Goin' Bananas

When I was taking Art History in college, the professor said that you can count on two stories coming up in the media every few years. The first would be about the Leaning Tower of Pisa and how it's threatened by the lean. The second would be that some art historian has discovered the identity of Mona Lisa.

Another common news story, one that appears every few years, is that something is threatening bananas.

The truth, as stated in the article, is that there are a lot of different varieties of bananas, but the current most common one, the Cavendish, is definitely being regularly threatened with extinction by nasty fungi and viruses. It happened once before, when the Gros Michel nearly died out completely. The problem is that bananas are essentially clones. In fact, bananas are one of the first genetically modified food.

The minions are going to be really sad if the bananas all die off.

In any case, Snopes has a positive outlook on the future of the banana. This is despite the persistance of Panama disease and problems with the industry itself. In any case, bananas ought to be around for a long time, in one form or another. Who knows, we might even get Gros Michel back some day.

Aside: I'd really like to have a taste test with a Gros Michel and Cavendish, side-by-side, just to find out what the differences are.