Latest Inventions

posted by admin on Jan 22

The New NEFF CircoSteam oven is certainly looking like a healthy option in the kitchen!

We all cook with steam on the hob, usually in great towers - but steam cooking in an oven is really going to change the way we prepare healthy food!  I have only just found someone who owns one and it’s the first time I had heard of them!

The appliance is basically a compact oven - like a combination microwave if you like - that offers to steam your food without all the steam escaping around your kitchen!

Why Steam?
It is well known through the world of healthy eating and weight loss, that steamed food is better for you in terms of the nutrients it keeps and the lack of other ingredients like cooking oil needed to help cook it.

Baking, roasting and frying usually include some preparation with fats or oils which are absorbed by the food, as well as being heated so high and sometimes for a considerable time that they dry out and or become soaked in fatty materials.

Boiling is seen as a cooking practice that removes or destroys valuable vitamins and minerals from the food.  The food is thrown around the pan under a lot of pressure and reduces many fleshy ingredients to a mush - think of over-cooked sprouts!

And all these alternatives can result in the food you are cooking being completely destroyed if cooked too long - either burnt to a crisp or reduced to a slush.

Benefits Of A Steam Oven:
Well, not so with a steam oven.  None of the above is true at all with steam cooking and the list that follows highlights the benefits:

• Nutrients remain in the food during cooking
• The food retains all of it’s moisture during cooking
• You don’t need fats or oils to cook with steam
• You can’t burn your food when steam cooking
• You can’t turn food into a mush when steam cooking
• You can never overcook food you are cooking with steam

There are also further advantages of a steam oven over the regular stack of pans and commercial steamers:

• Steam cookers retain all the steam inside themselves rather than filling your kitchen
• These combination cookers take up no more space on your counter - it’s built in to your microwave ’space’
• The huge internal size allows more food to be steamed at the same time - so the whole meal could be steamed rather than just the vegetables.
• There are about 50 pre-programmed settings for everything you are likely to cook - so it’s so easy to use.

So, if you are considering a new small oven or combination microwave - then take a look at this alternative.  And just so you know - it received an A rating for energy use - so can reduce your energy bills while you reduce your waistline too!

posted by admin on Jan 19

Biofuels hit hard criticism when they were competing with human crops, but things might change…..

People are starting to look at waste materials and invasive plants as potential sources of biofuel - rather than using what could have been food for humans.

With the world population soaring and food shortages the world over - it was time to move biofuels forward so to utilise a more sustainable and non-competitive source - and 2 such examples have recently been publicised.

Bracken:
This plant grows virtually everywhere.  Whether it’s in open fields, heathlands, moorlands and mountains.  It is also a worldwide genera and has the widest distribution of any other fern.

Nobody likes it growing on their land (apart from National Parks) as it is very dominant in the landscape and nothing really eats it either (as it is carcinogenic) - so it just spreads across a landscape stealing the light from any other young or low-lying plants.  And a it won’t let grass grow beneath it - the mountains sides and valleys can’t be used for grazing as there is nothing for the sheep or cattle to eat and farmers pay a lot of money to get it cut and removed from their land every year as it is.

It turns the land into a very green wasteland in terms of human needs - and at one time the British Government had an eradication program in place to deal with it’s excessive growth!

However, it is actually because it grows itself very well, and grows back every year - even if cut back when fully grown, it seems like the perfect crop to start working on for sustainable fuels.

The only problem is of course that it usually grows in places that are not easy to get to with modern farm machinery.

Old Yeast:
We all know that there is always going to be whisky in Scotland - so what can we do with all the natural waste materials?

As with the bracken - waste materials from whisky plants costs a lot of money to dispose of - so why not find a way to either use that waste, or find a way to sell it as a product.

Distillery waste (yeasty materials) will be fed into an anaerobic digester to create methane gas - a biogas.  The idea is that if all the distilleries in the area do this - they could power themselves without the need to draw on other energy sources from elsewhere. 

I know it isn’t going to power homes and other businesses - or the whole country, but if these large commercial buildings can fully power themselves using their own waste products, then less energy will have to be created from other sources and shipped or piped to them.

The Future:
Can you imagine if warehouses could generate their own energy from all the waste cardboard they get through, or supermarkets could create biogas from all the food they throw away being bio-digested. 

Even huge offices and sky-scrapers could be creating biogas from all the waste created by their workers - basically, they would be powering themselves!

New technologies are allowing smaller scale operations which were just not viable in the past - they just were not cost effective before we understood how our waste was affecting the environment.  But now companies have to be more environmentally responsible and to also pay to process and dispose of their own waste - they are starting to think about spending that money on alternative services - green services.

And, there must still be plenty of waste products that could be used for fuel or energy - just waiting to be discovered.  Certain things are always going to be needed by people - so why not use the left-overs constructively?

posted by admin on Jan 16

Happy New Year to all you readers - and here are some technological articles to inspire you in 2010.

First up, we have some extensive tips on using the Google Wave software by Herbert Anderson: 25 Tips for Students & Teachers Using Google Wave.

Sam Nash then leads with an interesting post on why we just accept the old as standard when we should be looking for the best instead - he gives his opinion on one of the alternative computer keyboards on the market: DAS Keyboard - The Successor to the IBM Model M Keyboard | Gadget News and Reviews.

A great review of the Samsung Corby Pro by Ankesh is up next with some great opinions and images: OG Review Samsung Corby Pro (GT-B5310), however the obligatory mobile apps post by Mary Jones this month, is about the 20 most useless ones that have been invented: The 20 Most Outrageous/Useless iPhone Apps!  Some are unbelievable…..

And to finish up, something fun: Jason Keller lists his Top 20 Online Games of 2010 and Ankesh gives us a quick glimpse at quite a neat looking gadget: ‘Printing Your Toast’ concept for the office geek.

See you next time!

posted by admin on Nov 10

Llamas, Alpacas, Camels and other camelids are offering the world of medicine something real special! 

They possess an anti-body totally different to any other mammal, alongside the ‘normal’ ones that we already have - and it could change the fight against disease!

So, What Is It?
Well, during some random research in the 1980’s, a group of students were given a project to investigate camel antibodies.  All mammals have a standard type of antibody type - the heavy and light chain antibody for those interested - but camels and other members of the same evolutionary branch also have a different type - an antibody with only heavy chains.

The scientist in charge of the discovery named them ‘nanobodies’ and they have many interesting features that are beneficial to science - and us!

Antibodies Do What, Exactly?
Now, antibodies are key to the mammalian immune system, and it is their job to target specific ‘nasty’ bugs and cells in the body and immobilise or destroy them - to stop them harming the body.

Medicine at the moment has to ‘grow’ normal antibodies in a time consuming and expense way, and they can only target certain illnesses - however, the new smaller nanobodies could be manufactured much more easily and cheaply AND they can fight many more illnesses including intestinal disorders, cancer and possibly even Alzheimer’s disease!

Other potential uses include binding to certain proteins in developing organisms to see which cells are responsible for certain processes and therefore highlighting the role of certain cells in the nervous system and the like!

Another possible angle for these tiny nanobodies is to be grown inside of plants and vegetables.  Now, this could be to help that plant to defend itself against pests or disease - but it could also be a way to offer whatever eats it a defence against something else.

Imagine cattle being able to eat themselves healthy without the need for other medication - or humans on a diet of certain fruit to make sure they get enough antibodies for a specific illness!

Whatever will they think of next……

See Related Article On Alpaca’s: Latest Fox Deterrent

posted by admin on Nov 3

Imagine a plastic box that reduces deforestation, improves health and boils water at the same time!

It seems almost impossible that theses 3 things are related in the same action, but if you just stick with me, all will be explained.

The Kyoto Box could well be the perfect solution for many people in developing countries in terms of reducing their need to travel for miles every day to find fuel for their fires and clean water for their families.

What Is It?
Basically, it is a cardboard box snugly fitted inside another box and topped off with a plexi-glass lid.  Sounds simple because it is!  All it does is absorb heat energy from the sun during the day which then becomes trapped inside the device. 

This allows for very high temperatures to be reached for boiling water and cooking certain foods!  It can also be used to dry certain plants and baking ingredients.

Although it is ’simple’ in principle it has taken Norwegian entrepreneur Jon Bøhmer (of Kyoto Energy) around 10 years of tinkering to get it to the stage where it can be shipped out across the world for everyday use - at around $6.

Not only can the Kyoto Box boil a large amount of water in just a few hours, it’s very materials also insulate against heat loss, so any cooked foods will remain warm for many hours after the sun has set.

How Does It Reduce Deforestation?
There are many ways in which this invention helps the people who use it - and the places in which they live, and the following summary covers the main points:

Reduces Deforestation: By removing the need to use any other fuel to cook and boil, local people do not need to clear local woodlands of trees to feed their families.

Improves Health: By removing wood and dung from the equation - this method of cooking is smoke-free.  Women and babies no longer need to breathe in fumes from the fire while carrying out their daily chores.  It also lowers the risk of fires in the home.

Reduces Diarrhea: By allowing families to boil water before drinking it, this has a massive effect on the family by reducing upset tummies and the drinking of parasites from local water sources.

Reduces Conflict: If families do not need to travel for miles to reach fuel or clean water, they will not come into conflict with other tribes, communities or armed poachers, etc.

Increases Other Livelihoods: If local women can stay in their village for more time everyday rather than spend hours just walking, they can take on other work or trades that could bring more money into their community.

It ticks all the right boxes!