The old "slip on a banana peel" gag has been a slapstick comedy classic for more than a century, the humor more about the falling than the fruit. But for a time, banana slippage was a real public concern in some American towns. With an increase in banana imports, more peels on sidewalks. Laws were passed. Studies conducted. Turns out bananas are more slippery than apples or oranges, but not as slippery as metal or ice on ice. Go figure. A Nobel Prize-winning physics experiment proved it. Researchers attribute this to the crushing of the natural polysaccharide follicular gel in a banana, thereby releasing a homogenous sol, which is a colloidal solution made out of tiny solid particles in a continuous liquid medium. Comedy GOLD!

09.25.25