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	<title>Dan Koeppel&#039;s Blog &#187; Banana Science</title>
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	<description>Bananas, Los Angeles, and Transit Geekery</description>
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		<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>
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		<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>

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		<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>
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		<title>Wired magazine: Frankenfoods, good; Hippie foods, bad?</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/80#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/80#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 May 2008 16:41:10 +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>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/wired-magazine-frankenfoods-good-hippie-foods-bad/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[First good. Second, not so good. More or less, maybe, according to the May issue of the science/tech/culture publication, because: GMO agriculture may have a smaller carbon footprint than traditionally grown crops. Organics may have a larger carbon footprint than traditionally grown crops. In my book, I note that the promise of organic bananas is far less than we&#8217;d wish it to be &#8211; and the potential of GM bananas has been so undervalued (and so feared) as to be a factor in creating hunger in banana-dependent populations worldwide, as well as contributing to the reduction of genetic diversity in the global banana crop. .]]></description>
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		<title>Reducing the carbon impact of supermarket bananas</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/99#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/99#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 09 Mar 2008 14:53:08 +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>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/03/09/reducing-the-carbon-impact-of-supermarket-bananas/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Don&#8217;t blame the cute l&#8217;il ethylene molecule. The &#8220;miracle&#8221; &#8211; if you want to call it that &#8211; of the banana industry is that it manages to transport a fragile fruit thousands of miles and still get it to your supermarket green, ready to fully ripen (&#8220;flecked with brown,&#8221; as the Chiquita jingle says) in exactly seven days. For over a century, this has been accomplished by controlling the atmosphere that surrounds the bananas in transport. When fruit ripens, it gives off ethylene gas. Ethylene is a naturally-occurring substance, emitted as fruits ripen, and providing a sort of on-off switch to let other fruits nearby &#8220;know&#8221; when to ripen. (That&#8217;s why bananas ripen so evenly across a bunch.) It is also the &#8220;world&#8217;s most commonly produced organic compound,&#8221; according to a Science Daily report. Fruit distributors keep &#8220;ripening rooms,&#8221; where levels of ethylene can be controlled to hasten or delay ripening. The report also notes that the current way industrial ethylene is generated for those ripening rooms (as well as dozens of other uses, including as a mecical anesthetic) releases a &#8220;miasma of greenhouse gasses.&#8221; (Sigh.) But scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy&#8217;s Argonne National Lab have recently come [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Doomsday Vaults and Black Box bananas</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/102#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/102#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:02:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Science]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The &#8220;Fort Knox of Food.&#8221; From the International Herald Tribune. The recent publicity about the opening of the &#8220;Global Seed Vault&#8221; in Longyearbyen, Norway, has prompted some questions about whether or not bananas are included. The vault is 500 meters deep, buried under a snow-capped mountain, and is filled with over a hundred million (!!!) different kinds seeds, all as a hedge against the predicted destruction to plant life global warming may be about to wreak. The project was described as a &#8220;backup hard drive&#8221; for agriculture by the New York Times (story). But bananas aren&#8217;t included. Why? Simple: bananas don&#8217;t have seeds. And banana plantlets &#8211; the primary means of storing genetic material for the fruit &#8211; are an impossible fit for the Norwegian project, which can only store the so-called &#8220;orthodox&#8221; seeds &#8211; the kind that can be preserved dry. Storing bananas, as a recent press release from Bioversity International noted, need &#8220;human intervention. That&#8217;s always been the story with bananas. We brought them from the forest thousands of years ago, and we&#8217;ve carried them around the world. They aren&#8217;t just a product of human enterprise &#8211; they&#8217;re a companion to humanity. Liquid nitrogen keeps the banana materials [...]]]></description>
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