Meet the "super banana" a vitamin-enriched upgrade that could save lives

Banana boost … the new GM ‘super banana’ is enriched with alpha and beta-carotene, producing the fruit itself orange rather than cream-coloured. Photograph: Alamy

Title: Super banana.

Age: Extremely new.

Visual appeal: Coming quickly.

A super banana? D’you mean that, unwilling to rest on its laurels as presently the world’s most amusing fruit, the banana has joined the checklist of superfoods, alongside garlic, goji berries, blueberries, broccoli and the like? No.

Are we speaking about just 1 banana? That has served the banana neighborhood selflessly for years and on whom there has been conferred some kind of banana honour? No.

So all which is left is – banana superhero! Wow! Like Bananaman but an real banana! That I ought to have lived to see such occasions! Incredible! No, this is a genetically modified banana with the likely to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands, if the existing human trials, which have just begun, go well.

But which is even a lot more super! How is it going to do this? The super banana is enriched with alpha and beta-carotene (making it orange rather than cream-coloured), which the physique converts to Vitamin A.

Are individuals in Africa brief of Vitamin A? They are certainly. About a million young children a 12 months die or go blind because of it. This modified type of the Highland or East African cooking banana, one of the staple food items in the region, should go a long way towards rectifying this.

This is not a super banana. This is an excellent banana. A splendid banana. Best banana?

How did I not get there? I do not know. I imagined of it minutes in the past. Just been waiting for the proper time.

Nicely, kudos. But tell me a lot more. Who’s behind this probably existence-saving plantain? Professor James Dale is the head of the nine-12 months venture, funded by nearly £6m from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, at the Queensland University of Technological innovation in Brisbane, Australia.

He should be pleased. But I’ve been about as well long not to inquire – are there any downsides? The typical inquiries about the unknown attainable consequences of genetic engineering. Dr Helen Wallace of GeneWatch points out that there is proof that too considerably beta carotene can be carcinogenic – what if people with no the vitamin deficiency eat the fruit?

Couldn’t they just keep away from the orange ones? If they know their recent vitamin amounts, sure.

Ah. Anyway, hopefully almost everything will flip out at least super-ish in the finish.

Do say: “What an wonderful capacity for very good science and humanity possess!”

Do not say: “This 1 seems like a willy! Phone That’s Life!”

Meet the "super banana" a vitamin-enriched upgrade that could save lives