Yes, We Have No Bananas?

Today’s banana is not the one your grandpa ate. That one—known as the Gros Miche—was, it is said, bigger, tastier and hardier that the variety we eat, which is called the Cavendish. It was adopted by Chiquita and others because it was resistant to the dreaded Panama Disease, which wiped out Gros Miche. Well, Panama Disease is back, says Don Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fruit That Changed the World, and the Cavendish does not appear to be safe from this new strain.
There is no cure and nearly every banana scientist—and how many of you knew there were banana scientists?—says that though Panama Disease has yet to come to Latin America, the question is not if this will happen, but when. The malady has the potential to spread to other banana varieties, including African bananas, the primary source of nutrition for millions of people. Now, the future of the Cavendish lies in genetic engineering.
Scientists have created bananas in the lab that resist Panama Disease. The problem with these engineered bananas is that they lack the other characteristics—ideal ripening speed, a thick skin and the right taste that makes a banana variety attractive for export. Creating the “perfect” banana may take years. Is that enough time?

YUCCA MOUNTAIN “PROGRESS REPORT”

The Department of Energy has submitted a license application to build the national repository for spent nuclear fuel and radwaste at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will decide, eventually. The application is 8,600 pages long and so it might take three years or so to wade through it. Congressional reaction, predictably, is mixed. It has been 20 years since DOE began what has turned out to be a $20 billion feasibility study with maybe an end in sight?

FISH REALLY ARE STUPID

Call them Pavlov's fish: Scientists are testing a plan to train fish to catch themselves by swimming into a net when they hear a tone that signals feeding time, reports the Associated Press. If it works, the system could eventually allow black sea bass to be released into the open ocean, where they would grow to market size, then swim into an underwater cage to be harvested when they hear the signal.
What's next, asks the bemused AP writer, “teaching them to coat themselves in batter and hop inside a fryer?”
"It sounds crazy, but it's real," said Simon Miner, a research assistant at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Wood's Hole, which received a $270,000 grant for the project from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Miner said the specially trained fish could someday be used to bolster the depleted black sea bass stock. Farmed fish might become better acclimated to the wild if they can be called back for food every few days.

JOKE
Element Name: MAN
Symbol: XY
Atomic Weight: (180 +/- 50)
Physical Properties: Solid at room temperature, but gets bent out of shape easily. Fairly dense and sometimes flaky. Difficult to find a pure sample due to rust and aging. Samples are unable to conduct electricity as easily as are young samples.
Chemical properties: Attempts to bond with WO any chance it can get. Also tends to form strong bonds with itself. Becomes explosive when mixed with Kd (Element: Child) for prolonged period of time. Neutralize by dousing with alcohol.
Usage: None known. Possibly good methane source. Good samples are able to produce large quantities on command.
Caution: In the absence of WO, this element rapidly decomposes and begins to smell.

WALDO IS ALIVE AND WELL
AND LIVING IN…CANADA?

The hunt for Waldo kept a generation of children entertained on rainy days. The striking young man—never without his red-and-white-striped top, bobble hat, walking stick and glasses—had a habit of turning up in the most unlikely and crowded of places, from ancient Aztec kingdoms to medieval battlefields.
But now Melanie Cole, a Canadian artist, has brought the game into the 21st century, by painting an enormous Waldo that can be seen by Google Earth satellites.
The 55-foot figure was installed on an undisclosed rooftop in Vancouver, sparking a flurry of interest among internet users keen to be the first to spot the guy

A SAFER FLASH-BANG

Diversionary devices—also called stun grenades or flash-bangs—are a less-than-lethal device used in a wide variety of law enforcement and military operations. Like a grenade, the device is activated by pulling a pin. When thrown, the flash-bang creates a loud sound and bright flash of light to temporarily distract or disorient an adversary. Sandia National Laboratories recently licensed its safer fuel air diversionary device technology to Defense Technology Corporation of America, located in Casper, Wyo.
Flash-bangs are used in operations such as hostage rescue, room-clearing, crowd control and other specialized operations. Military or law enforcement personnel will typically break down a door or smash a window of a building and toss in the diversionary device during a forced entry.