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A SUPER BANANA genetically engineered to contain extra vitamins and help improve the lives of millions of people in Africa is to have its first human trial.
Researchers in Australia, who have been given almost $10 million (close to €7 million) by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, have been working since 2005 on creating a banana enriched with pro-vitamin A.
While the banana looks like any other banana on the outside, the inside is a whole other story.
“The banana flesh… is orange rather than the cream colour we are used to and in fact, the greater the pro-vitamin A content the more orange the banana flesh becomes,” said Professor James Dale, who is leading the research.
The scientists say that the goal is to see farmers in Uganda growing the banana by around 2020.
People in many countries in East Africa use a cooking banana as a staple food, but it has low levels of micronutrients, particularly pro-Vitamin A and iron. It has been estimated that around 700,000 children every year die from pro-vitamin A deficiency with at least another 300,000 going blind.
“Good science can make a massive difference here by enriching staple crops such as Ugandan bananas with pro-vitamin A and providing poor and subsistence farming populations with nutritionally rewarding food,” said Professor Dale.
The bananas have already been harvested from a field at the Queensland University of Technology and will be transported to the US for the human trial, which will last for six weeks.
The results of the trial will be known by the end of the year.
“We know our science will work,” said Professor Dale. “We made all the constructs, the genes that went into bananas, and put them into bananas here at QUT.
“Hundreds of different permutations went into field trials up north and we tested everything to make sure our science worked here in Queensland.
“Now the really high-performing genes have been taken to Uganda and have been put into field trials there.”
Legislation to allow genetically modified crops to be commercialised in Uganda is currently at committee stage in the Ugandan parliament.
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I wish! Incidentally, this isn’t the first time that this house has been featured on The Journal. Is Daft leaking in under the newsroom door?
Yeah, thought I was imagining things. This was definitely posted recently enough. Get it together.
I’m sure if ya lodged an initial bid of 9 million they’d be prepared to haggle… No matter how rich you are you should always be looking to save a few bob…!
You’d want to be a fooking idiot to pay €12 million for an end of terrace house…
Beautiful house in fairness
I always wanted to buy this house, ever since I was a small child coming back to Dublin on the train from holidays in Wexford, I used to look at that house and say one day I will live there.. Things haven’t quite worked out as they were supposed to as I write this from my 3 bed semi in leixlip… Ah well I could still win the auld lotto!!!
You’d need the euro millions for this :)
The house actually overlooks Killiney Bay. Dublin Bay is the other side of a line from Sorrento Point to Howth.
I got a view of Dublin Bay this morning http://www.d4h.org/company/lighthouse-hq and it cost me nothing!
Looked at the pics of the martello tower. Looks amazing even if you seem to get a bedroom/bathroom for your money! Also fancy estate agents using drones to take pics of properties now! The recession is over for estate agents in dublin anyway!
It’s “news” stories like this that helped land the country in the crapper in the first place. It’s because of the penthouse that we ended up in the outhouse.
‘If only I won the lotto’ then still realising you’re 10million short!!
€10M ??? I’ll give you an 8-man tent and me old ford escort …. Have we a deal ?
Oh €12M ??? My mistake deal off !!!
It’s the end terrace…. I thought you got the whole block for 12 million.
The north side? Thanks but no dance love.
Your geography skills are second to none…. Perhaps some more reading up is due.
Maybe Gilmore will purchase this property for his retirement from politics.
Didn’t need to listen in geography class – sure daddy has a job lined up for him :-)
Is that your boyfriend with you in your profile pic?
You sound really thick ignorant. Are you from Belfast?
The irony!
Bobby uncalled for,everyone in Belfast are not ignorant.
They’ll be in the sea soon enough with more storms and erosion. Unless Lex Luther gets there first.
Give me The Dalkey Archive and a few pints any day………..
Beautiful on a day that the sky is blue and the sun shining! Just imagine on a normal Irish day, grey sky, rain lashing off the windows, etc etc………not worth €12m for a view of grey skies.
Agreed Baps. Why anyone would want to pay that sum to live in such a miserable country is beyond me.
Clearly they have the money but not he sense to move to better pastures.
Agreed Baps. Why anyone would want to pay that sum to live in such a miserable country is beyond me.
Clearly they have the money but not he sense to move to better pastures.
People don’t usually buy in Ireland for the weather. If it was in Galway or the west id agree with you. The house is located in the sunnier more driest part of Ireland.
My favourite out of all those pictures is the night view on the balcony stunning. If i lived in a nice little cottage with that view i would be happy.
I would prefer the Amalphi coast myself, but go on…
West coast is nicer.
I spent 3 years working on an album. We never preformed live. Because of free downloading we got on to radio play, loads of reviews and loads of fans. Asking someone for a few euro for an album that takes a massive amount of work and time doesn’t make sense to me. People download it all the time and email us and say hi and well done. And more importantly the album makes sense to them, they identify with it.
Why should a record label decide what people should listen to. Sure, look at the state of Irish music today – clearly labels have no taste.
Lisa hannigan hiding sweets and buttons in her pockets – her albums like a weather’s original add. Shocking stuff.
Does the night bus go out that way
Nobody are going to buy it
Same price as the huge mansion in Malibu
http://www.thejournal.ie/malibu-mansion-batcave-the-wall-street-journal-1491770-May2014/
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