<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>Dan Koeppel&#039;s Blog &#187; Banana Science</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/tag/banana-science/feed" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress</link>
	<description>Bananas, Los Angeles, and Transit Geekery</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Thu, 01 Sep 2011 20:59:35 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en</language>
	<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
	<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1</generator>
		<item>
		<title>Great Banana Reading, Part I</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1405#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1405#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jan 2011 00:06:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Australia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Disease]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Genetics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Honduras]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Science]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[James Dale]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mike Peed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New Yorker]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bigparadela.com/wordpress/?p=1405</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Beyond my book, there&#8217;s lots of new writing about the world&#8217;s most important, threatened, and dangerous fruit.  In this week&#8217;s New Yorker, Mike Peed chronicles Australia&#8217;s disastrous and dimwitted attempts to stop the spread of Panama Disease, the blight that threatens the global commercial banana crop. He also visits with James Dale, a biotechnologist who is attempting to develop a genetically-engineered banana that will resist the blight. I&#8217;ve written about both extensively, here and elsewhere, but Peed&#8217;s account &#8211; especially his reporting from Australia&#8217;s plantations &#8211; is terrific. Finally, he goes to Honduras, and the research center there that&#8217;s attempting to conventionally breed a resistant banana. The center &#8211; formerly owned by Chiquita, and now independent &#8211; is where my entry into the world of the fruit began. One editorial comment: Peed touches ont how long it takes to conventionally breed bananas, and how frustrating that process is. My personal view is that these elements make conventional breeding so flawed that it likely won&#8217;t work. Despite this, as the article notes, both major banana companies &#8211; Chiquita and Dole &#8211; are contracted with the Honduran facility as they race to develop a stronger fruit before the blight reaches their Central [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1405/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>A Guide to Those &quot;Baby&quot; Bananas &#8211; and What They Prove</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/6#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/6#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 07 Jun 2009 18:33:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Australia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Chiquita]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Dole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Science]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2009/06/07/a-guide-to-those-baby-bananas-and-what-they-prove/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Huggable, lovable &#8211; but not the kind of baby banana that I&#8217;m talking about. Though the vast majority of bananas we buy &#8211; statistically, all &#8211; are of the endangered Cavendish variety, there&#8217;s a good chance you&#8217;ve seen something else, these days and if you&#8217;re a banana-type (or have become one), you might have wondered: what are those little bananas? Both Chiquita and Dole offer versions of the half-sized fruit, with Chiquita selling them under the &#8220;Minis&#8221; brand, and Dole offering them as &#8220;Baby&#8221; bananas. In the &#8220;big&#8221; banana world, there&#8217;s absolutely no difference between what Chiquita, Dole (or any other commercial banana importer) sells: everything is Cavendish. Action surrounds small-time fruit. For the first time in over a century, the two biggest banana companies are slugging it out for a market niche with different varieties. The Chiquita &#8220;Mini&#8221; is a breed called Pisang Mas, originally from Malaysia, but now &#8211; like all bananas imported to the U.S. &#8211; grown in Latin America. Dole actually sells three different varieties under the Baby band name &#8211; Orito, Lady Finger, and Manzano. The fruit are tough to find, since they&#8217;re in various stages of test-marketing, as well as subject to seasonal variation. [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/6/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Bananas Turn Blue When Ripening</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/36#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/36#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 03 Nov 2008 11:09:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Science]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/bananas-turn-blue-when-ripening/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Image copyright Wiley-VCH 2008 Only Under UV light &#8211; from a degradation in chlorophyll, according to a study published in the journal Angewandte Chemie. Cool picture; read more at physorg.com.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/36/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Chiquita Acknowledges Panama Disease as Threat</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/53#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/53#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:43:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Chiquita]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Dole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Science]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/chiquita-acknowledges-panama-disease-as-threat/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Panama Disease-ravaged plantation in Asia (from Plant Health Progress.) In an interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer, Chiquita CEO Fernando Aguirre &#8211; for the first time &#8211; publicly acknowledged the existence of Panama Disease (the incurable malady that wiped out the world&#8217;s banana crop in the first half of the 20th century, and that has devastated much of Asia over the past two decades) &#8211; in relation to his company&#8217;s mainstay product, though he downplayed the threat to the point of barely admitting it existed. The story is headlined &#8220;New banana disease poses threat: How serious is open to debate.&#8221; In it, Aguirre described the disease as &#8220;limited,&#8221; and asserted that &#8211; when the disease arrives in Latin America &#8211; quarantine measures would &#8220;pre-empt and prepare&#8221; the advance and effects of the malady. I was interviewed for the story, and I disagreed, pointing out that such measures had failed most everywhere they&#8217;ve been tried in the past. Chiquita CEO Fernando Aguirre, from the Cincinnati Enquirer. Photo by Steven M. Herppich. I was glad to see that the reporter, James Pilcher, also contacted Randy Ploetz, the scientist who is probably the world&#8217;s best authority on the fungus. Ploetz is less grim and [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/53/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Report: First Field Test of Genetically Modified Cavendish</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/60#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/60#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:46:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Australia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Science]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[James Dale]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/report-first-field-test-of-genetically-modified-cavendish/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Australian banana researcher James Dale. Image: QUT Cavendish is our supermarket banana &#8211; the one that&#8217;s under threat from the newly-remerged Panama Disease (see here for more info.) The Cavendish banana is absolutely seedless and sterile, so it cannot be bred conventionally; the only sway to ensure its future as a commercial fruit would be through genetic engineering (the alternative would be to allow the Cavendish to die out and replace it with a different &#8211; and as yet unidentified &#8211; banana variety.) Now, according to a news report from the Australia Broadcasting Company, a project spearheaded by Australian scientist James Dale, who runs the Queensland University of Technology&#8217;s Centre for Tropical Crops and Biocommodities, has begun the field test of such fruit &#8211; the first time lab-modified Cavendish have ever been put to large-scale outdoor trial. The test, the story says, will be &#8220;to improve the nutrient content and disease resistance of Cavendish bananas.&#8221; Australia is in desperate banana straits right now, having lost much of its crop to poor weather and a subsequent Panama Disease attack. The field tests are partially being funded by a grant from Microsoft founder Bill Gates. (Dale, by the way, prefers to use [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/60/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>This is so yuck I won&#039;t even comment&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/71#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/71#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:13:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Science]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Weird]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/06/19/this-is-so-yuck-i-wont-even-comment/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m sorry for this picture. Click the link, to the Daijiworld newspaper, to find out the results of the study, if you dare&#8230; Bangalore, May 29: Nagasandra, a village 50 km from Bangalore in Doddaballapur taluk, isn’t any different from the hundreds of others surrounding it. But in a remote corner of this small village is a 1-acre banana plantation that has been part of a unique research project: a study on the effect of anthropogenic liquid waste on soil properties and crop growth. In lay-man terms, it is a study on how human urine can be used as fertilizer in agriculture&#8230; read on&#8230;]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/71/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Read my article on Panama Disease in &quot;The Scientist&quot;</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/76#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/76#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 06 Jun 2008 10:15:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Science]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Latest Book News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/06/06/read-my-article-on-panama-disease-in-the-scientist/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The most controversial part of my book is my assertion that biotech is key to saving the banana. I came by this assertion with a lot of difficulty &#8211; initially believing that most genetic engineering in our food supply was a bad thing. But, as usual, the issue isn&#8217;t black and white. With bananas, the shade of gray is especially green. Read the piece here.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/76/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Bill Gates funds Banana Research</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/92#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/92#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 12 Apr 2008 17:11:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Australia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Science]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[James Dale]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/04/12/bill-gates-funds-banana-research/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has begun one of the largest privately-funded banana genetics research projects; the greenhouse breeding program is concentrating on subsistence bananas &#8211; the kind millions of people in the African highlands depend on as their primary source of nutrition &#8211; and using DNA engineering and traditional breeding techniques to increase levels of vitamin A and iron in those fruits. Those are worthy goals, but I find it interesting that building disease resistance &#8211; the most important thing that needs to happen in the area surrounding Lake Victoria, where fungal wilts are rapidly destroying banana crops &#8211; seems to be a secondary goal, at least according to the article linked above. The project is being run by James Dale, a well-known banana biotech researcher who is quoted in my book. Meanwhile, in Africa, some Gates foundation work is seen as controversial, precisely because it is technology-oriented. My feeling is that bananas &#8211; because they are quite difficult to breed, and because it is very late in the game in terms of improving their strength in the field &#8211; require as much technology as they can get. In this case, perhaps, this may be a version of [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/92/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

