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Archive for the ‘food’ category: Page 236

Apr 29, 2019

Dino: Autonomous Weeding Robot Covers 12 Acres in 9 Hours

Posted by in categories: food, robotics/AI, sustainability

Here is a vegetable weeding robot designed to increase efficiency on large-scale vegetable farms. It works autonomously and can cover up to 12 acres in 9 hours. It uses GPS and camera to get the job done with accuracy.

Dino is designed to reduce labor costs and free up time for farming teams to focus on more important tasks. It can be put on a schedule and since it’s electric, only minimal maintenance is required.

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Apr 28, 2019

Australia plans to kill uncountable wild cats with poisoned sausage

Posted by in categories: food, government

Australian officers square measure airdropping toxic sausages across the country so as to kill many untamed cats that have to confiscate the continenthat is calculable to be between a pair of and half dozen million.

On twenty-nine December 2014, the country’s government proclaimed a thought to kill a pair of million untamed cats by 2022, in keeping with a recent report from MTV.

An outstanding conservationist has planned a cat free future, with each domestic and untamed cats either controlled or culled.

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Apr 27, 2019

The AeroGarden Harvest is a countertop planter that doesn’t require soil — I used it to grow a 3-foot dill plant in my kitchen

Posted by in category: food

The AeroGarden Harvest is intuitive and easy to use, and being able to say you grew the herbs or tomatoes in your dishes is pretty cool.

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Apr 27, 2019

11 Things People Think Are Awful For Your Diet That Actually Aren’t

Posted by in category: food

I’m used to the shaming look I get from my peers when I crack open a can of sugar-free Red Bull. The questions – and judgement – never end. “That stuff’ll kill you,” someone said to me the other day, shaking his head. “So many chemicals!” was what I heard last week.

Truth be told, Red Bull (at least the sugar-free kind) isn’t all that terrible for you. Besides having only 10 calories and no sugar, it has only 80 milligrams of caffeine, about a third of the amount in a tall Starbucks drip coffee.

As far as its other ingredients – namely B vitamins and taurine – go, scientific studies have found both to be safe.

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Apr 26, 2019

This Martian Greenhouse Concept Just Won a NASA Award

Posted by in categories: food, space

The hydroponic structure could allow astronauts to grow their own food on the desolate Martian surface. It’d cultivate up to eight food crops could be grown inside a rotating system that could serve up 3100 calories per day for four astronauts over a 600 day excursion to the Red Planet.

It’d grow kale, soy, sweet potato, potato, broccoli, strawberry, wheat, and chufa. A massive tank filled with a nutrient solution under the ceiling feeds a circular system of crop trays with the help of gravity. LEDs make sure that the plants get enough sunlight.

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Apr 25, 2019

New Lifelike Biomaterial Self-Reproduces and Has a Metabolism

Posted by in categories: food, robotics/AI

Sound familiar? The team basically built molecular devices that “die” without “food.” Thanks to the laws of thermodynamics (hey ya, Newton!), that energy eventually dissipates, and the shapes automatically begin to break down, completing an artificial “circle of life.”

The new study took the system one step further: rather than just mimicking synthesis, they completed the circle by coupling the building process with dissipative assembly.

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Apr 25, 2019

Fake Meat Startup Beyond Meat Says It’s Worth More Than $1 Billion

Posted by in category: food

Plant-based fake meat startup Beyond Meat has announced plans to go public sometime in early May, according to CNN. And based on the company’s plans, the public offering will likely value Beyond Meats at an impressive $1.2 billion.

That’s an extraordinary upswing — in addition to selling its increasingly-trendy meat alternative on grocery store shelves, the company recently partnered with both Carl’s Jr. and Del Taco, which could explain how the company is headed toward a coveted “unicorn” valuation.

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Apr 24, 2019

The Aero-X

Posted by in categories: food, transportation

Is our take on the next-generation tandem-duct platform. Flying up to 10 feet off the ground at 45 miles per hour, the Aero-X is a surface-effect craft that rides like a motorcycle — an off road vehicle that gets you off the ground.

The Aero-X can be adapted for a variety of uses: surveying, search and rescue, border patrol, disaster relief, agricultural, ranching, rural transportation and…

Because it responds to your movements just as a motorcycle would, the Aero-X is intuitive to fly. And as it is built with very few moving parts, its cost of ownership is a fraction of even the most basic airplane or helicopter.

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Apr 24, 2019

Researchers dramatically clean up ammonia production and cut costs

Posted by in categories: energy, food

Ammonia—a colorless gas essential for things like fertilizer—can be made by a new process which is far cleaner, easier and cheaper than the current leading method. UTokyo researchers use readily available lab equipment, recyclable chemicals and a minimum of energy to produce ammonia. Their Samarium-Water Ammonia Production (SWAP) process promises to scale down ammonia production and improve access to ammonia fertilizer to farmers everywhere.

In 1900, the was under 2 billion, whereas in 2019, it is over 7 billion. This was fueled in part by rapid advancements in food production, in particular the widespread use of ammonia-based fertilizers. The source of this ammonia was the Haber-Bosch , and though some say it’s one of the most significant achievements of all time, it comes with a heavy price.

The Haber-Bosch process only converts 10 percent of its source material per cycle so needs to run multiple times to use it all up. One of these source materials is hydrogen (H2) produced using fossil fuels. This is chemically combined with nitrogen (N2) at temperatures of about 400–600 degrees Celsius and pressures of about 100–200 atmospheres, also at great energy cost. Professor Yoshiaki Nishibayashi and his team from the University of Tokyo’s Department of Systems Innovation hope to improve the situation with their SWAP process.

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Apr 24, 2019

Creating sustainable bioplastics from electricity-eating microbes

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, food, sustainability

Electricity harvested from the sun or wind can be used interchangeably with power from coal or petroleum sources. Or sustainably produced electricity can be turned into something physical and useful. Researchers in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis have figured out how to feed electricity to microbes to grow truly green, biodegradable plastic, as reported in the Journal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology.

“As our planet grapples with rampant, petroleum-based plastic use and plastic waste, finding sustainable ways to make bioplastics is becoming more and more important. We have to find new solutions,” said Arpita Bose, assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences.

Renewable energy currently accounts for about 11% of total U.S. energy consumption and about 17% of electricity generation.

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