News of the week selected by Impactscool – July 27th
27 July 2020 | Written by La redazione
KFC aims for lab grown nuggets
Meat grown, or produced in the laboratory by growing a single animal cell to obtain meat, is becoming increasingly popular with large food chains. This is the case of KFC who started a collaboration with the Russian company 3D Bioprinting Solutions to create chicken nuggets using a special 3D printer capable of using organic material. Cultivated meat has many advantages: it is more ecological, as its production requires 100 times less soil and emits 25 times less greenhouse gas. Furthermore, these products will be more ethical, as they do not require the killing of any animal, and healthier, because it will be possible to precisely modulate any substances such as hormones and antibiotics during the growth process.
Alternative pasts with deepfakes
The Apollo missions have been a great achievement for humanity but also a great risk. There were many things that could have gone wrong and marked the end of the astronauts and NASA, as well as the American government, knew about it. For this reason, at the cathartic moment of the moon landing, President Nixon had two envelopes in front of him. In one the speech that congratulated the astronauts and in the other a speech that would have announced to the nation, and to the world, the terrible tragedy in the event of an accident. Fortunately, envelope B was never opened but we are aware of its contents. Today, thanks to deepfake technology, we can have a taste of alternative history and see that speech. The video is part of the MIT project “In event of a Moon disaster”, which aims to raise awareness of the deepfakes and the power they have to manipulate reality.
China is also heading towards Mars
The Long March-5 rocket that launched the Tianwen-1 mission in the direction of Mars took off without problems. This is a busy time for the red planet, with the Saudi mission launched a few days ago and the launch of the Perseverance rover scheduled for July 30th. China also therefore took advantage of the favorable position of Mars, to join the countries that are exploring the planet. The mission consists of three parts, a probe that will remain in orbit around the red planet, a lander and finally a rover that will explore the landing area. The most critical part of the mission is scheduled for February 2021 when the landing will take place. If the lander and the rover manage to land safely and send data from the surface of the planet, the mission can be considered a success.
After Amazon Go, the e-commerce giant starts a new project linked to the retail world: a smart shopping cart for normal supermarkets. It’s called Dash Cart and is able to understand which products are put inside it and, at the end of the tour in the store, charge them to the customer’s Amazon account. The trolley has a touch screen and cameras, vision and weight sensors and a scale capable of determining not only the type of article, but also the quantities. For now the project is in an experimental phase and will be found only in the Woodland Hills neighborhood in Los Angeles.
