Friday, September 13, 2013

Test-Tube Beef



There's been talk of famine and food shortages all over the world. Science has been pushing the boundaries on what can be considered food by creating meat from all sort of products. 

Recently a group of scientist in the Netherlands successfully grew beef from the stem cells of cow muscle tissue in a lab. The end result was a hamburger that cost $250,000 to create. The man who funded this project was none other than Google co-founder Sergey Brin. The ideal is simple...if we can grow beef from stem-cells at an affordable rate. It can reduce hunger problems around the world within a decade. 

The test-tube beef was served at an expensive restaurant in London. The people who tried the meat found it similar in consistency to beef but missing some of the flavor. Another problem was there was not enough fat in the meat to simulate the natural fat found in beef. These are issues that the scientist are still unraveling, but the initial results have proven successful. 

Beef grown in a lab isn't the worse way to get it. Awhile back I posted an article about a company in Japan that made burgers from human excrement. To learn more about research into test-tube beef read the article Scientists Cook Up Lab-Grown Beef by clicking the link. 

If you're curious about a burger made from human feces and food made from other peoples trash check out the article "Stew From Trash and Steaks From Feces…desperate Dining."

Monday, September 2, 2013

Big Brother is Watching



The ARGUS-IS (Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System). is the next step in high imaging surveillance. It’s a 1.8 Gigapixel (which translates into 1.8 billion pixels), super camera created for complete surveillance in an area the size of a city. It’s the world’s most advanced high resolution camera.

The Argus is carried by a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and performs whats called “wide area persistent stare”. This surveillance is the equivalent to having 100 predator UAV’s survey an area the size of a mid-sized city at once. It’s so precise it can clearly show the details of a vehicle license plate or a person’s facial features from 17,500 feet.

What makes the Argus so incredible isn’t the high image resolution pictures...it's what they can do with the video footage. Watch the video below to learn more about the Argus and its surveillance capabilities…because big brother IS watching