New Florence. New Renaissance.

The meatless world keeps evolving

Josh Ketrick, cofounder and CEO of cultivated-meat company Eat Just, talks to McKinsey. I had profiled him when the company was called Hampton Creek in my 2016 book on automation, Silicon Collar.

"Our basic research and development work on chicken applies pretty cleanly to beef, pork, and seafood. But it’s really the infrastructure—namely the bioreactors—that is the core unit of operation necessary to make more of it.

Part of the challenge is there’s not a company that we can go to and say, “We would like to get one of your hundred-thousand-liter bioreactors.” They have to be built from scratch. So we can’t just plug in; we have to build it. That takes capital. It takes time.

I would say the second-most-important thing that we need to do to make different kinds of cultivated meat for more people is to continue to improve how we communicate this to consumers.

We shouldn’t take this as a given—that just because we believe this is a better way of making meat safer, healthier, and more sustainable that every consumer is also going to think that. We need to directly address their concerns.

In our research, we’ve seen that there’s a concern about the word “cell,” there’s a concern about the process, there’s a concern about the idea that this might be genetically engineered, and what does that mean for my own health, for the environment? So as a part of our communication process, we need to directly address these issues."

Goodbye, Spark Plugs

Transient Plasma System (TPS) proposes employing a different kind of plasma to initiate combustion in a completely different way. Leveraging recent advances in solid-state high-voltage switching capability, voltage similar to that built up in an old-fashioned coil is summoned in a matter of 10-50 nanoseconds and dispersed not across a discrete gap but rather in streamers and sheets between an electrode and the plug's peripheral housing.

Motor Trend

Redesigning Sugar

Even though the resulting crystal is ninety-nine per cent sugar, the addition of silica has two outsized effects: the bond between the silica and the sugar comes apart in the mouth, exposing a vastly expanded surface area of sucrose to the liquefying powers of saliva; and the sucrose immediately surrounding each silica grain changes form. The atoms in a sucrose molecule are usually stacked in a well-ordered lattice, but when this structure becomes what scientists call “amorphous,” its atoms frozen in random chaos, it dissolves on the tongue much more quickly. Incredo’s exponentially more soluble structure rapidly saturates your taste buds, delivering an intense hit of sweetness. The best analogy is cotton candy: melting sugar into an amorphous state and spinning it into a tangle of fine strands produces a confection that seems much more cloying than chocolate or soda, despite containing a fraction of the sugar.

New Yorker

 

Any color so long as it is black!

One of Henry Ford's famous quotes about the Model T was, "A customer can have a car painted any color that he wants, so long as it is black."

A century later, we have much more choice but black and white cars still dominate. From The Drive

"A lot of things about the 90s get a rose-tinted treatment, but if you think there were more red cars back then, you’re actually right. Reddit user Feemiror posted this illustrative breakdown of car colors by year of production, which paints—literally—the rise of monochrome compared to the relatively flamboyant 90s.

I should note that the data is sourced from Poland, but if you’re hoping for the situation to be any better in the U.S., unfortunately it isn’t. Over 23 percent of cars last year in the US were white and another 23 percent were black, while purple languishes, unloved, as the least popular."

NanoSeptic self-cleaning tech

NanoSeptic technology kills pathogens using a photocatalytic reaction with embedded titanium dioxide nanoparticles. In plain language, it can provide a self-disinfecting surface for high traffic areas by using UV light. The technology uses a septic coating on self-adhesive plastic sheets that self-clean every time they’re touched.

Military Spot

Rapid-aged whiskeys

Distillers have tried and failed to accelerate the aging process since at least the end of Prohibition, when stocks of aged whiskey dried up.

Rapid-aged whiskeys are now popping up in bars and liquor stores and have even started winning awards, fermenting divisions in this famously fusty industry. They’re using sound waves, computer-controlled cycles of pressure and heat, and a host of new technologies to mature whiskey more quickly.

WSJ

 

Inside the Gore-Tex torture chamber

In fact, the Environmental Chamber where Walter and his human counterpart are running is capable of replicating 85 percent of the earth’s weather The lights on the ceiling can mimic a full solar cycle from sunrise to sunset, while humidity can go from 5 to 98 percent. Wondering how a garment will fare in the rainforest in peak rains’ season? The chamber can show you. how about in the solar radiation reflecting off snow on Mt.Everest? Just let Davis crank up the 72 lights overhead. It only takes two hours to go between its maximum and minimum temperatures—122°F to —58°F (wind chill —85°F) in full blizzard conditions—although it uses about two thirds of the entire building’s power capacity to make this drastic temperature change.

Popular Mechanics

The video below shows abrasion and many other "tortures" the material is subjected to

 

The Tide Drycleaning chain

The business isn’t earning money yet, P&G says, but the company is betting attractive stores, modern equipment, a focus on strong service and the use of Tide detergent on laundry orders will draw in customers. Expanding operations, as P&G first did in Chicago to include wash-and-fold laundry, on-campus delivery and lockers for pickup or drop-off, will make for a profitable business model, the company said.

WSJ

 

Low-tech mud in a high-tech sport

From Sports Illustrated, a reminder that some things evolve very slowly even as technologies and material science continues to grow more sophisticated

"It’s increasingly out of place in a hyper-controlled, ultra-competitive, high-tech league, where every detail is calibrated for peak efficiency.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that MLB has recently tried to eliminate Bintliff, teaming with Rawlings to develop a ball that doesn’t need to be enhanced by mud. But baseball is realizing that it isn’t so easy to replace him, and, in fact, it might not be possible at all."

Here's a video from a few years ago - little has changed :)

 

Evolving the rubber tire

This summer Michelin and General Motors will begin testing a prototype airless tyre on a fleet of Chevrolet Bolt electric cars. Although it does not need to be inflated, the self-supporting tyre is said to produce the ride and handling of a standard pneumatic tyre. And being airless, it is thus immune from punctures. The French tyremaker and the American car giant call the tyre Uptis (for “unique puncture-proof tyre system). Provided the trials in Michigan go well, the two partners reckon Uptis tyres could be available for cars by 2024.

Economist