Talk:Banana/Archive 2

What does this mean? -- We may see the extinction of the banana as both a lifesaver for hungry and impoverished Africans and as the most popular product on the world's supermarket shelves -- if it's extinct, how can it be popular? It will be popular because it becomes extinct? How can its extinction be a lifesaver for hungry and impoverished Africans? None of this makes sense. -- Zoe

Look at the sentence in the article again, it says "currently" where you have "as", which changes the meaning. Maybe someone changed it since you saw it. Here is another place to read about the possible disappearence of bananas, if you are curious.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2664373.stm

--Qaz

Yeah, it changed since I wrote the above, because I copied and pasted the sentence. -- Zoe

re Zoe's comment: ROFL -Sv hehe

I read about the predicted extinction about a year ago in New Scientist, and I still don't get it. Firstly, why does someone think such disease is finally going to strike at this time? Secondly, why on earth (or indeed any planet) would it wipe out the African, Asian and Latin American crops all together? -- Smjg 11:04, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

If it kills enough, there will be inadequate genetic diversity to propagate indefinitely. Even a disease that kills only half of the crops could eventually cause the extinction of the entire breed. Kent Wang 22:27, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

If something starts killing them in one area, couldn't someone clear the field, take measures to clear the area of the disease, and then replant them from elsewhere? -- Smjg 11:10, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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I've read somewhere that the banana tree is not a tree per se, but rather an herb. Any truth to this? Kent Wang 22:28, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

leet

as an avid banana fan i found this article to be just dandy.mnemonic 21:28, 29 May 2004 (UTC)

Bananaphone

Something to lighten the mood... Bananaphone

Enjoy :)

bananas are no laughing matter. mnemonic 20:10, 2004 Jun 27 (UTC)

Monkeys

As it seems to me, bananas ARE stereotypically eaten by monkeys (and apes, for that matter). Why delete that? Rhymeless 19:23, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

eye agree mnemonic 11:00, 2004 Jun 24 (UTC)

I've put it back. Can someone show me a pic of a banana with a monkey ? Jay 12:05, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

many species eat bananas, including humans. Why only mention one group - and if anything the stereotype banana-eater is probably the chimpanzee rather than monkeys. This seems a very trivial item to insist on keeping, but if it must stay, surely it's not important enough to be in the opening paragraph? jimfbleak 16:22, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Bananas, spiders and myth

As a teacher of biology some years ago in a British port which imported and stored bananas, I was never short of specimens of insects and spiders (including tarantulas) brought to school for identification by the children of workers on the docksides and in the banana stores. Too common an occurrence to be considered all THAT newsworthy by the local daily newspaper. It had to be a pretty big spider to get a mention!

Not a myth. Merely a fact.

Michael Wood GRIMSBY, England. [...and SCAN -- the Society of Chiltern Antiquarians & Naturalists]

Bananas, potassium K-40, mutation, evolution legend

This has been moved here from so users know why it was removed. Original text in the legends section of the article was

"The natural potassium in bananas is partly made up of a low level of the radioactive isotope K-40. One associated legend is that K-40 is responsible the mutation and evolution of chimps into humans."

Obviously the above text can be improved to explain why it remains only a legend, the chimps statement etc, but it was deleted entirely-

Chimps did not evolve into humans. They are both branches of a common tree. RickK 20:31, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

Then you entirely missed the point about it being in the legends section of the article, and clearly using the word legend in the statement. In future you may want to consider either changing information for clarity (add an extra statement saying it is not true, for readers that didn't notice it was in the legends section of the article), or alternatively, correcting it (for example by changing chimps to earlier hominid species etc.) rather than deleting it entirely. Caa 02:10, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, you can't just say "legends", without mentioning where those legends are posted. WHO claims this? RickK 05:32, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

Then your editing would be inconsistent, as there is only one other source reference in the Legends section of the banana article, but you did not delete those others. Perhaps because you already know of those legends, in which case you would only be deleting the statement because you hadn't heard of it (and also that it was posted anonymously, I have since registered).

You could have answered your own question with a quick google for human evolution K-40 and mutations K-40 and may have found articles such as [1] which includes the statement "the bulk of whole-body beta absorption is from K-40" and also proposes that there may be a window in which certain levels of K-40 cause the ideal mutation rate to produce intelligent life etc. Now combine this with the concept that a high vegetable diet can be measured by the levels of K-40 measured in people (society for amateur scientists letters, scroll down to " A whole body counter can see it - I can tell about what proportion of someone's diet is veggies by the K-40 in their bodies." and also " All Ionizing radiation is harmful to some degree, but it has also been essential for evolution. What would life be like on this planet if the levels of Ionizing radiation had been much lower? Surely it has contributed to many of the successful mutations necessary to evolutionary diversity.") though I don't have access to the equipment to repeat the vegetables in the diet experiment myself. That is where the legend comes from. It was later removed as "irrelevant", does anyone think the text should be improved then re-included as a legend? Caa 09:28, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

So it's MY responsibility to prove your edits are correct? No, it's YOUR responsibility to document your assertion. RickK 00:01, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

It is your responsibility to ensure that your edits are correct, but it appears you deleted the text based only on your assumption that the text was incorrect.

I already provided documented evidence above. However, must every assertion in the encyclopdia have a documented source? Even if it did, it would be unrealistic to do this for many Urban Legends sections of articles.

I am relativlely new to this but I recently read the article on avoiding common mistakes which states on the subject of Deleting useful content, "Clarify it instead of throwing it away." It also states that text should not be deleted without announcing (or justifiying if it is non-trivial). I also saw in Wikiquette that writers should work towards agreement, so according to the rules I propose that the text be changed to -

"The natural potassium in bananas is partly made up of a low level of the radioactive isotope K-40, which can cause a detectable increase (using a Geiger counter) in radiation from an average truck of bananas. However, this is normal and not harmful to humans as the concentration is low and the human body regulates the amount of potassium it retains." Source for banana truck

The above text hopefully reflects NPOV enough for most to agree, as it has a different focus to the original text. Does anyone else think this should be added to the legends section of the article? Caa 04:30, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The natural potassium in anything is made up of K-39, K-40, and K-41. It's unremarkable that bananas contain K-40. - Nunh-huh 04:42, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, I know this, it doesn't change the truth of the above text, would you like to suggest an improvement to the wording of the statement? Perhaps "The natural potassium in bananas, like all natural potassium, ..." ? Caa 04:49, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

No, I'd like to suggest that some true statements about bananas are too insignificant to merit mention in a well-written encyclopedia article about bananas. - Nunh-huh

In my opinion, the news item (as linked above) about bananas triggering radiation detectors at security checkpoints and trucks of bananas doing a similar thing, is no less significant than the other urban legends (spiders, seratonin, hallucinogenic skins etc. ). In my opinion, it is a factually important property of bananas and should be included. Can you specifically say why it is too insignificant in relation to those other urban legends that are included? Caa 06:33, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It has precious little to do with bananas. Put it in an article on "things that set geiger counters off". Don't put it in "bananas", "cocoa", "porcelain", "granite", "Brazil nuts", "kitty litter" and "pottery": it's incidental trivia about those items, while it's a pertinent fact in "geiger counters". Use some judgement. - Nunh-huh 13:36, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The legend has as much to do with bananas as the other legends that are included, why not put the spiders legend in a separate article about "things that spiders hide in" and put the smoking skins legend in a separate article about "things that can be smoked"? As I previously asked above, can you specifically say why it is too insignificant in relation to those other urban legends that are included? Specifically, why you think it is incidental trivia in relation to those other Urban legends? Also, why do you think incidental trivia should not be included in an encyclopaedic article, even when it is in the Urban legends section of the article? (a place where one might expect to find incidental trivia.) Caa 16:13, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If you think anything else in the article is as insignificant, you should remove them as well. - Nunh-huh 06:20, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

101.1% Nutrition

The nutritional composition of the banana adds up to 101.1%. I think some of the figures might be wrong!