
from the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLQ0LZSnJFE dept.
https://www.celiac.com/articles.html/can-nasas-new-gluten-free-protein-powder-save-the-world-r5083/
A new protein powder, Solein, made out of nothing more than CO₂, water and electricity (well...uhhh...plus other stuff?). The result is a high-protein, flour-like product that contains 50 percent protein, 5–10 percent fat, and 20–25 percent carbohydrates. Based on a concept developed by NASA, the product has wide potential as a carbon-neutral source of protein. Best of all, it looks and tastes like regular flour, but is completely gluten-free.
[...]Solar Foods makes Solein by extracting CO₂ from air using carbon-capture technology, and then combines it with water, nutrients and vitamins, using 100 percent renewable solar energy from partner Fortum to drive a natural fermentation process similar to the one used to produce yeast and lactic acid bacteria.
The company claims its single-celled protein is "free from agricultural limitations." Solein's manufacturing process is carbon neutral and highly scalable. The company is set to make the ingredient available for a wide variety of food products following its launch in 2021.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday March 13 2020, @01:05AM (8 children)
No food I can think of. Don't care how much electricity (which, no matter how much I look, can't find on the Periodic table) you add to it
Unless you're using that electricity to turn that C03H2 into, I dunno, broccoli building blocks. Which I somehow suspect takes a lot of electricity, not to mention concrete containment domes and lead shielding.
Of course I'm against DEI. Donald, Eric, and Ivanka.
(Score: 2) by NickM on Friday March 13 2020, @01:21AM (3 children)
I a master of typographic, grammatical and miscellaneous errors !
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Snotnose on Friday March 13 2020, @02:30AM (2 children)
From the first sentence:
Then the "(uhh, other stuff?)".
Leads one to believe they're hyping the CO2 and H2O and hoping you don't notice the "vitamins and stuff" part.
TBH, I didn't RTFA, just the summary. But hype is hype, and 9 times out of 10 hype is bullshit.
Of course I'm against DEI. Donald, Eric, and Ivanka.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday March 13 2020, @03:01AM (1 child)
I added the "(uhh, other stuff?)" because i thought: who are they trying to kid.
"It's completely magic!
plus slight of hand...nothing to see here...don't look at thisSeems interesting, but the way the article was written was a bit insulting to the intelligence.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2020, @08:03PM
Makes me think of Feynman's story about the painter [everydayscientist.com] who says he makes yellow paint out of mixing red and white paints.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Friday March 13 2020, @05:59AM
it's got electrolytes!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2020, @07:57AM
Sugar is basically a buncho of Cs, Os, and Hs combined in a specific shape. So yeah you can make food out of those. Of course healthy food containing a balance of nutrients is another matter entirely.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2020, @11:21AM
let me try to explain:
they do not blend CO2 and H2O, they are making a "lab photosynthesis", picking up the C, the O and the H from CO2 and H2O (and probably some N, K, P from other sources) and react to produce proteins , fat [britannica.com] and carbohydrates [socratic.org]
Now this what plants do... doing this in labs is hard and not usually efficient, but if they manage to do that in efficient ways, it is a good thing... if not, the old nature plant lab is still the most efficient way to turn basic and simple products in complex and higher energy products
(Score: 1) by VacuumTube on Friday March 13 2020, @12:23PM
"No food I can think of."
That means that obesity will not, after all, become the badge of honor intimated by the article. To quote His Swollen Orangeness, "Sad. Very sad."
(Score: 4, Interesting) by NickM on Friday March 13 2020, @01:12AM (1 child)
Amino acid production by fermentation is a sensitive process as it was demonstrated in 1989 by the Eosinophilia–myalgia syndrome caused by a batch of impure tryptophan produced via fermentation by genetically engineered bacteria¹.
And badly folded proteins have more potential for disasters than impure amino acids... the reallly bad one are called prion and cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob syndrome and similar disease².
1- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7765187-eosinophilia-myalgia-syndrome-and-tryptophan-production-a-cautionary-tale/ [nih.gov]
2- https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/prion-diseases [hopkinsmedicine.org]
I a master of typographic, grammatical and miscellaneous errors !
(Score: 3, Informative) by crafoo on Friday March 13 2020, @06:06PM
prions are really nasty. causing chronic wasting disease in white tail deer. variants are looking more and more human-effective-like, which would be truly a horrible thing for us peoples. they're also almost indestructible.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2020, @01:20AM (5 children)
Too bad it isn't 50% protein and 50% fat. Having carbohydrates makes the thing a non-starter. Human bodies run far better burning fat than carbohydrates.
Too bad they don't identify the source of the nutrients, vitamins, protein nor if it's a complete protein or not. All those things matter. Since we can't conjure vitamins out of thin air, their claims about being free of agricultural limitations are bullshit. Their source material has to come from somewhere, either plants or animals. Their claims about being carbon neutral and highly scalable aren't much of anything either. Cows are carbon neutral and highly scalable too (the carbon cycle they're in with the grasslands is neutral).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2020, @03:48AM
Something tells me you wouldn't be happy about that either - or anything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2020, @08:03AM (1 child)
The vast majority of livestock -including cows- are fed with feedstock crops, which are grown using artificial fertilizers before being shipped halfway across the world using fossil fuels. In reality there's not much of a cycle there. Livestock is one of the largest contributors to the CO2 problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2020, @02:32PM
Not just meat, same with all fruits and vegetables that get shipped around the world.
All forms of agriculture and not just livestock use a ridiculous amount of resources so the land can produce 10x the amounts of produce compared to non-intensive agricultural practices.
In the winter unless you live in or near the tropics, when you are eating your fresh spinach, lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, avocados, mangoes, kiwi, persimmons, watermelon (who the fxck really needs watermelon in the middle of winter?) be aware they are grown thousands of miles away and shipped to your grocery store. So unless you are eating only locally grown vegetables that can be stored reliably for months in the winter like potatoes, carrots, beets, and onions, or frozen vegetables that you grew yourself (like most family farms did and still do), then you are a big reason why agriculture products contributes so much to CO2: SHIPPING THEM!
Get off your high tofu horse, suck it up and dine only on local potatoes, carrots, onions, and local meat from November-May. Then you can complain about CO2 emissions from shipping meat.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday March 13 2020, @04:55PM
But you're wrong. Just add some water and yeast. The yeast will eat the carbohydrates and convert it into a delicious food.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2020, @03:18AM
Sedentary humans might do better with fat. Athletes need carbs. The liver can't metabolise the fat nearly fast enough to supply me with enough energy to move for longer than about 2 hours at race pace.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 13 2020, @01:32AM (1 child)
If we reverse the polarity, does it add CO2 to the atmosphere? Flour in, CO2 out? We gotta get busy on the terraforming, so the alien invaders are comfortable when they arrive.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2020, @11:24AM
that is easy, just burn the flour, it will burn well, produce energy and release CO2 and H20
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2020, @05:49AM (2 children)
Eat to live, and some folks live to eat.
The former might be happy with nasty crap like that, the latter wouldn't even want it in their garbage.
And yeah, I got your cannoli right here!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2020, @05:58AM (1 child)
It always amazes me that hungry people turn down the protein liquid donation I offer them free in return for interfacing with the delivery nozzle. It makes no sense at all.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2020, @06:06AM
They only accept super-sized meals. Your straw is too thin for them to bother with.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Nuke on Friday March 13 2020, @09:32AM
Soylent Green is nutritious, and cuts the population at the same time, so it is a double benefit.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Friday March 13 2020, @01:25PM
They farm.
They water the farm.
They fertilize the farm.
Afterward they enjoy artisanal pain spread with nut puree and berry marmalade.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by dwilson on Friday March 13 2020, @05:55PM
Assuming that you had me up to there (you didn't), you would have lost me with that.
"Found a bug."
"It's not a bug, it's a feature!"
- D