuff like that, possibly...
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