So... that was fun...

October 25, 2005

Bananas clone themselves to reproduce

Damn, I didn't know about that!
I have been eating cloned bananas all this time :)

Bananas, like their cousins, the tropical staples cassava and taro, have a characteristic that makes them ideal food. They have no seeds. Unfortunately, the same characteristic means that it is fiendishly difficult to breed better bananas. This is an important task, as bananas are threatened by new kinds of pests and diseases. Furthermore, because bananas are clones, whole plantations could be devastated by such an attack.

More info here and here and here (if you have access to the premium content of the site)

Labels:

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home