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Archive for the ‘food’ category: Page 205

Jan 22, 2020

America’s most widely consumed oil causes genetic changes in the brain

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, food, genetics, neuroscience

New UC Riverside research shows soybean oil not only leads to obesity and diabetes, but could also affect neurological conditions like autism, Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, and depression.

Used for fast food frying, added to packaged foods, and fed to livestock, soybean oil is by far the most widely produced and consumed edible oil in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In all likelihood, it is not healthy for humans.

It certainly is not good for mice. The new study, published this month in the journal Endocrinology, compared mice fed three different diets high in fat: soybean oil, soybean oil modified to be low in linoleic acid, and coconut oil.

Jan 22, 2020

Veggie Factory: World’s First Vertical Farm Run Entirely By Robots

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

Circa 2016


Taking vertical urban indoor farming efficiency to the next level, a new automated plant coming to Japan will be staffed entirely by robots and produce 30,000 heads of lettuce daily.

spread indoor farm

Continue reading “Veggie Factory: World’s First Vertical Farm Run Entirely By Robots” »

Jan 22, 2020

Defector says North Korean regime turned its people into cannibals

Posted by in categories: entertainment, food

Like millions of movie-mad children around the world, Gim Gyu Min dreamed of being a film star when he grew up. But when he huddled in the darkness of the cinema in the 1980s and ’90s, he was forced to watch propaganda praising the North Korean regime.

Now, after a harrowing escape from his country in 1999, he is a filmmaker dedicated to making movies that expose the human-rights abuses there. “I want to let the world know that more and more people are dying under the Kim family dictatorship,” he said.

His movies are based on events that he witnessed during the North Korean famine in the late 1990s, when, among other horrors, he watched a woman being arrested for cannibalism after she resorted to eating her own son. Her child’s head had been found in a cauldron.

Jan 21, 2020

‘Radiation-eating’ Fungi Finding Could Trigger Recalculation Of Earth’s Energy Balance And Help Feed Astronauts

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, food, nuclear energy, space

Scientists have long assumed that fungi exist mainly to decompose matter into chemicals that other organisms can then use. But researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have found evidence that fungi possess a previously undiscovered talent with profound implications: the ability to use radioactivity as an energy source for making food and spurring their growth.

“The fungal kingdom comprises more species than any other plant or animal kingdom, so finding that they’re making food in addition to breaking it down means that Earth’s energetics—in particular, the amount of radiation energy being converted to biological energy—may need to be recalculated,” says Dr. Arturo Casadevall, chair of microbiology & immunology at Einstein and senior author of the study, published May 23 in PLoS ONE.

The ability of fungi to live off radiation could also prove useful to people: “Since ionizing radiation is prevalent in outer space, astronauts might be able to rely on fungi as an inexhaustible food source on long missions or for colonizing other planets,” says Dr. Ekaterina Dadachova, associate professor of nuclear medicine and microbiology & immunology at Einstein and lead author of the study.

Jan 21, 2020

Our current food system can feed only 3.4 billion people sustainably

Posted by in categories: food, sustainability

We are struggling to feed half the world sustainably – but reorganising where we farm could allow us to feed 10 billion people within sustainability boundaries.

Jan 21, 2020

Be Extraordinary

Posted by in categories: food, health, mobile phones

How do you all feel about this?

Strips you pee on at home and then scan with your phone to see if you are dealing with any deficiencies. The test results provide food recommendations, supplement recommendations, and lifestyle recommendations intended to help improve the way you “look, feel, and perform…”

Probably rudimentary but I like where their head is at.

Continue reading “Be Extraordinary” »

Jan 18, 2020

Deepfake video: It takes AI to beat AI

Posted by in categories: business, Elon Musk, food, robotics/AI

Anyone with a modicum of skill can create deepfake videos using artificial intelligence, but experts suggest that AI may also be the solution that allows rapid and accurate identification and detection.

By now, most of us have shared a few chuckles over AI-generated deepfake videos, like those in which the face of comedian and impressionist Bill Hader gradually takes on the likenesses of Tom Cruise, Seth Rogen, and Arnold Schwarzenegger as he imitates the celebrities. We’ve seen actor Ryan Reynolds’ mug superimposed over Gene Wilder’s in the 1971 classic film “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.” We’ve even marveled over businessman Elon Musk being turned into a baby.

Continue reading “Deepfake video: It takes AI to beat AI” »

Jan 18, 2020

World’s first biodegradable coffee cup that grows flowers and trees when thrown away!

Posted by in categories: food, sustainability

It’s no surprise that the world is wasting billions of dollars on food, throwing out un-recycled trash, and filling landfills with other odds and ends. In fact, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, as of 2012 Americans generated 251 million tons of trash or garbage. Yikes!

There are creative ways to reduce the amount of waste such as source reduction, recycling, or even composting. A few people in the world strive to live an almost complete waste-free lifestyle by the practice of humanure.

We see refuse receptacles at work and around public places. However, even when garbage and recycle bins are available, some folks choose to throw away trash mindlessly by littering. What if there was a way to help reduce waste that goes beyond making sure trash gets into a bin?

Jan 18, 2020

Meet the xenobot: world’s first living, self-healing robots created from frog stem cells

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, food, robotics/AI

Scientists have created the world’s first living, self-healing robots using stem cells from frogs.

Named xenobots after the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) from which they take their stem cells, the machines are less than a millimeter (0.04 inches) wide — small enough to travel inside human bodies. They can walk and swim, survive for weeks without food and work together in groups.

These are “entirely new life-forms,” said the University of Vermont, which conducted the research with Tufts University.

Jan 17, 2020

China could release emergency pork reserves after losing 100 million pigs to swine fever

Posted by in categories: food, government, sustainability

African swine fever has wiped out a third of China’s pig population. Now government officials are discussing dramatic steps to stabilize the world’s largest pork market.

Pork is a huge deal in China. The country is home to half of all the pigs on the planet. The meat is a staple of the Chinese diet, which means its scarcity could damage China’s social stability. The outbreak of swine fever also threatens to upend the global pork supply chain.

While Chinese authorities have already made plans to shore up the pig market — including subsidies for pig farms and families who may struggle with soaring prices — they’re stepping up efforts to deal with the crisis.