News tagged with bananas
Future farm: a sunless, rainless room indoors
Farming is moving indoors, where the sun never shines, where rainfall is irrelevant and where the climate is always right.
Apr 11, 2011 |
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Scientists identify chemical in bananas as potent inhibitor of HIV infection
A potent new inhibitor of HIV, derived from bananas, may open the door to new treatments to prevent sexual transmission of HIV, according to a University of Michigan Medical School study published this week.
Mar 15, 2010 |
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Banana peels get a second life as water purifier
To the surprisingly inventive uses for banana peels — which include polishing silverware, leather shoes, and the leaves of house plants — scientists have added purification of drinking water contaminated with potentially ...
Mar 09, 2011 |
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Is it ripe? Carbon nanotube-based ethylene sensor establishes fruit ripeness
(Phys.org) -- The term ethylene (ethene) generally brings to mind polyethylene plastics, not fruit. However, ethylene is more than just a feedstock for chemical industry, it is also the smallest plant hormone, ...
Chemistry / Analytical Chemistry
May 19, 2012 |
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Scientists create fuel from African crop waste (w/Video)
(PhysOrg.com) -- Bananas are a staple crop of Rwanda. The fruit is eaten raw, fried and baked — it even produces banana beer and wine. Around 2 million tons are grown each year but the fruit is only a small percentage of ...
Technology / Energy & Green Tech
Apr 06, 2009 |
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'Green' cars could be made from pineapples and bananas
Your next new car hopefully won't be a lemon. But it could be a pineapple or a banana. That's because scientists in Brazil have developed a more effective way to use fibers from these and other plants in a new generation ...
Mar 28, 2011 |
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When plants go polyploid
(PhysOrg.com) -- Plant lineages with multiple copies of their genetic information face higher extinction rates than their relatives, researchers report in Science magazine.
Sep 13, 2011 |
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Fungus could wipe out Philippine bananas: growers
A disease that has ravaged banana plantations across Southeast Asia could wipe out the Philippine industry in three years unless the government finds a cure, a growers' group warned Monday.
Oct 10, 2011 |
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Don't Compare Bananas to Pears
(PhysOrg.com) -- Yellow leaves on banana plants give off a blue glow when viewed under UV light. This luminescence comes from decomposition products of chlorophyll, the substance that makes leaves green.
Jun 23, 2010 |
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Georgia goes bananas
Bananas, known most often as a healthy, convenient food, are also popular ornamental plants in the southern United States. Banana plants are highly prized by many as one of the most beautiful ornamentals used ...
Biology /
Feb 26, 2009 |
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Brazil government identifies uncontacted tribe
(AP) -- The Brazilian government confirmed this week the existence of an uncontacted tribe in a southwestern area of the Amazon rain forest.
Jun 22, 2011 |
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Tomato gene may fend banana against formidable fungus
(PhysOrg.com) -- Proteins from the fungus Cladosporium fulvum, which causes leaf blight in tomato plants, are very similar to the proteins of the fungus Mycosphaerella fijiensis, which causes the much-feared black Sigato ...
Apr 13, 2010 |
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Genes from sweet pepper to fortify African banana against devastating wilt disease
In a major breakthrough, crop scientists announced today the successful transfer of green pepper genes to bananas, conferring on the popular fruit the means to resist one of the most devastating diseases of bananas in the ...
Aug 06, 2010 |
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Genetically modified plants hold the key to saving the banana industry
Queensland University of Technology (QUT) scientists have genetically modified a trial crop of banana plants to survive a soil-borne fungus which has wiped out plantations in the Northern Territory and is threatening crops ...
Feb 08, 2011 |
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Flies' flight patterns rely on sense of smell
(PhysOrg.com) -- If a fruit fly gets a whiff of a rotting banana, it does everything it can to get to the location of the potential feast. That includes not only beating its wings faster, but overriding its ...
Oct 20, 2011 |
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Banana
Banana is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they produce. Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colors when ripe, including yellow, purple, and red.
Almost all modern edible parthenocarpic bananas come from the two wild species – Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana. The scientific names of bananas are Musa acuminata, Musa balbisiana or hybrids Musa acuminata × balbisiana, depending on their genomic constitution. The old scientific names Musa sapientum and Musa paradisiaca are no longer used.
Banana is also used to describe Enset and Fe'i bananas, neither of which belong to the aforementioned species. Enset bananas belong to the genus Ensete while the taxonomy of Fe'i-type cultivars is uncertain.
In popular culture and commerce, "banana" usually refers to soft, sweet "dessert" bananas. By contrast, Musa cultivars with firmer, starchier fruit are called plantains or "cooking bananas". The distinction is purely arbitrary and the terms 'plantain' and 'banana' are sometimes interchangeable depending on their usage.
They are native to tropical South and Southeast Asia, and are likely to have been first domesticated in Papua New Guinea. Today, they are cultivated throughout the tropics. They are grown in at least 107 countries, primarily for their fruit, and to a lesser extent to make fiber, banana wine and as ornamental plants.
For more information about Banana, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
