Malnutrition is a problem across large swaths of the globe, but it\u2019s a difficult problem to solve. It\u2019s not only a matter of people getting enough to eat; they need to have the right combination of food as well. People in developing countries often subside on a very limited diet, which can lead to life-threatening vitamin deficiencies. Surprisingly, a genetically modified (GM) super-banana backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation might be a key weapon in the fight against malnutrition. Yeah, it\u2019s not as sexy as the Gates-backed condoms.<\/p>\n
So what makes it \u201csuper?\u201d This banana is absolutely chock full of beta-carotene, which the body uses to produce vitamin A. That may not sound like a food with the potential to make an impact on malnutrition, but vitamin A deficiency is a huge problem in the developing world. World health experts estimate 650,000-700,000 children die annually from a lack of vitamin A in their diets. A further 300,000 avoid death only to lose their eyesight. By tweaking a few genes, scientists have created a banana that could prevent such things.<\/p>\n
Beta-carotene itself is a large hydrocarbon molecule that has a deep orange color. If you\u2019ve ever wondered why carrots, pumpkins, and sweet potatoes are orange, it\u2019s because of all the beta-carotene they contain. Some species of bananas also produce higher levels of beta-carotene, but they aren\u2019t the ones cultivated for human consumption. It\u2019s these other bananas that Queensland University of Technology scientists used as the source of genetic material to create the super-banana.<\/p>\n
Source: Extreme Tech<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Malnutrition is a problem across large swaths of the globe, but it\u2019s a difficult problem to solve. It\u2019s not only a matter of people getting enough to eat; they need to have the right combination of food as well. People in developing countries often subside on a very limited diet, which can lead to life-threatening … Continue reading “Bill Gates Foundation’s GM superbanana to save the world”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,123],"tags":[9103,6113,9102,9100,9101],"class_list":["post-14223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-world","tag-bill-and-melinda-gates-foundation","tag-bill-gates","tag-genetically-modified-gm","tag-malnutrition","tag-superbanana"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14224,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14223\/revisions\/14224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}