wildcat2030:

The audacious plan to end hunger with 3-D printed food

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Anjan Contractor’s 3D food printer might evoke visions of the “replicator” popularized in Star Trek, from which Captain Picard was constantly interrupting himself to order tea. And indeed Contractor’s company, Systems & Materials Research Corporation, just got a six month, $125,000 grant from NASA to create a prototype of his universal food synthesizer.

But Contractor, a mechanical engineer with a background in 3D printing, envisions a much more mundane—and ultimately more important—use for the technology. He sees a day when every kitchen has a 3D printer, and the earth’s 12 billion people feed themselves customized, nutritionally-appropriate meals synthesized one layer at a time, from cartridges of powder and oils they buy at the corner grocery store. Contractor’s vision would mean the end of food waste, because the powder his system will use is shelf-stable for up to 30 years, so that each cartridge, whether it contains sugars, complex carbohydrates, protein or some other basic building block, would be fully exhausted before being returned to the store.

(via The audacious plan to end hunger with 3-D printed food - Quartz)

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Highly recommended read

erikkwakkel:

Medieval animals made out of words

This is a special book from the early Middle Ages (France, 9th century). Not only does it contain a high volume of very attractive images, but these images are also not what you would expect: they are drawn, as it were, with words. They illustrate Cicero’s Aratea, a work of astronomy. Each animal represents a constellation and the written words in them are taken from an explanatory text by Hyginus (his Astronomica). His words are crucial for these images because the drawings would not exist without them. It is not often in medieval books that image and text have such a symbiotic relationship, each depending on the other for its very existence.

Pics (BL): London, British Library, Harley 647 (France, 9th century). The manuscript is available fully digitized here. More about illustrated Aratea manuscripts here. English extracts from Hyginus’ texts are found here (including the swan).

blue-voids:

Snow House, by Santambrogio

badesaba:

Bridge Zayandeh Rud (Darius the Great developed this road linking the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf, running from Sardis in northwest Turkey across Mesopotamia to Susa in Iran. King Midas, the prophet Daniel, Queen Esther, the historian Herodotus, and the conqueror Alexander the Great all traveled this road…)

Armenian Cemetary, Tehran.

Bogheh Harunieh Tomb in Toos, Mashhad.

Ashraf Castle Ruins.

 

photogravure © Axel von Graefe - 1930s