Entries tagged with 'The Future'
Page 1 of 4

Viewing Results from: 

The Mission to Mars Menu: 20,000 Meals with a Five-Year Shelf Life

Photograph from AFP/Getty Images Since astronauts can probably only stomach so much of that freeze-dried ice cream from museum gift shops, a team of food lab scientists is plotting the menu for a three-year mission to Mars slated to blast off sometime after 2030. The food needs to be light enough, nutritious enough, tasty enough, and durable enough to withstand the journey to the Red Planet, according to the Los Angeles Times. Imagine having to pack more than 6,570 breakfasts, lunches, snacks and dinners all at once—enough meals to feed six people every day for more than three years. Imagine preparing all these meals with an allotment of 3.2 pounds of food per person per day, about one-third less...

Continue reading »

Condiment Gun

Ladies and gentlemen, the future is now. We teased you with the spice gun back in 2008 and a year later we have the Condiment Gun! It's actually been around for a while, but I'm sad to say this is the first I've heard of it. Methinks I have a lot of ketchup shooting to catch up on. Some words of warning: Apparently this is not designed to fire chunky sauces and is not a toy. There's also no safety so don't go stumbling around with this at your next dinner party. $24.98, from Things You Never Knew Existed; £14.95, from Firebox.com...

Continue reading »

Has the Credit Crunch Affected What You Eat?

©iStockphoto.com/DNY59 It's hard to say how the credit crunch will affect the food world. The decadent prix fixe meals with multiple courses may become a thing of the past, but with more people cooking at home, recipes and high-quality ingredients will remain important. Our friends across the pond are also feeling the recession, and already predicting the future of recession cuisine. According to the Guardian: High-quality fresh produce is doing nicely, in some areas. Several online organic meat providers say that orders are well up, possibly because more people are eating at home. Yet organic egg sales were 18% down in September—proof, perhaps, that at nearly £4 [US$6.90] a dozen there is a limit to how far people will...

Continue reading »

A Look at the Vertical Farm of the Future

We've seen some mock-ups of vertical farms before, but Popular Science's gallery gives us a closer look inside a vertical farm. Aside from showing how crops will be cultivated, it also gives ideas for how meat will be grown and how sewage will be treated. Related In Videos: Dickson Despommier Interviewed on 'The Colbert Report' About Vertical Farming Local Urban Efforts: Vertical Farms...

Continue reading »

In Videos: Mr. Asahi, the Bartending Robot

Do you love drinking beer, but hate pouring it? Fork over $200,000 and you can have you own personal Mr. Asahi Robot Bartender! He's even better if you don't like talking to humans. Don't let the little flashing heart on his chest fool you; he has no soul. All he can do is give you beer. Watch the robot in action after the jump....

Continue reading »

Coca-Cola's Latest Soda Fountain Dispenses Over 100 Beverages

If the meager choices at a standard soda fountain aren't enough for you, there's hope in sight. Coca-Cola is testing a fountain system that can dispense more than 100 beverages from the same machine. [via Engadget]...

Continue reading »

Just How Gross Is Freeze-Dried Space Food?

The glorified gift shop souvenir of the National Air and Space Museum is fun to buy, but tasty? Today, astronauts can choose among 180 food and beverage items, including beef fajitas, cranapple cobbler, and “Mexican” eggs with beans—quite a step up from the squeeze tubes during the Project Mercury days. And more complex than the gift shop's ice cream sandwich. Food scientists, not chefs or critics, are in charge of NASA’s space meals. Is tastiness prioritized? On some level, it doesn't matter because aromas don’t waft up in space. Chicago Tribune food and wine writer Bill Daley tried a bunch and critiqued them for Discovery magazine. While he was wild about the shrimp cocktail (an astronaut favorite), he wasn't too...

Continue reading »

Latte Printer Art

If Starbucks and Staples got married, they might birth this latte printer machine. Recently featured at a graphics trade show in Los Angeles, the OnLatte repurposes your standard inkjet printer to use caramel syrup instead of ink. Nothing says good coffee like a foamy recreation of the winged Pegasus. [via the Kitchn]...

Continue reading »

In Videos: Instant Laser Coffee Maker

This two-kilowatt laser-powered water heater—good for making instant coffee and tea—may not be practical, but it gets the job done. Do you taste that unearthly bright glow? It's science! And science is delicious! Watch the video after the jump....

Continue reading »

Coca-Cola Vending Machine Robot in Japan

Photo from sanchome on Flickr. The only thing better than a regular robot is one that doubles as a Coca-Cola vending machine with scorpion-like pincher hands. The logistics are unclear—does it really vend cola cans? Is there a person tall and strong enough to wear this bulky suit? File this under times I wish I was a Japanese school girl outside Shibuya Station in Tokyo to see this weirdness walk by....

Continue reading »