Thursday, January 31, 2019

No kidding, the banana crisis is real



Ignorantly or deliberately, there is a group of people that think climate change -- which in the times we find ourselves means that increasing atmospheric temperature is causing Earth's average temperature to increase, causing a multitude of ecosystem alterations -- is a hoax.  The group that truly thinks (incorrectly)  it isn't happening or worse, that it isn't important, can be called skeptics (nicely), deniers (accurately) or deliberate liars and propagandists (some of them), but suffice it to say, this minority doesn't think that the climate situation right now is a crisis.  OK, we might not quite be at crisis level, but we, collectively as humanity, are getting close to that state.

Why did I say all that?  Because there's another crisis that no one can possibly deny, and this is serious.

It's about bananas.

Banana-killing VIRUS is threatening to wipe out the popular fruit as scientists claim gene-editing is the only thing that could save them from extinction

This is what's troubling (in part):
"Bananas across Africa are now said to be infected with the 'streak virus' which can destroy entire plantations. ...

The Cavendish banana, the main variety eaten around the world, is unaffected by the streak virus but is affected by a fungus known as Tropical Race 4.

Breakthroughs with CRISPR are encouraging signs that scientists will be able to protect the edible banana from extinction.

Cavendish fruits are sterile so the only way to incorporate resistance to diseases is through gene-editing."

I sure hope it works.

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