Bananas beware: HTC EVO may be out to get you

According to G&E reader Doug, "over-ripening and causing mold to grow on bananas" may be something to add to the list of all the things the HTC EVO 4G can do.

Confused?

Here's the story. Doug usually charges his cell phone overnight on the kitchen counter. To keep the device safe (he says he's prone to dropping things), he often places it in a basket of somewhat-yellow bananas that usually have no dark spots on them. He started this practice with his old Samsung Instinct phone, which often slid to the bottom of the basket with absolutely no ill effect on the bananas.

His new HTC EVO, on the other hand, always slides to the bottom of the basket, toward the tips of the bananas, with the micro USB connection almost exactly at the bottom of the bunch. After just two or three nights of being left alone in the dark with the EVO, all the bananas in the basket "became very dark about four inches up the skin and mold was spotted on the skin where it was dark." Doug cut the bananas open and "noticed a very dark area in the center of the banana meat that was approximately the size of a dime [that] went throughout the banana, all the way to the stem."

Doug says:

Really, I just thought this banana thing was an interesting development. It is possible that something else made the bananas turn like that, and that fast, but I doubt it. It could be that the chopper circuit in the charging section on the motherboard is putting out some radiation. But, there is only five volts going to the phone, so I don't see how that could be much of a factor. Anyway, we shall see because I just bought new bananas.

This is all just for fun, of course, but if you have some time and want to help Doug solve the mystery of the browning banana, he invites you to run your own experiment:

1. Start with new, almost green, medium bananas.
2. Rest the EVO on banana #1 while charging overnight and observe the results on the second and third morning.
3. Set the EVO on banana #2 whenever it's not in use or being charged.
4. Let a control banana from the same bunch sit on the other end of the counter alone.
5. Repeat test four days later.

Upon hearing this story, my husband asked whether the EVO gets unusually warm when charging, possibly heating up the bananas that way. I haven't noticed any abnormal heating from my EVO, which I've been charging on some papers sitting on my Sony Vaio P, which itself is sitting on a glass side table, so I don't think that's it.

What do you think?

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