BACKGROUND Credible empirical evidence is scanty on the social implications of genetically modified (GM) crops in Africa, especially on vegetatively propagated crops. Little is known about the future success of introducing GM technologies into staple crops such as bananas, which are widely produced and consumed in the Great Lakes Region of Africa (GLA). GM banana has a potential to control the ...

BACKGROUND Fusarium wilt, caused by the fungal pathogen Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Foc), is one of the most destructive diseases of banana. Toxins produced by Foc have been proposed to play an important role during the pathogenic process. The objectives of this study were to investigate the contamination of banana with toxins produced by Foc, and to elucidate their role in pathogenesis....

Two banana supply chains (BSC), one in Indonesia (BSC1) and one in Australia (BSC2), are described based on case study research conducted in 2002. BSC1 sources bananas from small farmers for distribution through traditional markets in Jakarta. BSC2 includes farmers supplying to both major and independent retailers in Sydney through a wholesale agency with some farmer ownership. Farmers in both ...

In human infancy, 2 criteria for intentional communication are (a) persistence in and (b) elaboration of communication when initial attempts to communicate fail. Twenty-nine chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) were presented with both desirable (a banana) and undesirable food (commercial primate chow). Three conditions were administered: (a) the banana was delivered (successful communication), (b) ha...

UNLABELLED : Being poor man's apple, banana has a wide popularity worldwide. It's one of the important horticultural crops used irrespective of rich and poor alike. Manipur along with the other states of Northeast India harboured with plenty of wild and cultivated species of banana that are not fully explored. A data base named DEBDOM has been developed here describing the diversity of banana r...

Banana fiber (BF) is a renewable resource which can be good reinforcer to polylactic acid, enhancing the polymers stiffness and accelerating biodegradability rates. However, due difference in nature between banana fibers (hydrophilic) acid (hydrophobic), adhesion matrix cannot achieved. To tackle problem, were chemically treated using sodium hydroxide under three factors (temperature, concentra...

Saba banana, Musa ‘saba’(Musa acuminata x Musa balbisiana) peel is an underutilized waste from processed banana manufacturing in the Philippines. The feasibility of saba banana peel pectin for use in food processing was assessed. Pectin from saba banana peel was extracted under two different extraction conditions. Pectin extraction was carried out using hydrochloric acid (0.5N, pH 1.5) and citr...

Banana is a well known fruit crop and grown extensively in Indian peninsula. In fact, India is the leading producer of this perennial crop. It is estimated that, after harvest of fruits, huge quantity of biomass residues (60t/ha – 80/t ha) is left over as waste that constitutes pseudo stem, leaves, sucker etc. There exists a vast potential of extracting fibres from the banana pseudo stem. It is...

Under what conditions should a cognitive robot act? How do we define “opportunities” for robot action? How can we characterize their properties? In this position paper, we offer an initial apparatus to formalize opportunities and to frame this discussion. A Robot-Banana Problem There is a physical object in our world, a banana, which can be either fresh, ripe, overripe or rotten. The banana cha...

Here, we present the data from an in-depth analysis of the HSP70 family in the non-model banana during osmotic stress [1]. First, a manual curation of HSP70 sequences from the banana genome was performed and updated on the Musa hub http://banana-genome.cirad.fr/. These curated protein sequences were then introduced into our in-house Mascot database for an in-depth look at the HSP70 protein prof...