SciShow Tangents - Bananas

Episode Date: June 11, 2024

It's all right there on the tin - this episode is BANANAS. And not just because we have the most guests we've ever had in Tangents history. Not even just because one of them is a super special surprise RETURN friend of the pod. And not even because we check out some flowers that are way more uncomfortable to look at than you think. No, this episode is bananas because we're talking about (you guessed it) bananas!SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents to check out this episode with the added bonus of seeing our faces! Head to www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter! A big thank you to Patreon subscribers Garth Riley and Glenn Trewitt for helping to make the show possible!And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy some great Tangents merch!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents to check out this episode with the added bonus of seeing our faces! Head to www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter! A big thank you to Patreon subscribers Garth Riley and Glenn Trewitt for helping to make the show possible!And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy some great Tangents merch!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! [Truth or Fail Express]Banana peel pastahttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844022023325https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220809141224.htmBanana peel perfume adherenthttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360132323007679https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85021229177&origin=inward&txGid=4b400d048de28231cfb5cce2c0ee924aBanana peel water filtrationhttps://www.acs.org/pressroom/presspacs/2011/acs-presspac-april-13-2011/banana-peels-get-a-second-life-as-water-purifier.htmlhttps://www.livescience.com/13276-banana-peels-filter-toxic-metals.htmlhttps://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/ie101499e[This or That: Yellow or Not Yellow?]Banana fiddler crabhttps://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00265-020-02899-wImage: https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/753425Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Austruca_mjoebergi_coenobita.jpgBanana galaxies https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.15232Nokia 8110 aka the “banana phone” https://www.mobilephonemuseum.com/phone-detail/nokia-8110https://www.mobilephonemuseum.com/phone-detail/hmd-global-nokia-8110-4gImage: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nokia_8110.jpgImage of 4G: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nokia_8110_4G.png[Ask the Science Couch]Commercial banana cultivar genetics and Fusarium wilt or other disease riskshttps://academic.oup.com/jxb/article-abstract/4/1/87/588827https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0154448https://journals.ashs.org/horttech/view/journals/horttech/31/6/article-p838.xmlhttps://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/01/11/462375558/our-favorite-banana-may-be-doomed-can-new-varieties-replace-ithttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01670-6[Butt One More Thing]Honey bee alarm pheromones contain the banana flavor isoamyl acetatehttps://www.nature.com/articles/1951018b0https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2017.2653

Hello and welcome to SciShow Tangents, the lightly competitive science knowledge showcase. I'm your host, Hank Green. And joining this week are the most people we have ever had in this podcast at the same time. By far, I think. I am intimidated. Representing Team Tangents, we have our science expert, Sari Riley. Hello.

And our resident everyman, Sam Schultz. Hello. But also we have a former Tangents host who still hosts videos on the SciShow YouTube channel and is missed dearly by our audience. It's Stefan Jinn. Oh, hello. And representing Team Answer in Progress are the three team members that make up the YouTube

channel Answer in Progress, where they ask questions and document their journey to getting to the answer. We've got Sabrina Cruz. Hello. We've got Tahak Han. Hello. And we've got Melissa Fernandez. Hi.

I feel like this is too many people to have a conversation with. Like, have you ever been in one of those conversations? There's just too many people around the table. It's like, we're going to have to splinter. We're going to have splinter groups. And then it ends up with like one with like diagonal conversations crossing each other. I feel like that's about to happen. Taha, what time is it where you are?

We don't need to talk about this. It's so late. I tried to like stay up yesterday night for as long as possible to be like, oh, I'll adjust. I just want everybody to know that it's like 11. It's not that late. Let me be dramatic. How dare you pull the rug from under me. It's 7 a.m. I've been up all night.

Here's the question for the day. The question for the day is, at what point does it become an ungodly hour in which to record a podcast? What's the window of ungodliness? Because for me, the window of ungodliness really probably starts at 11 and goes until like 9. If you're making me record a podcast at eight o'clock in the morning,

I am gonna, I'm gonna like throw feces at the wall. I think if you're making me record a podcast at nine o'clock at night, I'm wondering what's wrong with my life, maybe. It depends what kind of podcast you're recording. It's true. There's some podcasts I would record at 2 a.m. Oh, yeah.

I do agree like 8 a.m. is never good. There's no podcast that would be good at 2 a.m. Oh, yeah. I do agree, like 8 a.m. is is never good. There's no podcast that would be good for 8 a.m. This is it's actually a good idea for a podcast to have a podcast that specifically recorded at 2 a.m. but by people who go to bed at 10. So they have to wake up and they like drag themselves over to their computer and they're like, Hi, Stefan, how was your sleep been so far?

I hate that we made ourselves do this. Anything for content. I fear that I might have the opposite problem of random work-life balance because I'm just like, 8 a.m. seems like a great time. You knock it out in the morning. To record a podcast? Listen, it's an excuse to wake up a little bit early.

I love the sun. Sabrina is the worst. Let me tell you that. I live in a time zone that is five hours ahead of her. Why is it when I'm waking up, there are messages like from 15 minutes before I woke up, like, hey, like, do you want to talk about this thing on the project? And I'm like, I just woke up, like, Hey, like, do you want to talk about this thing on the project? And I'm like, I just woke up. Now, I will say like, I'll wake up at like 11am, which I think is like, somewhat reasonable. Oh, I can kind of get away with this

because they're five hours ahead. That's a wonderful situation to be in for a business partnership. You should be pleased. You get to sleep in. And she's responding to email. I don't like the fact that I'm waking up. I'm waking up and feeling like traction because someone in a different time zone has beaten me to work. That's a you problem. That's your feeling.

Yeah. It's kind of, you're waking up, you're waking up really late. That's not as much as she's waking up really early. Huh? I didn't expect to win. Yeah. I didn't expect to lose. Usually the morning person really takes the L in internet person conversations, but I'm glad.

Yeah, well, I was going to go back to the phrase, an excuse to wake up a little bit earlier, which is something that I've never thought in my entire life. It's fun. I definitely want to live Taha's life. I want to live in a place where I sleep until 11 and then everybody else has just gotten to work. Honestly, me and our editor, Joe, who are both British and live in the UK, had a conversation like, hmm, I think we should start work at nine together. Maybe we should book a meeting at nine.

Both of us were like, oh, that seems pretty early. Maybe we do it at nine ESG time of us were like, oh, that seems pretty early. Like, maybe we do it at nine, like, ESG time. All right. Five hours later. I'm coming out of this conversation both wanting to be Sabrina and hating her. Yes. Sweet spot.

Same, to be honest. Every week here at SciShow Targets, we get together to try to one-up, amaze, and delight each other with science facts while also trying to stay on topic. Our teams are playing for glory and for Hank bucks, which you can spend at the nearest Chuck E. Cheese. At the end of the episode, one of y'all teams is going to be crowned the winner. But as always, we must first introduce this week's traditional science pop topic with

the traditional science poem. This week, it's from Taha. Banana banana looks great in pajamas. Banana banana sweeter than most banana banana is pretty tasty with honey and toast. Oh, banana banana. Even though that sounds gross.

Unique rhyme scheme. Unique rhyme scheme. I mean, there is there is something that really deeply perplexed me in the middle, but I've lost it. Sweeter than most. Sweeter than most. Sweeter than most what, Starr?

Listen, it rhymed with toast and it was important for the structural integrity of the poem. Oh my god. So this week the topic is bananas, but before we dive in we're going to take a short break, and then we'll be back to define what the heck is a banana. All right, we're back everybody. What's a banana? This is a question mostly for Sari, though I guess we could also all-

Everyone should chime in. Yeah. We should all collectively define banana. Is it a grass? No, you can eat it. You can't eat grass, any grass? You can definitely eat grass. You can eat many grasses, Taha.

Weed is a grass. Isn't this your meme, Hank? It was my thing, but I had to rescind. I had to walk back. Walk back. You had to issue a correction. Do eat grass. Wow.

This is blowing my mind, because not only has Hank Green told me not to eat grass, but also H Bomberguy told me not to eat grass once in a video. So I'm like very much like, hmm, two people who research things that told me not to eat grass. You've been lied to. If you see, I mean, so his name is H Bomberguy and that's his name. You can't just say H. His name is Harris, right? His name is H. Bomber. That's what his mother named him.

Yes. His mother looked at a tiny baby and went, yes, H. Bomber Guy. Yeah, it's H. Bomber Guy. As you know, his name. Anyway, does anybody else know what a banana is? I remember watching an episode of QI at some point, and I think a banana is technically a berry. It's definitely got a fruit.

It's got a fruit. Are there banana flowers? Yes, I answered my question. There are banana flowers? There gotta be if there's banana fruit. Do all fruits come from flowers? Sarah, do all fruits come from flowers? I feel fairly confident that they do.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hang on. Wait. Huh? What is a flower? Do all fruits come from flowers? Sarah, do all fruits come from flowers? I feel fairly confident that they do. Yeah. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hang on.

Wait, huh? What is a flower? I don't know. This is amazing. All right, botany class. Yeah, it's time for science. Were we all meant to know that bananas and flowers? I didn't expect you to know anything, Sabrina.

But that is a thing that people do know. Does every flower have a have a have a berry? Every flower generally makes if it can be fertilized, makes a seed of some sort. And fruits like berries are one way that flowers and the ovaries of the plant specifically generate a seed. I feel like all the ovaries that you can buy in the grocery store are genetically modified to be just absolutely ginormous compared to what you would find in nature. Are all fruits ovaries?

I feel like all the ovaries you can buy in a grocery store is a wild way to introduce our guests to the fact that fruits are plant ovaries. Wait, what? It's back at him again. I'm back. Yeah, no cap. A tomato is an ovary, a pumpkin is an ovary, nuts are ovaries. What? Wait, nuts are fruits?

Nuts are fruit botanically, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. The nut is often the seed part of the fruit, right? Sometimes not. Sometimes not. Yeah. Such a deeply upsetting thing. I've learned to die. I don't like science anymore. Anyway, bananas. Bananas, yeah, they are berries. So a berry, botanically speaking, is a fruit with a pulpy bit.

So the fleshy part of the banana is the pulp and then seeds on the inside. But unfortunately, many of the berries that we colloquially call berries, like strawberries, raspberries. Those are not berries botanically. Wait, what? Things that are berries botanically include bananas, tomatoes, cucumbers, grapes, because they all have this like fleshy bit around seed. You're hurting them, Sarah. I know.

Well, we haven't even told them that vegetables don't exist, which I know Sabrina's gonna hate. I watched the dropout episode. We know about this. All right. Hang on. Can't trick us here. But strawberries have the berries on them.

I've seen them. I've seen that one TikTok where they take all the berries off the strawberry. They take the seeds off the strawberry. Oh. But the seeds on the outside, not the inside. It's an accessory fruit. So it's like, it, not the inside. It's an accessory fruit, so it's like, it is not the ovary.

It's derived from a different part of the plant. And so a fruit has to be an ovary, and it's an accessory fruit. So the strawberry is not an ovary. It's like the outside, it's something else. It's another chunk, and then has other bits. If I was a funnier person, my brain would be like, trying to go a thousand miles a minute to make a joke here,

but I can't do it. If you look at the picture that's sort of deposed of a banana flower, my joke is that looks like a penis, like an alien penis. But why does it? Oh, there's the bananas. Wait, what's coming out of it? The flower. That's the flower. But I don't understand how it happened, because now, like, as the flower just keep blooming and leaving behind more

berries behind it as it gets fertilized, I would have assumed that every banana had its own little banana flower like an orange does. But I definitely like bananas less having seen their flowers. I think I think this might be one of the things that I thought I knew the most about that I know the least about I didn't know how they even looked on a tree you should know how a banana looks on a tree we got let's sorry take back over Sarah you are been all bananas at least related to each other with a common lineage and then like once there was a branch toward the banana lifestyle there was no break offs from it and all bananas are similar to each other banana lifestyle the bananas are taxonomically related, yes. I'm like now I have to reel back in my surprising little facts because they're gonna get derailed.

So bananas are our flowering plants as we've established. They are herbaceous and so sometimes you hear people say oh bananas an herb. I think they're just being a little bit too casual with their language. Bananas not like parsley. But it is like the only thing that connects those two is that it is green and leafy. It is not woody like a tree. So there's no not like solid hardwood. The stock of the banana tree is just compressed leaves basically together. And bananas are all in the genera musa, good name for it, and the family musa siei. And it's just a combination of bananas, plantains, and all the various cultivars of bananas that we know today.

Guess who said the banana was an herb in 2019? Me? Stefan on an episode of SciShow. What? Wow. Classic. And that's why we brought you back. Yes.

Answer for your crimes. It's time of a LePiper. I thought you brought me back because of my banana loving lore. Yes, you do love, love, love bananas. Oh, a natural enemy to Melissa. Oh, wow. You hate bananas? I really, really don't like bananas. Oh, a natural enemy to Melissa. Oh. Oh, wow. You hate bananas?

I really, really don't like bananas. Wow, I'm so glad we had you on the banana episode. Jeez. They're sweeter than most. Sweeter than most. I'm here for the fun facts. Okay. Well, we're making bananas worse day by day here.

Maybe we can sway her. I don't know about that one. Did this flower, did the dong flower not sell you on them? Oh yeah, really made me want to have one every morning. On the actual bananas in that image, there are like small flowers. Yes, I think that there is inside of these petals, there are a bunch of little flowers. So this outside, those are, that is not a flower. It is a thing that contains many small flowers. And this is where it gets a little bit more complicated. So a lot of, unfortunately.

So a lot of plants reproduce sexually, right? And so they're, the pollen is like the essential, like the sperm and then the ovaries contain the essential, like the sperm, and then the ovaries contain the eggs, and then the ovaries grow into the fruit. Banana plants are among other plants that can also reproduce asexually and produce fruit through a weird process. It's called, they are parthenocarpic,

which essentially means that they can produce fruit, their ovaries can grow into fruit without developed seeds and without being pollinated. So that is where I think this dangly flower comes from is because a lot of the banana, almost all of the banana cultivars that we grow in farms on the world are clones. They're asexually reproduced bananas and they are not the ones with seeds because if you

look at a banana with, if you could Google banana with seeds, a wild type banana has these big old chunky seeds and it would be really, really hard to eat around the pulp. And so we, like banana trees naturally, like put off these asexual daughters and then have seedless bananas that grow off of them and flowers that don't get pollinated. And we just like grab the bananas and eat them because they're all fleshy and not seeds. And that's what we turn into our giant farms.

And so those giant flowers, I don't think, they're just growing, they bloom, they don't get pollinated, they don't do anything. And so we probably just lop them off or take the bananas before the flowers grow or something like that. Yeah, but there's definitely like a structure that the banana grows from that is related to a flower.

Yes, they still grow from like ovary bits. They just don't need to be pollinated from the flower. Yeah. And they don't have seeds inside of them, which is grand. I love that about bananas. What are the dots inside of a banana? Those are the seeds. Those are like pre seeds that didn't all, didn't develop into seeds. How big can they get?

I've never seen them. A banana? Well, I'm at the seeds. Like, are we talking like it becomes like a mango? Yeah, like in a wild banana pre-people, the seeds take up most of the inside of the banana. You can see pictures of them cut. Looks like popcorn kernels in there. And those bananas still exist.

Wild bananas still grow. We've domesticated a lot and cultivated, I guess, cultivated a lot of bananas. But the banana trees had to come from somewhere, mostly like South Asia. And they're just growing also wild there. The word banana, that's a great one. I think they did it right. I think it's dangerously close to pineapple in every language except English.

Oh, no, no. Oh, yeah. How do we get banana the word? Like many words, it is mysterious. So the plant, like I mentioned, seems in every language except English. Anana. Oh yeah, right. How do we get banana the word? Like many words, it is mysterious. So the plant, like I mentioned, seems to be native to like Southeast Asia, but it was introduced in Africa at some point. And we think we get the word banana from Wolof, which is a West African language spoken in

like Senegal and Gambia. And it just is the word banana. It's potentially derived from Arabic, banan. I don't speak Arabic. So I think that's how you say it, which means fingertip. So like fingers or like a hand. Yeah, they look kind of like fingers. Yeah, because the bunch.

Well, it's called a hand of bananas, right? Yeah. Okay. Is that a bunch of bananas? Wait, a bunch of bananas? Wait. A bunch. Who calls it a hand? And then from there, the Spanish and Portuguese got the West African word banana. The colonizers, they brought it to the Americas and that's why we have in Spanish languages banana, but

then also platano. And I could not find where we got the word plantain from. Maybe it has to do with the leaves of the tree. In Latin, planta or platanus meant like plain. So the big flat leaves, we were like, oh, those are big flat leaves on a tree. So it's a plantain. But there are multiple, there's a different plant with large flat leaves that is called a plantain. And so it's possible that we were just like, I don't know,

like how we called everything an eel at some point. We were just like, oh yeah, we did. Sure, yes. For sure, yeah. Of course, I guess. I will say that you are right in England that it is football because it is a ball that you hit with your foot But we are right that it is pineapple because it is an apple that looks like a pine cone. Is that why?

What? What? Yeah an apple an apple Very big the size of New York City. Also, I love the dichotomy you set up there, which was like in England, we do this thing. And then in English, we do this other thing. We've got to make a podcast, you guys. Let's move on to the quiz portion of our show.

I have I have a quiz for you. It's going to be a game. Banana peels are weird. Before you've eaten the banana, their handy packaging tool makes it easy to carry bananas around. But after eating, they're trash that you have to deal with. Or are they? Not if scientists have their way. Over the years, scientists have been working on ways to salvage banana peels so that they are more than just a comedic prop. So today we're playing Truth or Fail Express, where I'm going to describe some kind of banana peel

related innovation. It is up to you to decide whether it is true or not. Are you ready? I think. This first question will be Sari versus Sabrina. Are you two ready? Sure. Yes.

So you've heard of banana bread, yeah? Yes. How about banana peel pasta? Researchers created flour from banana peels by blanching and grounding the skin down into a powder. And then they tried that out as a flour to see if they could make pasta that is delicious and also maybe extra nutritious.

Is that fake or real? So should I justify, should I justify my? You can justify, you can talk it through or you could just be bold. You made a video about this. You and Melissa made a video about pasta. So you have to get this right. This is weirdly well aligned

that the person who knows more in depth about what a banana is than anyone else on this call it's apparently. While I know a fair amount about the history of pasta. And my main concern is, does a peel have anything glutenous in it? What would keep the flour like pasta-y? Egg. Oh, dang, you're right.

Just egg. You solved it. You can turn anything into the box and just add a little bit of egg. Egg, more egg. Mix the peel with the egg. That's it. I feel like there's start. Like it's starchy. Yes, the banana peel.

I've never eaten it. If you dry it out. I've never eaten it. Well, I've crunched a banana. I have eaten through the peel, but I have not. Why? I think for the content, yeah. What level of ripeness?

Because I think a very ripe banana, you could just munch through it like a kiwi or an apple, you know, but a fresh one. I've done it with various levels, and I will say that it is harder with a softer banana. Harder with a softer banana. You need to have some bite for the sound and to get through the peel. It's bad ASMR.

So I think this is true. I'm going to just guess. I don't know. The secret to styesha tangents is that it's all guessing all the time. You don't need to know anything. The more you know, the worse things get. Oh, that's good. I know nothing.

This is perfect. need to know anything. The more you know, the worse things get. Oh, that's good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know nothing. This is perfect. So I'm going to say yes. For the sake of complimentary responses and also my belief, I'll say yes. Here's the thing, Sabrina. You did know too much. You were like, I've made pasta before. This wouldn't work.

But scientists will stop at nothing. Yeah, they can make it work. So banana peels have a lot of nutrients in them. They got fiber, they got magnesium, they got potassium, they got antioxidants, and also they're trash. So they've been trying to figure out, can we make flour out of this? And in a 2022 study, researchers turned a banana peel

into a portion of the flour used to make pasta. They also used some honey. I didn't think that they were mixing things. Because you were right, they needed a gluten. Dang it. They cheated. Yeah. You can mix anything with flour and make it a pasta.

I made a banana pasta. The two ingredients are bananas and pasta. I made a banana pasta. The two ingredients are bananas and pasta. So they used either 0, 5% or 10% of the flour with banana peel flour. And the pasta made with banana peel flour was darker. And when they presented the pastas to a panel, the panelists said the darker color made the pasta look like it was more nutritious, which it also actually was. The 5% and 10% pastas had similar acceptability rating as the control pasta was 0%, suggesting the pasta might be a good place to try out for banana peel substitution. But I don't think that people are going to come by and collect banana peel.

How do you get the peel from? You'd need like an industrial application where they're like peeling lots of bananas. There has to be pre-peeled bananas that are on sale somewhere. Who is buying pre-peeled bananas? Frozen bananas. Yeah, frozen, that's right.

You got me there, you got me there. Yeah, frozen banana. Or if it's an ingredient, like if there's like an industrial banana bread factory somewhere. So Melissa, sequel to the pasta video? Absolutely not. You want me to eat banana pasta?

Oh wait, I forgot you hated that. You can truly define is it sweeter than most. Put banana in things. Wow. Holding on, holding on to the poem. All right, question number two is for Sam and Melissa. Are you two ready? All right, yes.

So if you've ever complained about how banana scented things don't actually smell like bananas, don't worry. The future of perfume technology might contain some more realistic notes of banana peel. Scientists have developed a banana peel-based fixative that uses the starch in the peel to help scent molecules in a perfume last longer.

So it wouldn't smell like bananas. It's not actually the smell. It's not a banana scent. They're not using it as a scent. I don't know why I started it off that way. Okay. What is in a banana that's making it make us smell last longer? They're just goopy.

I feel like they can do it. They can do something like that. Goopy. Are we allowed to speak? No, we should just leave Alyssa to hang out. We should just leave Alyssa to hang out, to dry, like a banana peel. The first question I thought, oh wow, the question writers have really sort of like thought about the videos that we've made, but this is a video that Melissa is currently making.

Oh wow. We're making a video about fragrance right now. There's no way anyone could have known that. Yeah, that's wild. I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow,

I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like, oh wow, I'm like but this is a video that Melissa is currently making. Oh, wow. We're making a video about fragrance right now. There's no way anyone could have known that. Yeah, that's wild. Nothing came up in my research about bananas. Yeah, well, that's information. Bananas are pretty stanky, though.

I know. They can take over. If there's the smallest bit of banana in a smoothie, you know there's a banana in there. I feel like you're just more attuned to it, to be honest. No, it is so strong. I agree with this. I will not.

A banana ruins a smoothie. I do. You know all about bananas, but a banana ruins a smoothie. Ruins is such a strong word. Yeah, they're delicious. I stand by it. I think bananas taste of basically nothing.

Well, that's not. Oh, interesting. That's also not true. That's definitely wrong too. You're all wrong. Wow. I have a perfectly normal opinion about bananas. I think they taste of banana.

I think they taste just like bananas and I think they are quite stinky for a long time. So sure, Why not? They can do the whatever Hank said. I don't think so. I just want I'm just willing that this is not true. I just hope it's not true. I buy fragrances.

I don't want bananas to touch it at any point. Well, scientists have used banana peels to make binders that have been tested in a few applications. For example, car brake pads and thermal insulation, but never have they used them to make smells last. Not in my perfume. Let's go! All right.

Now it is Stefan versus Taha for our next question. Are y'all ready? Oh yeah, the banana showdown, let's go. Yeah, we gotta break the tie. When it comes to adding a little bit of food to water, you might think of cucumbers or like a lemon, but you might also want to think about banana peels, especially if you're looking to purify your water. Scientists have found that compounds like carboxylic acid in banana peels are able to bind to toxic heavy metals in water, like lead and copper, helping clean that water out. Is that true or false?

Gosh, please don't be true. They don't do it to all water. Yeah, yeah, I don't think it's like at the Water 2 room plant. She's really trying to push the banana to extinction. If only there were no use for this fruit. Well, I mean, the answer to the last one, finding out the bananas are involved some in any way in break pads is making me rethink

what's possible with a banana. Yes, banana technology is a lot more advanced than before. Yeah, we've come a long way. Anyone believe. To be honest, it sounded true to me, but that's because you use science words and I was like, science words. Yes. My visual is that they just took a bucket of water and then put some banana peels in it. No, I'm 100% imagining this is like apocalypse scenario. We're like, we need to filter the water. I've got some bananas and then you've put them,

put the bananas in a bucket and just pour the water in and then it's good to go. But I feel like the goo from the banana, even if it sticks to the banana, then the goo from the banana will be all over the water. Remember the break. They're not saying it's like good water, but it has fewer toxic heavy metals in it.

You're getting rid of the heavy metals and then you're adding banana. Mm. Melissa, which one would you rather drink? A banana smoothie or heavy metals? I think I feel like it's true. Heavy metals, I feel like they would stick to bananas. Yeah, I hadn't really considered if maybe heavy metals like bananas.

Heavy metal musicians definitely do. I was gonna say that. My jokes have been stolen by Henry. The plagiarism accusation. Get H on the line. I'm also gonna say it's true. All right, well, we came out of it in a tie no matter what happens, but indeed the answer was true.

So you made the right choice, Stefan. I'm a little bit on your side because you are on my podcast's team. Researchers in 2011 reported that banana peels can act as a water purifier. Other researchers shown that plant materials like coconut fibers and peanut shells also worked, so they decided to test out the banana peels. And they found that minced banana peels worked better than several synthetic and natural filtration materials and can be used up to 11 times while maintaining efficacy. We must have a lot of trash bananas going to waste somewhere for all these people to be trying to find ways to use them.

Yeah, I worry about this that it's more like a thing that people notice in their own lives rather than an industrial process. Like they're not thinking, boy, is there like a large grouping of banana peels somewhere? Or are we going to have to like have the banana peel man come and pick up everybody's banana peel every day? I feel like I'm going crazy because everything, there's like bananas are used in everything, right? Like every, there must be tons of big piles of bananas everywhere.

What are they used in? I don't know. What is used in? Well, banana bread. That's, yeah, that's the main one that I thought of. But like smoothies? What about like those fruit bars and stuff? They're probably like smoosh, bananas are so cheap.

They're probably smooshing apples and banana. Exactly. Who's gonna test the banana hammocks if not the bananas? Yeah. Who watches the watchmen? All right, well, we've come through truth or fail at a tie ball game, but now we're gonna take a quick break and then we'll be back for another Fierce Competition. [♪ INTRO MUSIC PLAYING FADES OUT, MUSIC FADES OUT, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES OUT, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, MUSIC FADES IN, Welcome back, everybody. I've got another game.

This one is also hosted by me, but I do not have access to the document. Where is it? All right. I have that document. Bananas are so iconic that there are lots of things named or nicknamed after them, like the banana hemiq. Sometimes it's because they have bright yellow markings or are completely yellow, like banana slugs.

But then there are also other reasons. Banana aphids are small brown bugs that suck sap from banana plants, while banana knives are curved like bananas and are used to cut linoleum, which is not what you were expecting me to say. In this game of This or or that the rules are very simple You have to guess whether each banana named thing is yellow or not yellow Intellectual level I like to play We're gonna start out with Stefan versus Sabrina are y'all ready? Let's do it

Yeah, so fiddler crabs are weird little creatures where the male crabs have one big like extra big claw and one normal sized claw. The females have two normal sized claws. There are lots of different species and one is called a banana fiddler crab. Are male banana fiddler crabs yellow or not yellow? I'm gonna go with not yellow. Okay. Fiddler crabs yellow or not yellow? I'm going to go with not yellow. Okay. I don't think there are yellow crabs.

Just no yellow crabs. I just feel like yellow is not the most common color or not a very common color in animals because it makes it's like a high visibility vest which is not what you want. I agree that it's like I just feel like why is a crab gonna be yellow for but also I feel like if it's called a fiddler crab probably looks like it's musical so it has like little round fingers so maybe it just has a really big banana shaped hand. I can see that that's a good which is that maybe the claw itself is the shape of a banana and that's how they got the name.

But in fact, you're both wrong and they're yellow. No! What? It's actually a signal. It's like the big claw is like being like, I am a big scary man, fight me. And they make them bright colored. The claws themselves are the yellowest part of the cat.

They are yellow yellow. Yeah. Whoa. That's like dehydrated pee yellow. Stefan. When I go to the paint shop, that's what I'm like, give me your yellowest yellow. Sir, we have this dehydrated pee yellow. Yeah. We've also got banana fiddler crab yellow. It's actually the same color. Same color. Just different copyright holders. That's it. It's the Pantone and non-Pantone colors.

So question number two, Sari versus Melissa, are you ready? All right, let's go. Yes. In 2024, scientists analyzing images of newborn galaxies taken by the James Webb Space Telescope found something very surprising. Instead of looking like a smaller, wispier version of the type of galaxy that they would eventually become, these baby galaxies were described as distinctly banana-like. Scientists observed that the galaxies were shaped like tubes, but do these banana baby galaxies also produce a yellow glow to match their name?

There's some funky colors out in space when you see those photographs. Are they? I have no idea. They're like purples and oranges. I thought that there was a whole process to color them based off of their chemical composition. All right, reel it in, Sabrina. Sorry. I always get confused when we talk about like sound, that galaxy has a really low sound,

that galaxy has a color because I feel like we're interpreting it in some way. And are we interpreting the yellow? We're bumping wavelengths all around, but maybe within like the processing things that they do, it turns out that these galaxies, once the image has been processed. Are some version of yellow.

What does it mean to process something? Well, because these James R.S. Telescope pictures are super shifted into the infrared, so they're not in colors that we can see. So they have to shift them into the visible in the processing part where they turn them into wavelengths detectable by Taha's eyes. But I mean, you know, like, if you shift the light,

you shift it, right? But like, what if you decide to shift it, like, a little bit less so everything is, like, yellow? You know what I mean? Yeah, and also, they don't just shift it, they widen it. So what I'm hearing here is that it cannot possibly be yellow by our understanding of delta. Or it could, depending on how you look at it.

I think it's all about perspective. So we can't get it wrong, right? Like, we both get the point automatically? Yeah, you could just, if you say it's yellow, just tell them to shift it a little bit more. Well, then it's yellow. I'm going to guess not yellow. I think you're right, but I'm going with it. I'm gonna give it to both of you. Colors are made up.

You've made a great argument. The actual answer is no, they're not yellow. But also they could be, if we just shifted the light differently. There we go. Banana galaxies are bananas in shape only. They're all sorts of colors, from purple to green, but not yellow. The fact that they are banana-shaped is very weird, though. So the assumption with newborn galaxies is that they'd be like disc-shaped, because

that's how things seem to go in space. But if that were the case, you'd see pictures of baby galaxies looking round, like a disc from above. But the team look at 4,000 pictures of baby galaxies looking round, like a disk from above. But the team look at 4,000 pictures of baby galaxies. Somewhere between 50 and 80% of them have the same long banana shape with an area circled to be seen, which suggests that baby galaxies are shaped like 3D tubes, much like a humble banana.

A surprising finding that would change how we think about galaxy formation in a way that really smart people would probably explain, but I will not. I think it's because baby galaxies are a type of berry. Okay, last one, Sam vs. Taha. In 1996, the Nokia 8110 mobile phone was released. I don't know what they called that,

but that's the numbers in the order. And soon earned the nickname Banana Phone. Was the Nokia 8110 yellow or not yellow? I don't think they were having enough fun with cell phones back then to make them a fun color. They were having so much fun with cell phones in 1996? Yeah, I mean, I think so. Way more fun than we're having now.

Now they look like glass plates you can eat sushi off. 1996 was a long time ago, though. Did they invent fun yet? I guess that's the real question. In the 90s? They were so close. They were so close. I'm going with yes.

I feel like the banana phone looked like a banana, shaped like a... It was just... It's like the banana. I'm going with no, I bet they named it after that Raffy song the banana phone looked like a banana shaped like a, it was just, it's like a, it's the banana. I'm going with Noah, but they named it after that Raffy song, banana phone. I bet it was a fun little, fun little reference, huh? I think that song is about that phone. That's my, that's my theory. I think it's about a real banana. Oh.

Myself. Hmm. Is Raffy's song banana phone about a banana or about a phone? I think it's about both. Well, after all of this, it's come down to this moment. We were tied until this moment, and now one of the teams is gonna be in the lead because they've guessed two different things. But which one is right?

The answer is that the Nokia 8110 is not yellow. No! It was not yellow. So it was the first slider phone, the closed keypad was protected and then you slid the panel open, it positioned the microphone closer to your mouth. And the curve in the open phone

gave it the nickname of banana phone, even though it was gray. A modified version of this phone was used in the Matrix, so it also become known as the Matrix phone. But in 2018, the Nokia 8110 4G was released as a retro revival and came in both gray and bright yellow. So it became the banana phone nickname, both curved and color.

But we were asking about the one from 1996. How can we make this a win in our technicality? I'm like on a technicality, Taha. Come on, we gotta figure it out. In a way, wasn't the re-release also the same phone? You know what I mean? It was also from the same phone. See what the exact words I said were?

Was, this is what I said, was the 8110 yellow or not yellow? I didn't say, was the 1996 Nokia 8110 yellow or not yellow? So maybe we're all right. If you believe in equality, was the 1996 Nokia 8110 yellow or not yellow? So maybe we're all right. If you believe in equality, you would make it a tie. I don't know if you need to push back against the narrative that equality means everybody gets equal scores

on every page. I've been hearing that one and I don't like it. I think in this specific circumstance. Well, you know what, you guys, I think the Nokia 8110 was yellow. It just was in 2018. So I think it's a tie ball game once more. That's disgusting. I would have just let them win.

I would have said, I would have said, congratulations. I guess I'm just that kind of better person than you guys are. Damn, you're just making us feel so bad. We come as guests to your show. We disrespect the integrity of the game show. Yeah, and Hank did too. I did. I constantly do. And I actually, I'm not going to give any of you Hank bucks because they don't exist. Oh. But I'm going to Chuck E. Cheese.

Yeah, I need them to feed my family. And now, as far as I can tell, it is time for Ask the Science Couch, where we ask a question to our couch of finely honed scientific minds. What is it? Victoria 6126 on YouTube asks, Are they trying to come up with ways to not use clones for every commercial banana? The thing of it is, once you're not using a clone, the bananas don't taste like bananas anymore. They become different and worse bananas.

So are all fruits clones? Are like all apples clones of each other? Apples are also this way. Yeah. So like all the Honeycrisps are cloned from a Honeycrisp thing. But there's a bunch of varieties of apples where there's not for bananas for complicated reasons. But from what I understand, you've got to have to in order to maintain the situation with the specific banana that we all think of as the banana. This is my understanding as well.

Because Sabrina... Damn, just piggyback on everyone's answers. I agree. I agree. Took the words right out of my mouth. Fruits come from flowers. This is my understanding as well. Sarah, but do we, is that right?

Yeah. I mean, I'll keep it quick. So we've got a bunch of cultivars. The Cavendish banana is the main one in Western world because it has a really thick skin. It's the one that we've mass produced. And have like systems for it. We're like switching to a different banana would be so hard. Like all the boats are built for Cavendish bananas.

Like everything is structured. Like banana boats? The banana boats. There's literally banana boats. They're called reefer ships because they're refrigerated. Not because there's weed on them. But if you have reefers in England. I wouldn't know. I don't do that kind of thing.

Yeah, there's like and like the way that they the way like it's all very to like specially tuned, the shipment process is very Specially tuned to the Cavendish and bananas are relatively similar all of the bananas actually like banana genetics To get very deep into the science, but I'll try and keep it at a an interesting level are very very like weird and good so all the cultivars of Bananas that we have nowadays are pretty much from two wild species.

There's Musa acuminata, which are what we think of as sweet bananas, and Musa bulbisiana, which are more bitter, taste a little bit worse. And the acuminata is the A genome, and the bulbisiana is the B genome. We have made all of these different cultivars by combining different pieces of those genomes. Most banana varieties that are grown are some combination of these.

If you have like the Cavendish subgroup is in the like the AAA genome family, so you take three copies of the Acuminata genome, crossbreed, crossbreed, crossbreed, something goes weird in the process because normally bananas, like wild type bananas have two copies of the genome. Something happens with like the cells dividing so that they get a third copy. You get a really good tasty Cavendish banana, has three copies of the A genome. The AAB genome includes the plantain subgroup and so those are like all of the African plantains or true plantains all have like that AAB hybridized

genotype and there are diploid so there are ones with just like an A, an A, an A, B, things like that. There's triploid, which is like three copies of the genome. But a lot of our commercial bananas are in this triploid genome situation where there are three copies of the genome and that is like, it doesn't really happen frequently in vertebrates. It's more frequent in plants, but it really affects their ability to reproduce because it is much easier for an organism to like reproduce if there is an even copy of the chromosomes because

when a cell splits, then everything divides evenly. And so the fact that all of our commercial like cultivars, our Cavendish bananas, our plantains and whatnot are these triploid, for some reason that combination of genomes makes them extra tasty and then we start growing clones from them, we have to go back and start from scratch as we're breeding a new banana. We have to go back to the diploid wild type form or a diploid form and then breed again to try and find another tasty banana. So people are trying to do this. People are trying to find new types of bananas

that could potentially be more resistant to disease. But once we make it, like Hank said, you need to clone it if you want the banana to taste the same. Kind of back in the same situation again. I mean, and the reason this is a concern is because if all of the bananas are genetically identical then a fungus that can kill one of them can kill all of them or any pathogen that can kill one can kill all.

But like we are getting better at like just sticking genes in things. So like maybe there is a future where we can make new bananas. This is the most sci-fi thing I've ever heard. And I didn't expect it to be about making new bananas because my small little caveman brain is just like, ah, to make new bananas, you just kind of grab two bananas and smush them against each other like Barbies. And that's me. It's me.

It's not like that. Thank you for clarifying. If you want to ask the Science Cats your question, follow us on Twitter at SciShow Tangents or check out our YouTube channel community tab where we'll send out topics for upcoming episodes every week. Or you can join the SciShow Tangents Patreon and ask us on our Discord. Thank you to at at orbiting wombat Tanner, bot, and everybody else who asked us your questions for this episode's answer in progress. Thank you for joining us

and also for making such good content. Where can people find it? You can find it on the internet at youtube.com slash answer in progress. We make videos about random questions that you never thought to ask, and then we try to answer them. I recently made one on whether or not we need airplane mode. Sabrina recently made one about?

My slowly faltering attention span rapidly. And Melissa recently made one about? Is chocolate going extinct? Oh no. I'm fascinated by all of those questions. I've only watched one of those videos, so I really need to catch up. If you like this show and you want to help us out,

it's easy to do that. First, you can go to patreon.com slash sideshow tangents, you can become a patron. If you like this show and you want to help us out, it's easy to do that. First, you can go to patreon.com slash SciShow Tangents. You can become a patron, get access to our Discord and our bonus content, like our Minions commentary. We went this whole episode and didn't mention Minions who love Minions.

I know, I thought it several times. I was like, where's my Minions joke time? I'm sure it's coming soon. Second, though, you can leave us a review wherever you listen. It helps us know what you like about the show and also helps other people find us. And finally, if you want to show your love for SciShow Tangents, just tell the people about us. Thank you for joining us. I've been Hank Green.

I've been Sari Riley. I've been Sam Schultz. I've been Stefan Chin. I've been Sabrina Cruz. I've been Taha Khan. And I've been Melissa Fernandez. SciShow Tangents is created by all of us except for these three dopes and is produced by Jess Stimpert. Our associate producer is Eve Schmidt, our editor is Seth Klixman, our social media organizer is Julia Busbazio, our editorial assistant is Deboki Chakravarti, our sound designer is by Joseph Tuna-Meadish, our executive producers are Nicole Sweeney and me, Hank Green, and of course we could not be getting this without our patrons on Patreon. Thank you and remember, the mind is not a vessel to be filled, to be lighted.

But one more thing. If a honeybee stings something, its butt releases an alarm pheromone that alerts more guard bees that there's a threat and increases the chance of them stinging to defend their hive. And the main chemical in this alarm pheromone is isoamyl acetate, which happens to be the distinctive flavor of banana candy and gross Michel bananas. Is it pronounced gross Michel? I thought it was gross. It's almost definitely gross. It's almost definitely grow.

It's in the notes. So our French teacher is going to let us reach through. Uncle Michelle, you want me to use my French accent? Uncle Michelle, you're going to let me go?