While the idea may seem like something out of a Sci-Fi movie, the process of printing food has already been proven possible. The brains behind the innovation, Anjan Contractor, previously printed chocolate in a bid to prove his concept. Contractor and his company, Systems & Materials Research Corporation, will now use NASA’s $125,000 grant to attempt to print a pizza. The grant was applied for on March 28, 2013. The pizza printer is still in the conceptual stage, and will begin to be built in two weeks, Quartz reported. The printer will first print a layer of dough, which will be cooked while being printed. Tomato powder will then be mixed with water and oil to print a tomato sauce. The topping for the pizza will be a “protein layer” which could come from any source – animals, milk, or plants. The concept is to use basic “building blocks” of food in replaceable powder cartridges. Each block will be combined to create a range of foods which can be created by the printer. The cartridges will have a shelf life of 30 years – more than long enough to enable long-distance space travel. Contractor and his team hope the 3D printer will be used not only by NASA, but also by regular Earthlings. His vision would mean the end of food waste, due to the powder’s long shelf life. “I think, and many economists think, that current food systems can’t supply 12 billion people sufficiently,” he said, as quoted by Quartz. “So we eventually have to change our perception of what we see as food.” There are some conveniences which would come along with the printer. For example, recipes could be traded with others through software. Each recipe would have a set of instructions which tells the printer which cartridge of powder to mix with which liquids, and at what rate and how it should be sprayed. Another perk includes personalized nutrition. “If you’re male, female, someone is sick—they all have different dietary needs. If you can program your needs into a 3D printer, it can print exactly the nutrients that person requires,” Contractor said. Contractor plans on keeping the software portion of his 3D printer entirely open-source, so that anyone can look at its code. He believes this will allow people to find creative uses for the hardware. … Read More
Nuclear unclear: Radioactive materials disappear in UK over last decade
The papers revealed by the HSE, the UK government’s safety watchdog, list some big names in British industry as amongst the culprits including Rolls-Royce Marine Power Operations in Derby, which makes the reactors for Britain’s nuclear submarines, it was reported in The Guardian on Monday.Small pellets of highly radioactive Ytterbium-169 were lost from the Rolls-Royce marine division, while a 13kg ball of depleted uranium went missing from the Forgemasters steel works in Sheffield, The Royal Free hospital in London lost caesium-137 used in cancer treatment. A report into the incident found that it “had the potential to cause significant radiation injuries to anyone handling [it] directly or being in the proximity for a short period of time.”In another case, materials containing caesium-137 were lost on a North Sea oil rig by the oil services firm Schlumberger.While at the site of the former atomic energy research center at Harwell near Oxford, cobalt 60 was found under a tube store under a machine during clearance.Earlier this year a small canister of iridium-192 was stolen from a van in Lancashire, but was later found at a nearby retail park almost a month later.“The unacceptable frequency and seriousness of these losses, some with the potential for severe radiological consequences, reflect poorly on the licenses and the HSE regulator. I cannot understand why it is not considered to be in the public interest to vigorously prosecute all such offences,” John Large, an internationally consultant to the nuclear industry, told The Guardian.“Such slack security raises deep concerns about the accessibility of these substances to terrorists and others of malevolent intent,” he said.While the HSE successfully prosecuted the Royal Free Hospital, Shlumberger and the massive Sellafield nuclear plant, other organizations have got away with written warnings.In the case of Sellafield, the nuclear reprocessing facility pleaded guilty at Workington magistrates to sending mixed general waste, such as plastic, paper and metal from controlled radioactive areas to the Lillyhall landfill site in Workington when it should have been sent to the low-level waste repository [for low level nuclear waste] at Drigg, Cumbria.The science departments of York and Warwick universities were luckier; they received written advice over losing radioactive materials during science demonstrations.While the Loreto high school in Manchester is being investigated over the loss of americium-241. “Some of these radioactive sources are very persistent, for example the Royal Free hospital’s lost caesium-137 has a half-life of around 30 years, so it remains radio-toxic for at least 10 half-lives or about 300 years,” said Large, who led the nuclear assessment risk for the raising of the destroyed Russian nuclear submarine Kursk in 2001. … Read More
All in vein: Russian court rules YouTube ‘suicide video’ rightfully blacklisted
The piece in question is called ‘A video lesson on how to cut your veins’. It shows a young woman giving step-by-step instructions on how to create the most realistic slashed wrist make-up for Halloween. Russian authorities considered it was promoting suicide and banned it. YouTube representatives, however, insisted in court that it was nothing but a Halloween entertainment post.”The YouTube company, owned by Google, is aware of the harm and potential danger some of the videos posted on their website may cause,” the watchdog’s internet site said. “Still, motivated by commercial interests and making use of juridical casuistic, YouTube continues to avoid complying with the demands of the legislative norms of the Russian Federation that are aimed at preventing suicides.”Back in November last year the authorities put together a ‘blacklist’ of online resources with what they believed promoted suicidal patterns. When it came to video materials, 40 per cent of potentially dangerous content came from YouTube. It was just a few weeks after a law came into force in Russia that aimed to protect the under-aged from ‘suicide-related’ information by blocking access to certain online media.YouTube, however, has opposed efforts to label them as suicide promoting and has resisted the move in court. With little effect so far.”The company still refuses to accept the very issue of suicide as relevant,” the watchdog website statement reads. “No constructive dialogue is possible because of that and the harmful materials continue going viral on the internet.” Despite speculation that the YouTube video service could be banned in Russia altogether, Russia’s consumer rights watchdog chief Gennady Onishchenko insists it’s just certain materials that cause their concern.The consumer rights watchdog has scrutinized nearly 1,700 websites while looking for suicide-related materials and suggested over 1,500 of them should be banned. … Read More
‘Israel used depleted uranium shells in air strike’ – Syrian source
“When the explosion happened it felt like an earthquake,” said the source, who was present near the attack site on the outskirts of Damascus on Sunday morning.“Then a giant golden mushroom of fire appeared. This tells us that Israel used depleted uranium shells.”Depleted uranium is a by-product of the uranium enrichment process that creates nuclear weapons, and was first used by the US in the Gulf conflict of 1991. Unlike the radioactive materials used in nuclear weapons, depleted uranium is not valued for its explosiveness, but for its toughness – it is 2.5 times as dense as steel – which allows it to penetrate heavy protection.Countries using depleted uranium weapons insist that the material is toxic, but not dangerously radioactive, as long as it remains outside the body.The source also claims the attack – if it managed to hit the objects it targeted – served more of a political than a military purpose.“Several civilian factories and buildings were destroyed. The target was just an ordinary weapons warehouse. The bombing is an ultimatum to us – it had no strategic motivation.”Western intelligence sources told the media that the strikes targeted transfers of weapons from the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, which is sympathetic to the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.The official who spoke to RT denies this.“There was no valuable equipment at the site. It was all removed after a previous attack on the facility. The military losses from this are negligible.” … Read More
Tsarnaev’s widow under new scrutiny as investigators find radical Islamist material on her computer
With Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, alive and in custody, police are trying to determine what involvement, if any, Russell had in the plot to plant bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15. Russell’s attorney, Amato DeLuca, released a statement earlier this week saying his client was willing to provide “as much assistance to the investigation as she can.” The younger Tsarnaev brother told law enforcement that he and his brother were partly influenced to carry out the attack by the online sermons of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Al-Qaeda speaker who was killed by a US drone strike two years ago. Dzhokhar also said that the brothers learned to make explosives by reading Inspire magazine, an English-language periodical published by Al-Qaeda. Police sources speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation said that at least a portion of the radical Islamist material was found on Russell’s computer, although they are trying to determine who exactly accessed the information. DeLuca has maintained that Russell, 24, had no involvement in the plot. She previously provided a DNA sample after law enforcement officials found female DNA on a component of one of the exploded bombs found in downtown Boston. However, Russell’s DNA was not found on the explosive device. Federal investigators told The New York Times that they doubt Russell’s innocence, whether in planning the attack or evading police in the aftermath. Russell allegedly called her husband when the FBI released his photograph to the public but did not contact the police. She has reportedly stopped cooperating with authorities. Russell is known to have worked as many as 80 hours every week as a nurse’s aide while Tamerlan, who was unemployed but sometimes worked as a mechanic, cared for the couple’s child. When he was not taking care of the child, it’s been speculated, Tsarnaev experimented with making bombs using household materials. The police “increasingly believe” the brothers assembled the bombs in their home just five miles from where they detonated them, Reuters reported. FBI agents spent about 90 minutes Monday looking for evidence at Russell’s parents’ home, where she’s been staying since the attack. The FBI refused to comment on whether they found evidence there. However, it is known that they came up empty-handed Friday after searching four locations near the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, where the brothers were thought to have practiced detonations. Russell was raised in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, where her parents still reside, and met Tamerlan Tsarnaev at Suffolk University. She converted to Islam and married him in 2010. DeLuca claimed Russell does not speak Russian so, often, she could not understand what he was saying when speaking with friends. The widow has not spoken to the press, but her attorney said earlier this week that Russell had refused to claim Tamerlan’s body, instead opting to let his relatives take the corpse. Rusland Tsarni, Tsarnaev’s uncle, the same who called the brothers “losers” during a media scrum, said Tuesday that he would claim the remains. “Of course, family members will take possession of the body,” he told the Associated Press. “We will do it. A family is a family.” … Read More
Fresh ExxonMobil pipeline spill hits Missouri
The 70-year-old Pegasus pipeline, which released thousands of barrels of tar sands oil in Arkansas, has now caused another, albeit far smaller incident in Ripley County, Missouri, 200 miles north of Mayflower, Arkansas. A resident notified ExxonMobil after spotting a patch of oil and dead vegetation in their yard outside the town of Doniphan, according to Reuters. Luckily, unlike the spill that is still ongoing in Mayflower, the latest breach seems so far to be minor, with an estimated one barrel of crude oil having been leaked. According to an Exxon spokeswoman the cleanup operation there was “close to completion.” Originally built in the late 1940s, the Pegasus is now the subject of severe scrutiny, as many environmentalists argue that the increased corrosive impact of transporting tar sands oil presents a greater concern than other forms of oil. It is worth noting that the pipeline was shut down following the Arkansas spill, and leaked in Missouri despite being out of operation.The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) is ultimately responsible for approving the Pegasus pipeline’s restart. That agency did not immediately respond to Reuters on Wednesday regarding the Missouri leak, and whether that may delay reactivation.On April 26 the PHMSA released a new report on the Mayflower spill that shed light on several new details. Of the approximately 5,000 barrels of crude oil involved in the pipeline breach, less than half had been cleaned up by ExxonMobil.The report also pointed to the contamination of surface water, accounting for 2,000 barrels of oil located in ditches and a cove south of nearby Lake Conway. Though the latest report does not seem to indicate that oil reached the larger body of Lake Conway, an independent study conducted by Opflex Solutions indicated otherwise.As for the breach of the pipeline itself, according to the PHMSA that was caused by a“longitudinal rupture”in the pipe seam, originally laid down in 1947. The 20-inch, 858-mile Pegasus line delivers Western Canadian crude oil (or tar sands oil) from the Patoka Oil Terminal Hub in Illinois to refineries in Nederland, Texas. … Read More
They Come For the Ammo: New Bill Would Require Background Checks for “Explosive Materials”
Because a potential terrorist could conceivably take apart ammunition and use the propellant to manufacture a bomb, ammunition purchases containing enough powder to exceed the new threshold set forth by the bill will likely require a federal background check. … Read More
