In an attempt to meet the nutritional needs of astronauts in space, a New York-based company Air Company of Brooklyn founded a way to recycle astronauts-exhaled carbon dioxide in space to grow yeast-based nutrients for protein shakes designed to nourish crews on long-duration deep-space missions, reported Reuters.
The innovation of the company — which makes carbon-negative aviation fuel and is patented as AIRMADE technology — in food growth has put it in the finals of a Nasa-sponsored contest that encourages the development of next-generation technologies for meeting the food requirements of space crews.
According to the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Stafford Sheehan that “it’s definitely more nutritious than Tang,” while referring to a powdered drink that gained traction in 1962 by John Glenn when he became the first American to orbit Earth.
Kennedy Space Center’s iconic Vehicle Assembly Building can be seen in this illustration. — Nasa/File
The contest Deep Space Food Challenge prompted Sheehan to modify his invention as a way of producing edible proteins, carbohydrates and fats from the same system.
Sheehan said he originally developed his carbon-conversion technology as a means of producing high-purity alcohols for jet fuel, perfume and vodka.
Taste and flavour of food
Sheehan, who has a doctorate in physical chemistry from Yale University, said: “The resulting single-cell protein drink entered in Nasa’s contest has the consistency of a whey protein shake.”
He compared the food flavour with seitan, a tofu-like food made from wheat gluten that has its origins in East Asian cuisine and was adopted by vegetarians as a meat substitute.
“And you get that sweet-tasting, almost malted flavour to it,” Sheehan said.
Sheehan said: “Apart from protein drinks, the same process can be used to create more carbohydrate-heavy substitutes for bread, pasta and tortillas.”
For the sake of culinary variety, he sees his smoothie being supplemented on missions by other sustainably produced comestibles.
The company was one of the eight winners which Nasa announced this month in the second phase of the competition with prize money of $750,000.
A final round of the Nasa competition is yet to take place.
Ralph Fritsche, space crop production manager at Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, said that human waste alone “is not the complete nutrient source that plants need to grow and thrive.”
It is a grave challenge for Nasa to keep the astronauts well-nourished in space. Since the International Space Station (ISS) launch, the crew aboard relies on a diet mostly of packaged with some fresh produce delivered on regular re-supply missions.
According to Nasa, ISS teams also have experimented with growing a number of vegetables in orbit, including lettuce, cabbage, kale and chile peppers.
As Nasa planned for space exploratory missions to Mars and Beyond, it has become important for self-contained, low-waste food production which requires minimal resources.
Advances in space-based food production also have direct applications for feeding Earth’s ever-growing population in an era when climate change is making food more scarce and harder to produce, Fritsche said.
“Controlled environment agriculture, the first modules we deploy on the moon, will have some similarity to the vertical farms that we’ll have here on Earth,” Fritsche said.
“We’re not re-inventing products,” Sheehan said, “we’re just making them in a more sustainable way.”
Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif was visited in Islamabad by a four-person Google delegation led by Mr. Scott Beaumont, President of the APAC area.
Pakistan’s digital economy is about to undergo a revolutionary change, according to the prime minister, who greeted the team. Speaking on the government’s intentions to reach the goal of US$ 25 billion in exports over the next five years, the prime minister revealed that funding will be used for youth training, IT infrastructure upgrades, and regulatory environment enhancements. Pakistan’s economy is being fully digitalised, he remarked. In his attempts, he stressed the need of working together with a tech behemoth like Google.
The Prime Minister praised Google for pioneering projects that have dramatically enhanced the lives of thousands of Pakistanis in recent years, as well as for its involvement in propelling the country’s digital economy closer to reality. Noting with satisfaction that Google has helped Pakistani young land about a million jobs in 2023 alone, the Prime Minister emphasised that this is a testament to both Google’s dedication to upskilling and empowering Pakistan’s youth and Pakistan’s potential in the digital marketplace.
Informing the Prime Minister of its future involvement intentions, Mr. Scott stated that Google has made the decision to support the government’s youth skill-training initiatives and to expand its investment footprint in Pakistan. He went on to say that for a values-driven digital firm like Google, the growing economy and the sizeable youth population are crucial for optimising the economic benefits of technology. He restated that Pakistan’s IT industry will undergo a revolution when five lac Chromebooks are produced there by 2026.
Android users now have the ability to install or update many apps or games at once in the Play Store thanks to a feature introduced by tech giant Google.
Even if Android users downloaded or tried to update several apps or games at once, the prior capability would only process one app at a time.
In the Google Play Store, users can now download or manually update up to three apps or games at once, according to a GSMArena report.
with order to assist Android users with updating or installing multiple apps at once, Google is reportedly already starting to roll out the new feature in a few select locations, including India.
The feature will process three apps at once while sending the fourth to pending when customers install or manually update programs.
When configuring new phones or recovering from a backup, this feature is said to save a tonne of time.
It should be mentioned that Apple has long since permitted customers to download and install up to three iOS apps at once from the App Store.
According to GSMArena, the function is really available on a few cell phones in some regions, even though Google has not formally confirmed when it will appear or whether it will work with any particular handset.
Google started releasing a new AI-powered feature for Android phones a few weeks ago that locks users out of their data to prevent hackers from accessing it.
According to a Forbes story, cellphones running Android 10 or later will soon be able to use the function, which incorporates artificial intelligence.
The anti-theft feature known as “theft detection lock” is currently being rolled out to certain users, according to Mishaal Rahman, who frequently updates his followers on the most recent OS changes on X.
A restricted group of customers who registered for the beta program in Brazil are now receiving theft detection locks, according to Rahman’s post.
Rehman claims that Google Play Services will be used to provide the AI-powered feature to all Android 10 devices.