NASA plans to start a garden on the Moon next year!

It's a great time to be alive when all of the cliches seen in sci-fi movies time and time again are starting to become a reality.

Men landing on the moon, versatile rovers roam Mars and now we're just a couple years away from starting plant life on our neighboring celestial bodies.

Arabidopsis is a small flowering plant that is closely related to mustard or cabbage, both useful when trying to colonize another planet ecologically. More importantly, it contains one of the model organism that is key for studying plant biology, especially since it's the first plant to have its entire genome sequenced.

NASA, the American space agency, set its sights on Arabidopsis to be part of the first garden on the Moon and Mars. Ambitiously, NASA plans to have it planted on the Moon by 2015, as in next year. Mars isn't that far behind with a target date of 2021.

This very well could be the first step of plans to one day send men and women to live on distant worlds, hopefully with food and water already set up for them.

Food is running out, and it becomes more and more expensive!

Some experts claim that the banks and the stock market traders responsible for the increase of food prices. At the same time, some experts have sought the causes of poverty on the other.

The riots raged in many countries between the 2007th and 2008. year: Thousands of people demonstrated against the excessive price of food in Morocco, in the so-called "bread riot". The growth rate in Mexico has caused the so-called "tortilla crisis". Violent demonstrations rocked Pakistan, Somalia and India. In Burkina Faso and Senegal, people took to the streets because "expensive life." The reason for all these riots was a jump in the price of basic foodstuffs.

Prices of rice, wheat, corn and soybeans are increased several times between June 2007. and June 2008. In Ethiopia, the price of corn has risen by almost 200 percent, wheat prices have jumped in Somalia for the 300, and in Sudan for about 90 percent.

Many say that they are responsible for that speculation in the market of foodstuffs. Through agricultural funds, banks, hedge funds and state-investors may be betting on the future price of foods such as wheat, corn or soy. "Some banks offer special fund investors, who profit if the price of raw materials increases. The money is then invested in line with that, "explains Markus Hen of the NGO Viid. Viid and other non-governmental organizations such as Oxfam or Fudwatch believe that these mechanisms bear some responsibility for the lack of food.

Controversial blame speculators

Researchers from the University of Halle-Wittenberg oppose the Gladys. Viewing scientific articles and studies in the period since 2010. to 2012. led them to the conclusion that the provision of financial speculation does not cause high food prices - but other factors: "People are now better than before the food, especially meat products available. This increases the demand for natural resources. "Explains Ingo Pies, economic ethicist University Halle-Wittenberg and co-author of the research. In addition, subsidies for fuel ecological impact on the market. Large areas are used for growing plants that receive energy, and therefore are not available for agriculture.

At the same time, representatives of non-governmental organizations accuse the researchers of Halle-Wittenberg that did not take into account all relevant studies. "They discussed the studies that suit themselves," says Markus Hen Viid from the organization. Studies that did not fit were criticized in detail, and the results are simply different ones were accepted, he said. However, Ingo Piejs says that some studies that have sent the organization "does not refer to the scientific literature, but the literature they were not written by scientists."

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recognizes that speculation regarding agricultural land increased sharply since 2008, but to them it is not a direct cause of the price increase. "That kind of financial speculation may have a partial influence on the movement of prices, but the long-term growth rate can not be explained," says Carmel Cahill, chief adviser to the Directorate for Trade and Agriculture Organization of the organization.

The increasing rates

And Michael Brintrup from the German Institute for Development Policy follows the discussion about food trade. Read a study from the University of Halle, and advocates a different view. "For a lot of factors affecting prices. For example, they can change because they are in the United States, Russia and Australia decreased yields, "he explains. It would be very difficult to determine the exact impact of speculation.

The OECD says that the prices of foodstuffs such as corn, rice and wheat, continued to rise because of population growth. "The price of wheat has just increase by 80 percent, and it would be logical to affect the price of bread," said Momar Ndao, Chairperson of the consumer health organization ASCOSEN in Senegal. Pierre Nakoul, chairman of similar organizations in Burkina Faso confirms this: "Recently we had a problem, because the bakers went on strike due to the increasing price of wheat." Expensive food for many will mean starvation.

Advice from the European Union

Non-governmental organizations seeking to force banks and other financial actors to refrain from speculation in basic foodstuffs. Commerzbank, the second largest bank in Germany, she decided to terminate the offer of investment in the sector, in November 2011.

Scientists at the University Halle-Wittenberg that do not attach great importance. "Financial speculation sideshow. We have to ask the important questions, "says Ingo Pies. In the first place it is important "to correct the mistakes of politicians, strengthen markets and to support the transfer of technology. We need technology to reach developing countries. "This would allow for more production, and it is necessary to feed nine billion people in 2050. year, says Ingo Pies for DW.

The EU intends to adopt new rules for agricultural markets early next year. The Chairperson of the Committee for Agriculture and Rural Development in the European Parliament on the occasion of DW says: "We really need to fight against speculation. But we should not forget that the real reason for instability in agriculture is a big difference between supply and demand. "    

Smart food will replace diets

Scientists plan to create add-ons, which will affect the human brain to early satiety feeling. Carry out an international research team working on the project Full4Health, the Daily Mail.

The work of scientists was initiated by the European Union, in order to teach man a moderate diet.

"Smart" meal will contain special ingredients that make you feel full does not come too late, as is the case with ordinary food, but then, when the human body gets the required number of calories.

Hamburger from the laboratory

For six months we will eat first hamburgers that is grown in a test tube!

The first will be an artificial hamburger stand 250,000 euros, but production of artificial meat in the future should be cheaper and more cost effective.

First, people hunted wild animals for meat. Then the animals started to grow on farms. Now scientists have to step up to a new peak: growing meat in labs. "For six months we will have the first 'sausages out of the tube,'" he told New Scientist prof. Mark Post of the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands.


Serum from fetal horse

Fasting is one of the pioneers in the development of new technologies "in vitro meat" who this week met at a conference in the Swedish city of Gothenburg. He and his colleagues have so far been largely experimented with pork. From pig muscle to isolate stem cells and then fed serum from fetal horse. Finally they got 2.5 inches long and 0.5 cm wide strips of pork. While muscle tissue in animals red, "Pork from the tube" is a pale gray color and more like a squid tissue.

"This is because the 'meat from tubes' no blood and very little myoglobin, a protein that binds to iron. Now we are looking for a way to insert the myoglobin in meat to get the color, "explained the Post admitted that the taste of" lab meat "is still unknown.

In fact, according to Dutch law, scientists are not allowed to taste the "in vitro meat." "We are looking for a daring person who will try the synthetic pork. If no one answers, I'll do it, "joked Post who is now with the help of anonymous philanthropists for donations to the development of" beef from the tube. "

"I am full of hope and I believe we are in a year to dispose of the first 'in vitro' burgers," he promised, adding that the price of the first "man-made hamburger" could reach 250,000 euros. But the Post predicts that by the time production "lab meat" cheaper way to become economically viable.

Although at first it sounds bizarre, new technology could be the solution to several problems. First, world population will continue to grow over the coming decades and will be in 2050. The meat consumption will double. This will largely be due to changes in dietary habits in the new economic powers like China, India and Brazil, where meat consumption in the past ten years has increased 33 percent.
killing animals

Second, livestock and meat production are a source of greenhouse gases, nine percent of carbon dioxide emissions and 18 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions associated with livestock farming. Thirdly, the killing of animals for food is a big ethical problem, which is a famous philosopher and a vegetarian Peter Singer wrote a bestseller, "Animal Liberation".

"'In vitro' meat will be the only choice that we will be left. We eat a hamburger, rarely think that comes from dead cows. As you get used to the synthetic flesh, we do not even think about it that are grown in the lab, "concluded Mark Post.

Made 3D ​​printer for chocolate

In the future we will not eat "regular" chocolate, it will form its own design on your computer and order online. Scientists at Brunel University Ekster and in cooperation with the software company Delka, have developed a 3D printer for chocolate.

Scientists say that we will not eat "regular" chocolate that we buy in stores, but we will design its own form on the computer and order through specialized websites.

At universities and Brunel Ekster scientists, in collaboration with the software company Delka developed 3D printer for chocolate. They say we only make the design of chocolate on your computer through a special program, and the rest will make a device that will print the ie. 'physical play in three-dimensional form as chocolate.

3D printing is currently used in industry to produce plastic and metal products, with three-dimensional objects created arranging successive layers of material and application method that has been used in industry to the production of chocolate was not at all an easy task.

According to lead researcher Dr. Liang Hao, chocolate is a very "difficult" material for the production of which requires very precise cycles of warming and cooling, which is necessary to integrate 3D printing with an appropriate flow rate chocolate. The scientists have solved the problem of developing a new control structure heating and cooling.

What is interesting, and some would say revolutionary is that this type of technology in the future be applied to numerous other products and would eventually be able to replace the mass production of unique products that the customers own design.

Banish chips

What is dangerous for the line: candy or chips? The researchers followed 120 thousand people 20 years trying to determine what the most fattening. Ranking brings some surprises, though the fact that the most fattening chips is not among them.

It does not sound dramatic - the participants in three major U.S. research goji were on average 380 grams per year. But after two decades were, again, on average, weighs 7.6 pounds. Based on data on 98,320 food and 22,557 men, women, researchers from Harvard Medical School have determined which foods contribute most to obesity. As reported in "New England Journal of Medicine" were combined data from three large studies - the two nurses were involved from the United States, and third men employed in health care. All participants had normal weight at baseline.

Obesity, by the way, is increasingly a worldwide problem and the latest information about a billion and half people in the world is overweight, half a million of them obese because their BMI (Body-Mass-Index) above the 30th.

Potato is fatty

Participants in the survey every four years they gave information about weight, then what they eat, whether in sport, whether you smoke and how much time they spend watching television. On this basis, the researchers sought to determine the extent to which changes in diet and lifestyle affect weight. And saw the daily meals and which foods are in the four years the respondents ate more and which less.

The so-called snack, what you eat between meals along the way and proved to be - as expected - as a disaster for the line. Each serving of potato chips (30 grams) means in four years an additional 770 grams. Portion of potatoes "made​​" 580 grams, but it does matter how prepared the potatoes. In fact, french fries means extra kilo and a half, boiled potato 260 grams only. Those who drink sweetened beverages, various schools, can count on an additional 450 grams of red meat and sausages made ​​about 430 grams. The surprise is the marketing of candy - candy made ​​daily serving of just 180 grams.

Who is opposed to such a diet during the four years of eating mostly vegetables, fruits, whole grains, almonds, Hazel, nuts or yogurt, took off the weight. Hundred grams (four years) per serving of vegetables, 220 fruits, whole grains 170, 370 yogurts.

Of course, calories are everywhere

So, with chips to eat almonds and so remove programs? Of course, this combination does not work. Respondents were decreased weight, or maintain the same level, if they are mostly eating more vegetables, fruit or yogurt, and this is explained by the fact that in this case, denied that other foods more fattening.

Nutrition much more influence on the weight of other habits, although according to calculations of scientists at every hour of television after four years means 140 grams more. The researchers stress that the surplus of only fifty to a hundred calories a day can mean "silent" weight gain. In order to prevent recommended to give up certain foods such as chips and sweetened drinks, and the more you take in another, as, for example, vegetables.

This is consistent with many other recommendations about diet. Thus, the German Association for the recommended daily consumption of five servings of vegetables or fruit which is based on the highly praised Mediterranean diet.

Growing cucumbers in the universe

Long accused of being a major source of infection mutated bacteria E. coli, which claimed several lives in Germany, the cucumber with a new team of astronauts who flew in yesterday from the Baikonur toward the International Space Station could regain sway "reputation ".

As reported by London's Guardian, Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, who along with a Russian Sergei Volkov and Americans Michael Fosum flew in a six-month mission in space, was given the task to the MSS grown cucumbers to help future visitors to produce their own food.

Experiment "cucumber" will also be aimed to show how gravity affects the cultivation of vegetables.

However, the astronauts will be forbidden to eat cucumbers planted.

"We would like to eat them, but this was not allowed, " said Japanese astronaut.

He also thinks that the tomato plant and to later be able to make real mixed salad.

By all accounts, the Japanese have a talent for "cooking space.

Last year, astronaut Šoići Nogući on MSS made ​​traditional Japanese dish sushi.