HARVEY, our omnipresent virtual voice assistant, gets a software update that makes him go bananas for bananas. And if we talk about anything except bananas, he turns the microphones off! We talk to geneticist Dr. Janina Jeff about how much DNA we share with a banana, find out why bananas make other fruits ripen, how bananas grow, and where that slipping on a banana peel joke came from. Speaking of jokes, we'll hear a bunch of banana jokes from listeners too! Plus: The Moment of Um answers the question: "Why are peaches fuzzy?"
You can hear more from Dr. Jeff on her podcast In Those Genes.
Silent film expert Lea Stans has a wonderful blog post about the history of the banana peel joke that you can read right here. You can see some of those early comics that featured the joke!
https://www.youtube.com/watch/RMDgmHB4znc
Today’s episode is sponsored by:
KiwiCo (kiwico.com/brainson code: BRAINSON)
Purple (purple.com/BRAINSON10 promo code BRAINSON10)