Bananana

I got this bizarre email from my dad (who trained as a chemist before becoming a pastor, but that was a long time ago):

something I've wanting to get someone to check out.

You notice that bananas somehow 'heal' themselves when the skin is broken and then they don't rot like other fruits.

has anyone done a study on this and see if it can be applied to our human skin?

Well...going by the "thought experiment" route, I think the difference is that banana skin is spongy whereas human skin is elastic. Therefore, when you cut something spongy, the adjacent bubbles/cells swell to fill the gap, and I would imagine that the sticky banana sap helps to seal the edges. Whereas when you cut something elastic, the edges pull apart, which is why large wounds need to be stitched.

However, there's something nice for the skin cracks you get in winter...3M's Skin Crack Care (click here for MSDS). I use that stuff a lot, especially being a lab worker. It's basically a brush-on plastic coating, has tea tree oil in it so it smells of that instead of organic solvents. Unfortunately, like nail polish, it has a tendency to dry up and get very viscous by the time you reach the last couple mL.

By the way, the best thinner for old nail polish (tinkered a bit since I don't paint my nails often, and then more as a strategy to reduce biting) is not acetone, which tends to make it cloudy, and definitely NOT alcohol. I found that ethyl acetate was often mentioned as a main ingredient, so one time sophomore year when we were using it in organic lab (the only one time it was used, if I recall correctly) I stole a few mL of it. Worked beautifully.

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Oh yeah, and the difference between muesli and granola is that muesli isn't toasted. Finally got around to looking up that question after 6.5 years in the US. Going to make some granola soon...oatmeal is boring me.