Remember learning about America’s "amber waves of grain?" Well, it turns out that the United States’ bread basket—a.k.a., the Corn Belt—is even more productive than previously thought. In fact, during its growing season, it’s the most productive land on Earth, according to new NASA data.
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Rising and falling in this week’s landscape news: the rise of artificial snow and the fall of a Chinese agricultural spy, the rise of corn and the fall of male frogs.
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You know what Doctor Who needs? More corn! A cornocupia of corn. It’s timey-wimey, corny, worny. Forget the Brigadier. We need the Kernel! Ugh! Terrible. That’s it for my corny jokes.
So what’s the deal with this huge Doctor Who crop formation? It’s to celebrate 50 time-traveling years of Doctor Who. The 300+ meter-long maze was made by York Maze and and you may have noticed, it depicts a giant Dalek, along with the first and latest Doctor.
It looks pretty awesome, but I would hate to get lost in this maze of maize – especially if I bumped into these guys…
At least we know that aliens didn’t create this one.
[via BuzzFeed and Obvious Winner]
Do you think it to be rather strange that in this day and age where developed countries have practically wiped out hunger, seeing obesity rates soaring, there are still folks out there in the rest of the world who survive on one meal a day, or even less? There is a serious imbalance that we are looking at here, and hopefully, science and technology will be able to address this imbalance. According to TechNewsDaily, a team of researchers at Virginia Tech has recently managed to transform cellulose into starch, which is a process which eventually can be used to hunt down new nutrient sources from plants which were not traditional food crops.
Basically, the team of researchers took cellulose from corn stover-the stem, leaves, and husk of a corn plant, where all of those were transformed into amylose, which is a linear resistant starch that functions as a good source of dietary fiber. This process has been called “simultaneous enzymatic biotransformation and microbial fermentation”. Will it be able to wipe out global hunger? Keep your fingers crossed!
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: LG Washing Machine Needs No Water To Run, HAPIfork Starts Crowdfunding On Kickstarter, 
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Before you ask: it looks like the real deal. Popcorn, Indiana has decided that it’s just too much trouble to reach into that bag or bowl and has devised the Popinator, quite possibly the world’s only smart popcorn launcher. A binaural microphone array on the machine’s front listens for a clear “pop” command — say the magic word and the Popinator will aim one of its many corn projectiles at your mouth, no hands required. We’re still working to glean all the details, such as whether or not the snack delivery vehicle will be a commercial project and how much money it would take to install one at home (and, we’ll admit it, the Engadget offices). In the meantime, you can hop past the break to catch one of the most appetizing and laid-back promo videos you’ve likely ever seen.
[Thanks, Peter]
Update: Popcorn, Indiana has answered back and says the Popinator is currently an in-house project, but it may well become something you can buy if everything lines up. We’ll let the full statement speak for itself:
“All we have to say is: it is a work in progress right now. We certainly hope that one day it will become a commercial project, but as of now there is no shipping date and no price tag. It is purely a fun internal project we are toying with here at Popcorn Indiana. Based on the very positive responses we are getting online, we think this is well worth looking into as a commercial product.”
Filed under: Household
The Popinator voice-activated popcorn launcher: because greasy hands are just so 2011 (update: yep, may become a product) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Sep 2012 11:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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