ProMusa is dedicated to improving the understanding of banana,1 an atypical crop about which misconceptions abound. They not only turn up in news stories on the extinction of the banana but also in scientific publications.
This is to be expected given that scientific knowledge is provisional and needs to be updated when new evidence comes to light, improved analytical methods are developed and better explanations are proposed. The latter sometimes happen because, being human, scientists are not immune to interpreting results in a way that confirm their beliefs or to make claims that are not supported by the evidence. Fashionable ideas—which Norman Simmonds, one of the pioneers of banana research, called bandwagons—are also problematic when they crowd out different ways of approaching a problem and demand uncritical adherence.
ProMusa's mission is to inform discussions on banana by critically examining the knowledge on this atypical crop and making it accessible and understandable.
- Musapedia, a compendium of knowledge on bananas; and
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InfoMus@, where recent findings, topical issues and ideas are discussed in News and analysis and the banana community blog Under the peel, while In pictures uses photos to tell stories about people and bananas, and Mediawatch links to online news.
ProMusa also maintains two databases: Musalit, a repository of references on banana and Musarama, an image bank on banana.
ProMusa is present on Twitter.