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
Covert Israeli Forces Inside Syria Within Rebel Ranks? Israeli Military Vehicle Seized: Report
Media sources confirm the seizure of an Israeli military vehicle in Al Qseir inside Syrian territory. The vehicle’s licence plate corresponds to that of the Israeli military with a black background and the letter Tsade (צ) (see image below) Al Qseir is a strategic border town on the Northern frontier of Lebanon. Occupied by rebels, [...] … Read More
Teargas and shots in air as Tunisian police clash with hundreds of Salafi protesters (VIDEO, PHOTOS)
Violence broke out in the central city of Kairouan and in the capital, Tunis. Clashes in the Tunis suburb of Ettadhamen erupted between nearly 500 supporters of Ansar al-Sharia and law enforcements as protesters started throwing stones. Teargas was also reportedly used in Kairouan, as Salafis threw stones at the police from behind the wall of a mosque.Group’s spokesman Seifeddine Rais, the group’s spokesman, was arrested at dawn on Sunday as he went jogging in front of police, according to a police source, who described his behavior as a “provocation,” Al Jazeera reported. The recent rally that turned violent comes two days after the government banned the Islamist group from holding its annual congress in the central city of Kairouan. On Friday the government ruled the group had “shown disdain for state institutions” and was “a threat to public security”.“The congress is postponed to another date undecided yet,” Habib Al-Lawz, a leader from the ruling Ennahda party, told a local Radio station on Saturday.Despite the ban, the group vowed the meeting would take place, but said they would gather at a different location, in an impoverished suburb of Tunis instead of Kairouan, where security forces were deployed in strength on Saturday. On its Facebook page, Ansar al-Sharia notified its supporters the congress has been moved to Ettadhamen. Earlier, the movement told to stay away from Kairouan.”To the attention of our brothers who are coming to Kairouan from other regions… the head of Ansar al-Sharia informs you of the need to cancel all these trips given the seriousness of the security situation,” the group said on its website. … Read More
Opening Up Networking’s Black Box
The Open Compute Project, a Facebook-led, open-source effort to build big data centers better and cheaper, is going after networking hardware. The project could prod competition among networking gear makers. It could also be a blow to Google, which runs proprietary equipment in its clouds. … Read More
Israeli rockets strike Damascus military site – reports
Massive explosions have been heard near Mount Qasioun in Damascus. The area hosts the Jamraya military research center, which came under Israeli attack earlier in January and marked the first incursion by Israel into Syrian airspace in six years.A senior US official confirmed to NBC News that Israeli Air Force bombed the military research center.The overnight Israeli strike reportedly targeted Iranian-supplied missiles to Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah, a Western intelligence source told Reuters. ”In last night’s attack, as in the previous one, what was attacked were stores of Fateh-110 missiles that were in transit from Iran to Hezbollah,” the source said.Syria’s Ministry of Health did not confirm if there were any deaths or injuries. #BREAKING: Several explosions hit government forces stationed at Mount Qasiun #Damascus #Syria – Activists twitter.com/zaidbenjamin/s… — Zaid Benjamin (@zaidbenjamin) May 4, 2013 RT has managed to speak to local journalist Abdallah Mawazini, for a report on the latest developments. “When the explosion happened in Damascus, all the houses were shaken. There was dust everywhere. Right now we’re receiving more information about the attack, which targeted the Jamraya military research center. Everyone woke up, most of the people ran downstairs – to make sure they are safe. Now we are getting more information. The sound of the explosion was heard everywhere in Damascus. People are scared.”During the attack, one Israeli jet was reportedly shot down by Syria’s Air Force, according to Hezbollah’s Manar TV channel, citing security sources in Damascus.”The new Israeli attack is an attempt to raise the morale of the terrorist groups which have been reeling from strikes by our noble army,” Syrian television said. #Syria blast – Eyewitness describe attack as “an earthquake” & “unprecedented” — PaulaSlier_RT (@PaulaSlier_RT) May 5, 2013 There has been no immediate comment from Israel. “We don’t respond to this kind of report,” an Israeli military spokeswoman told Reuters.On Saturday, before Sunday’s overnight strike, US President Barack Obama stated that Israel has the right to defend against the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah.”I’ll let the Israeli government confirm or deny whatever strikes that they’ve taken,” Obama said in an interview with the Spanish-language network Telemundo. REPORT OF NO POWER IN ENTIRE AREA OF DAMASCUS DUE TO ISRAELI AIR FORCE STRIKE THIS NIGHT — חברה הצלה ארץ ישראל (@IsraelHatzolah) May 5, 2013 “Until we get a clear picture of what exactly was targeted it’s difficult to speculate why the targeting took place. I’d say that the US gave Israel the green light for the previous attack in past months and reportedly gave them an OK to launch future strikes. So this probably isn’t something that happens on the spur of the moment,” news editor at antiwar.com Jason Ditz told RT.“Of course, Syria is unlikely, being in the middle of a civil war, to launch much of retaliation against Israel directly, but at the same time this probably undermines some of the more Islamist factions in the Syrian rebels especially with reports that they are benefiting from these airstrikes,” he added.In the meantime Netanyahu is leaving on Sunday afternoon for a five-day trip to China that will focus on economy and regional issues such as Iran, Syria and Egypt.Video footage uploaded onto the Internet showed a massive ball of fire rising into the sky. RT could not immediately verify the authenticity of the videos.The Israeli Air Force conducted an airstrike on Syrian territory on Friday, reportedly targeting a shipment of advanced missiles. Unnamed US officials claimed that the missiles had been en-route from Iran to Lebanon’s Hezbollah.Among the varying descriptions of the actual rockets, Fateh 110s have come up, which are advanced enough to strike Tel Aviv from southern Lebanon and, therefore perceived as a threat by Israel.Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon earlier told journalists that any alleged delivery of Syrian weapons to Hezbollah would be considered a “red line.” Ya’alon then said Israel would not permit “sophisticated weapons” to fall into the hands of “Hezbollah or other rogue elements.”Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened the security cabinet on Thursday night to approve the airstrike, a source told Reuters.US President Barack Obama has also said in the past that the crossing of a ‘red line’ would warrant further action from outside. This was in relation to the possibility that Assad forces may have used chemical weapons against Syrians – a claim that is still being investigated, with no evidence so far.Nonetheless, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced on Thursday that the US may now consider arming the Syrian opposition – something the US has shied away from openly doing in the two years since the start of the Syrian uprising.Asked directly if the administration was reconsidering its position on that option, Hagel said “yes”. “Arming the rebels — that’s an option,” he said. “We must continue to look at options.”The conflict in Syria has entered its third year. According to UN estimates, at least 70,000 people have been killed since the uprising against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011. … Read More
MOP up: US ‘upgrades’ biggest bunker buster to calm Israel over Iran
The upgrade of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) reported by the Wall Street Journal includes deeper burrowing capability, better guidance system and improved countermeasures to avoid air defense systems. The upgraded version had not been tested yet, the newspaper reports, citing unnamed US officials.American officials gave details of the upgrade to their Israeli counterparts and demonstrated a classified video showing the test of an earlier version of MOP several times in recent weeks, WSJ says. The contacts were part of Obama administration’s effort to convince the Israelis not to carry out a unilateral military strike on Iran, according to the report.Israel threatened an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, saying that if it doesn’t act soon than the Islamic Republic would soon become impervious to such an airstrike. The US publicly discouraged Israel from it and advocated diplomacy to resolve the nuclear issue.The US, Israel and some of their allies believe that Iran is trying to secretly develop a nuclear weapon under the guise of its civilian nuclear program. They want Tehran to halt enrichment of uranium, accusing it of hoarding the fissile material in preparation to rush production of a nuclear bomb.Iran denies the allegations and insists that it has a sovereign right for peaceful nuclear development. It says it needs domestic enrichment facilities as an independent source of fuel for its reactors.MOP is the successor BLU-109 as US Air Force’s ‘bunker buster’ weapon, designed to be dropped from the B-2 and B-52 bombers. The GPS-enabled 14-ton 6-meter weapon is designed to penetrate reinforced concrete facilities before detonation. The Pentagon said it contracted a total of 20 of such bombs from the producer, Boeing.Fordow nuclear enrichment facility is buried under a mountain near the Iranian city of Qom. Israel has concerns that its Air Force would not be able to completely destroy it even with latest supplies offered by the US.The news comes as US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel visited Israel. The secretary reportedly was trying to convince his Israeli counterparts to wait until after the Iranian parliamentary election in June, according to WSJ.The Obama administration views the event is a milestone, which is to show how successful was its campaign to pressure Iran into changing its policies with a series of crippling economic sanctions. … Read More
Tunisian army clashes with armed jihadists
Tunisian troops clashed on Wednesday with around 50 armed jihadists in the remote Mount Chaambi border region, a security source said, the first such operation since the revolution in January 2011. “The group consists of more than 50 Salafi jihadists,” the source told AFP, adding that…
