Food – Lifeboat News: The Blog

Nov 24
2015

Ray Kurzweil: This is your future

By 2030 solar energy will have the capacity to meet all of our energy needs. The production of food and clean water will also be revolutionized.

Kurzweil believes solar energy could satisfy 100% our power needs. — CNN

If we could capture one part in ten thousand of the sunlight that falls on the Earth we could meet 100% of our energy needs, using this renewable and environmentally friendly source.

As we apply new molecular scale technologies to solar panels, the cost per watt is coming down rapidly. Already Deutsche Bank, in a recent report, wrote “The cost of unsubsidized solar power is about the same as the cost of electricity from the grid in India and Italy. By 2014 even more countries will achieve solar ‘grid parity.’”

The total number of watts of electricity produced by solar energy is growing exponentially, doubling every two years. It is now less than seven doublings from 100%.

Similar approaches will address other resource needs. Once we have inexpensive energy we can readily and inexpensively convert the vast amount of dirty and salinated water we have on the planet to usable water.

Nov 22
2015

10 Lab-Made Meats, Cheeses And Other Odd Startup Foods

It’s still early days in the bacteria becomes our food production process. However, several Silicon Valley scientists are creating lab-grown edibles of the truly bizarre or mixing up animal substitutes based on some interesting ingredients. Here are 10 of them.

Nov 22
2015

Coming soon: chicken meat without slaughter

An Israeli foundation is first in the world to research mass production of cultured chicken breast, a real meat product starting from a single cell of a real bird.

Nov 18
2015

Bioengineered Shark Fins Could Save 70 Million Sharks

Each year, an estimated 70 million sharks are killed for their fins. The brutal shark finning process involves cutting off a live shark’s fins and returning the debilitated animal back into the water to die a slow death. Highly valued in traditional Asian medicine and cuisine, the fins can sell for as much as $300 a pound on the black market.

What if an artificial shark fin could remove sharks from the equation completely?

New Wave Foods, a San Francisco-based sustainable seafood company, is developing a bioengineered fin product that could pull the rug out from underneath the shark trade.

Nov 11
2015

Billions in Change Official Film

The world is facing some huge problems. There’s a lot of talk about how to solve them. But talk doesn’t reduce pollution, or grow food, or heal the sick. That takes doing. This film is the story about a group of doers, the elegantly simple inventions they have made to change the lives of billions of people, and the unconventional billionaire spearheading the project.

Join us at:
www.BillionsInChange.com
https://www.facebook.com/billionsinchange
https://twitter.com/billionsnchange
https://instagram.com/billionsinchange

Nov 10
2015

TRON inspired glow in the dark drinks

Enjoy a little taste of life on the grid! While watching TRON: Legacy recently, I decided that my next party needed to channel some of the cool vibe of the Daft Punk dj-ed bar. Most people are probably familiar with the fact that gin and tonics glow under black lights (there’s even a great instructable about it) but what if you’re not a big fan of g&t? Thanks to the fantastic Kryptonite Candy instructable, I learned that vitamin B2 (also know as riboflavin) glows yellow. I decided to experiment to see what adding tonic water and B2 could do to some of my favourite drinks.

Oct 31
2015

Robots, Bioprinting, and the Future of Food [Video]

Emerging technologies are shaking up how we grow food, distribute it, and even what we’re eating. We are seemingly on the cusp of a food revolution and undoubtedly, technologies including artificial intelligence will play a huge role in helping people grow healthier, more resilient food faster and with less energy than ever before.

Rob Nail, Singularity University’s CEO and Associate Founder, provides a few examples of how robotics, automation, and drones are transforming agriculture in this short video:

Oct 31
2015

EXCLUSIVE: Oncology dietitian reveals the foods YOU can eat to prevent cancer

THIS week we learnt red meat can give you cancer from the World Health Organisation, but is your diet linked to illness?

Oct 29
2015

Powerless refrigerator keeps food cold through evaporation

Students from Calgary win first prize at the Biomimicry Global Design Challenge, for their invention of a electricity-free cooling unit.

Oct 29
2015

Warp Factor 11 — ships powered by BLACK HOLES to “outpace Enterprise”, say scientists

The novel its a bit older, but it‘s an incredible vision!

When Star Trek’s Scotty warns the Captain that the engines can’t “take it”, he might just be best off switching fuel — a new book claims that humanity could reach the stars using vast spacecraft harnessing the energy of black holes with the power to “eat planets”.

Inside would be an artificial black hole — created by spheres of generators firing “gravitons”- and, claims author Dr Roger Hoskins, Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, would curve space-time — and would be “faster than anti matter drives.”

Captain Kirk would be jealous of the speeds offered by a black hole powered craft — which displaces or curves space time, like a warp drive, thus appearing to go faster than light.