bananas

Like Gros Michel before it, the current dominant banana cultivar Cavendish is in danger to be swept away from the face of earth by the new breed of the same Panama disease that destroyed it's predecessor. And there are no current replacement for it. How did we end up in this situation and how is it possible that such a massively produced good can be completely destroyed by a single disease?

Bananas appear such a perfectly designed things with their great taste and nutrition values, or their handy packaging with a clever build in handle to open them. So perfect that in 2006 creationist Ray Comfort used them as an example of intelligent design, claiming that only a higher being could create such a perfect fruit for us humans to consume.

We share around 60 percent of our genes with bananas. From the grounds up we are built largely by the same instructions as this fascinating fruit (which is actually a berry). So are we really more than half banana?

Every living being today on earth descends from the first single cell organisms. So basically all of the basic genetic material is inherited all the way from there, from the beginning. Along the way there just have been a couple of mutations to get us this far.

Did you know that bananas are radioactive? They contain potassium-40 isotope that is indeed radioactive. The amount of potassium in one banana is around one tenth of a microsievert.

Actually quite many common household items and foods are radioactive. Radioactive decay is everywhere and we are constantly exposed to that radiation. In the matter of fact, we ourself are also emitting some of that radiation.

Banana for scale is one of the more popular internet memes. It got started when a guy posted a TV set for sale but didn't have the measurements for it, using a banana in the picture for scale instead.

Since then it has been used to measure countless things (including giant bananas) as well as some clever (judgement subjective) puns like using it as a means of trade to pay for an equipment mean for weighting things.

Banana flavoured candy doesn't really taste like banana. Or anything artificially banana flavoured for that matter.

Except they actually do. It's the banana that doesn't taste real. Or at least what was used to be the real banana until 1950s. 

Before that, the cultivar called Gros Michel was the main type of banana grown and sold. But during fifties it was almost completely wiped out by the fungus based Panama plague. But not before it had already found it's way to candies in the form of artificial flavour that is still used today in candies.