Hasta La Gadget!

A group of astronomers from the US and Europe believe that they have located the oldest galaxy ever discovered, with the help of the Hubble Telescope. The scientists believe the galaxy to be 13.2 billion years old, created when the universe was a mere 480 million years old.

The scientists say the universe was in “overdrive” mode during that period, rapidly forming galaxies and stars. “We’re peering into an era where big changes are afoot,” researcher Garth Illingworth UC Santa Cruz told the press. “The rapid rate at which the star birth is changing tells us if we go a little further back in time we’re going to see even more dramatic changes, closer to when the first galaxies were just starting to form.”

Richard Bouwens of the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands added, “We’re seeing these galaxies–“star cities”–that are building themselves up over cosmic time.”

Bowens said that the team is “pretty confident” that it has discovered the oldest galaxy, but that the findings have yet to be verified. If it is indeed as old as suspected, the galaxy will give scientists new insight into the formation of the universe.

This is the Molecular Cuisine Starter Kit. Welcome to culinary hell.

During the 1970s, The French developed Nouvelle Cuisine, simpler, fresher dishes that were a reaction against the heavy, overwrought, cream-laden excesses of classical French cooking. The fashion spread, and by the time it hit England, Nouvelle Cuisine was a tainted word, with crappy regional hotels serving giant plates with minuscule portions. The name became a joke.

And with the Molecular Cuisine Starter Kit, the latest food fashion can be equally mauled, in the privacy of your own home. The set is more like chemistry kit than a cooking kit, containing sachets of agar-agar, calcium lactate, sodium alginate, soy lecithin and xanthan gum. In short, it’s the same as the list of ingredients you’ll read on the back of any pack of processed food. You also get silicon tubing, pipettes, a syringe along with other less weird tools, plus a DVD with recipe demonstrations.

Molecular gastronomy is a wonderful thing, bringing critical scientific thinking to the superstition-laden world of cooking. But it is also a fashion, with freeze-dried raspberries appearing in the salads of otherwise traditional restaurants. Can it be done in the home with a simple kit of chemicals? We should probably leave it to the professionals, like Ferran Adrià and Heston Blumenthal.

On the other hand, playing with this stuff is probably awesome fun, and even if it doesn’t taste so great, at least you get to eat the results. $70.

Molecular Cuisine Starter Kit [ThinkGeek]

See Also:

• Kitchen Lab: The Highest Tech Food Gadgets on Show
• Cocoa Pipe Lets You Literally Inhale Chocolate

Growing plants in space could be a very important factor when it comes to humans spreading throughout the galaxy like something out of a sci-fi story. And a new study by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is exploring whether or not plants will be able to grow in microgravity.

Unlike on Earth, where roots grow up and down, in microgravity they grow sideways, due to the changed gravity. Scientists are currently testing whether or not the plants will grow by attempting to harvest cucumbers on the International Space Station. The seeds were planted and placed into frozen fixation tubes back in mid-October, and they are currently on their way back to Earth where the results can be studied.

Via Science Daily