Buddrow_Wilson

To answer your question: uh, no, I am have never taken upon myself to learn the reproductive ways of the common banana. lol I love the smugness in response to my perceived banana ignorance. kudos

When I said clone them, I meant in the frozen genetic sample sense, not the living plant cut n root sense.

lpetrich

There is a plan for providing some valuable input for genetically engineering pest-resistant bananas: a banana genome project.

It will be nice to have another complete "big" genome; the large majority of sequenced genomes belong to prokaryotes, which have relatively short genomes (a few million instead of a few billion base pairs).

Here are those done or largely-done so far:

Human
Mouse
Rat
Zebrafish
Pufferfish
Sea Squirt
Fruit Fly
Malaria Mosquito
Arabidopsis thaliana (small mustardlike plant)
Rice

But it will likely be easier to sequence the black Sigatoka fungus genome; it will likely be smaller than its host's genome. And with what could be learned from that fungus's genome, it may be possible to create precisely-targeted pesticides that target only that fungus.

The Admiral

Whatever happened to Breadfruit? Did it go down with the Bounty?

The Admiral

Taffsadar

Well growing bananas causes a huge strain on the nature around it so I doesn't mind if alla bananas dies out.

Secular Pinoy

Well I mind, cause bananas is an important plant here in the Philippines, though I don't think it's the main staple. There are several varieties of bananas, with different tastes. I eat a few such varieties on a regular basis. And then there's Banana Catsup (cause Filipinos don't really care for the tomato version all that much). I've also seen some uses for banana leaves and fibers.

I hope scientists can do something to stop this blight.

Dark Jedi

While I agree with the sentiment of this, I disagree with the ides.
Drug companies are exactly that: companies. They exist to make money, and you cannot fault them for doing exactly that. That would be like faulting a flower shop for not selling ragweed arrangements.

What I would like to see is some of their philantropic money spent internally (still tax deductable if they make their findings and research public domain, I believe) to develop drugs for third world diseases.

Dark Jedi

Would you say that Wheat and Corn production in the U.S. is a strain on the nature around it?
Would you, then, advocate the cessation of these crops?

Your statement shows either a callous disregard for those that use it as a staple crop, or ignorance on the subject.
I would prefer ignorance, because the callousness of leaving millions to starve for an environmental reason shows a severe lack of empathy. Perhaps on a sociopathic level.

Buddrow_Wilson

Hmm..this would perhaps bring us one step closer to that utopian dream: Solient Green! Bwahahahahahahaaa

fando

Bah. I never liked those sacks of naturally radioactive potassium isotopes. One run in with a half cooked banana was enought to sour my buds on overly sweet fruits.

The Admiral

There are billions of dollars involved here. I can't believe that the industry has not forseen something like this and made contingency plans. I predict that this matter will fade away like the Y2K scare.

The Admiral