The banana subject of Andy Warhol’s cover was for the Velvet Underground’s debut album, could be the most devastating element in Mario Kart video game franchise and is one of the most consumed fruits in the world. And the banana humanity of love can still be on the rise, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. On average, Chris Barrett, professor of agriculture at Cornell University, said, referring to UN data, every person on Earth chows at a rate of almost three per week to 130 bananas a year, down. But the banana as we know her on the brink of extinction. The situation has led Colombia where the economy is heavily dependent on the crop, as happens in other countries to explain including Ecuador, Costa Rica and Guatemala to a national emergency in August. Banana experts around the world have expressed concern that it may be too late to reverse the damage. The reason for the problem is reduced to a single down the disease, but it also seems far-reaching effects and the world. Even if the ratio of world banana will never be the, teachings from the fruit can still protect us from the damage that could be well over the nave products. “The banana history is really the history of modern agriculture in a single fruit exemplary,” says Daniel Bebber, who leads the research team at the University of Exeter BananEx. “It has all the equity ingredients and sustainability issues, disease pressure and environmental impacts in one. It ‘a very good lesson for us.” Ninety-nine percent of exported bananas are seen at the supermarket today is called a variety of Cavendish -Attractive golden-yellow fruit. But it was not always so. There are many varieties of bananas in the world, and until the second half of the 19th century, the dominant Gros Michel was called. E ‘was widely seen as more palatable than Cavendish, and harder to bruise. But in 1950, the collection of a harmful for the spread, the fungus soil-inhabiting brought was swept by a strain of Panama disease, also known as banana trees known. Desperate for a solution banana farmers of the world turned to Cavendish. The Cavendish was resistant to disease and adapt other market requirements may remain green after harvest (ideal for shipping to Europe) for several weeks, he has had a high performance and looked good in the shops. In addition, the fruit multinational companies had no other disease-resistant varieties available, which could be for the bulk export ready quickly. works commuted. As the Gros Michel was devastated by the disease, Cavendish banana sockets on world markets and kitchens. In fact, the entire banana industry is now set to very specific requirements to meet this variety. People who pay attention to such things, it was not long before a case of deja vu September bananas Cavendish Gros Michel displaced people had, but, although it was initially selected for its resistance to disease-er, was at risk as before. Nearly a decade ago, Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World, warned in an interview with NPR that the Panama disease would return to the major exporters of bananas in the world, and this time with a trunk take the Cavendish would be difficult. “[Everyone] individual scientists banana I spoke, and that was a bit ‘, says it is kein, wenn’es wenn’und is 10 to 30 years,” he said. “All you need is a single piece of contaminated dirt to get literally rampaging across continents this thing.” Sure enough, the confirmation of the presence of Tropical Race 4 (TR4), requires a different strain of Panama disease in banana plantations in Colombia this statement is the summer emergency. “The situation is very urgent,” says Bebber. There are a number of ways to spread the problem. When it comes to bananas, everything from truck tires of disease carriers boots workers can be. But the biggest problem is what is difficult to stop. Since banana growers are exactly the same plants of Cavendish they were all grow largely susceptible to the same diseases. “A lot of people would agree that we have to move generally in a diverse, sustainable system for bananas and agriculture,” says Bebber, “where we do not put all our hopes in one, collecting genetically identical.” There is a name for this situation: monoculture, the practice of a single variety of promoting something. Monoculture has its advantages. The entire system is standard, so there is little new production and maintenance processes, and everything is compatible and familiar to users. On the other hand, like banana growers learned in a monoculture, all instances on the same set of attacks are vulnerable. If someone or something discovers how they affect only one, the entire system is at risk. And how the banana industry has been the impact of monocultures started fighting someone else he has noted: the technological world. The parallel was noted at the end of 1990. Stephanie Forrest, one of the first researchers in the field, often cited the issue of bananas in the speeches to explain the importance of diversity in information systems. Forrest claimed that some of the most notorious attack software are comparable threat in the history of Panama disease of Cavendish; unified software systems lead to uniform security vulnerabilities. For example, infected 1988 Morris Worm has estimated 10% of all computers connected to the Internet within just 24 hours, and more recently, one that allows 2016 Mirai Botnet an external user to a network of Internet related control devices remote, he led Twitter, Netflix, CNN and more. “Monoculture plantations are dangerous in almost every aspect of life” echoes Fred B. Schneider, a computer expert at Cornell University. “With people obviously people are stronger and more resistant to disease, when genetic diversity more. And with transportation, is more effective different options when having, is shutting down a railway line, if you have other options at your disposal, like a car or some other form of transit, it will not be blocked. “Schneider notes that monocultures are often software because without it your computer would be much more difficult. the default configuration settings, as the norm to help users who are not experts, they can be in use of technology. Defaults so people can protect against some problems, but it also leads to another, since all systems the same standard with the same problems are vulnerable. To introduce artificial diversity systems in their knowledge of the problem, thanks to the understanding of the issues that crop plants such as bananas, technologists has led to act. “For a system to make artificial variety, you need only rearrange his guts in a way that the differences do not affect the functionality in material terms,” says Schneider. Microsoft has implemented one of the first major commercial developments in artificial diversity in their Windows operating system by randomization internal positions where important pieces were stored system data. Banana, tackling the problems caused by monocultures can be more difficult than the industry standard and the supply chains for fruit very expensive for companies to grow different varieties. Existing disease-resistant varieties not made inroads into the international market, but the Honduran Foundation for Agricultural Research (FHIA) has to develop more than three years of work, a variety resistant to disease that is as close as possible to the Cavendish, which would allow banana the world’s infrastructure must be designed from scratch. Despite the fact that it is a process that can last 15 or 20 years, estimates Bebber. Genetic engineering can result from new varieties of traditional farming methods with much higher rates for development, but it can also turn off consumers. E ‘, however, were a response to similar problems in the past, for example, when the virus papaya ringspot threatened papaya power in 1990, “he was averted resistant ringspot large supply shocks by developing a transgenic papaya” Cornell Barrett explains. He believes that consumers could alleviate fears, when it’s one of the only valid answers to questions created by the monoculture production. The British biotech company Tropic Biosciences has $10 million in funding for the use of gene-editing technology to explore solutions to common problems with tropical crops that get specifically for resistance to banana diseases. While known as FHIA Cavendish varieties resistant to disease, a banana as FHIA-18, does not the multinational clients standards that can change, according to Adolfo Martinez, General Manager of FHIA. “There is still quite close to Cavendish,” he says, but he thinks that the crisis can convince them. “Maybe now that companies are more interested.” So what next for the banana like? It will disappear from our diet, album cover and video games? Bebber said that the banana can change, but hopes are high that they do not disappear completely. “Science,” he says, “will find a way.” Meanwhile, the researchers note Speranza technology, which once again learn a lesson from biology to learn how to prevent a crisis before all banana leaves. Picture Copyright by Frank Bienewald Light Rocket via Getty Images
What can we learn from the Middle-learning Banana Death
