Shrinking The Watermelon

Makarand writes "Scientists who have already eliminated seeds and sweetened the watermelon have now miniaturized this fruit to the size of a cantaloupe. Only the outer speckled shell looks give a clue to what fruit it really is. Syngenta, a Swiss agribusinesses' North American subsidiary has brought this minimelon to the market in 30 states to satisfy customers who favor something that is easier to store and less troublesome to prepare for consumption. No biotech or genetic engineering at work here - the company merely crossed different breeds of watermelons to produce the minimelon."

Comments

Miniaturized? Hah!

[Traderdot]

Who cares about small watermelons when you can have square watermelons?

Just for the record;

[Astatine210]

Genetic Engineering: Creating a new organism by directly altering its genetic code (most notably by 'splicing' code from other organisms into it). Understandably, this idea freaks people out. I must say it doesn't make me particularily comfortable. Selective Breeding: Overriding the subtle hand of Natural Selection in species' evolution with human choice; ie. hand-picking which organism will breed with which. It's the origin of just about every 'domesticated' species, such as wheat, dairy cattle, and (er, I think) brewer's yeast. Selective Breeding is where Chihuahuas, Pekes and Devon Rexes come from, so it's not entirely in my good books either.

What??

[ilbrec]

What's the big deal?? They have those small watermelons in Japan for many years (some watermelons are as small as a softball). I know this, as I worked in watermelon shipping warehouse in Japan for a while.

Get in my belly!

[thinmac]

Even the store clerks at Vons seemed taken with the little melons.

"Those are the cutest baby watermelons," one said on a pass through the produce section. "Aren't those like little babies?" said another.

The real news here is the shocking news that Vons employees like to eat babies. Compared to the image of grocery store checkout workers huddled around cute little baby-sized spheres, cracking them open and eating the sweet, sweet red insides, tiny watermellons just doesn't sound all that disturbing.

Of course, maybe you think tiny watermellons aren't supposed to be disturbing, but that's just because you're tiny fruit desensitized.