Growing Necessity Search Results

News: Scientists Turn Bacteria into Mini Cyborg Solar Panels

Plants all around us capture sunlight every day and convert it to energy, making them a model of solar energy production. And while the energy they make may serve the needs of a plant, the process isn't efficient enough to generate power on a larger scale. So, scientists from the University of California found a way to treat bacteria with chemicals that turned them into photosynthesis machines, capable of generating products we can convert into food, fuels, and plastics.

News: Dying Cells Do Tell Tales & What We Learn Can Help Us Stop Cancer from Spreading

As our cells age, they eventually mature and die. As they die, they alert nearby cells to grow and multiply to replace them. Using a special imaging process that combines video and microscopy, scientists have observed the cellular communication between dying and neighboring cells for the first time, and think they may be able to use their new-found information against cancer cells, whose damaged genomes let them escape the normal dying process.

News: Waymo Taps Avis to Manage Its Driverless Fleet

Today it was revealed that Avis Budget Group will now support and maintain Waymo's driverless car fleet in Phoenix, the company's first public trial of self-driving cars. This is an unprecedented partnership in the autonomous vehicle field and conveys the steps driverless companies are taking to make their vehicles more accessible to the public.

News: Step Aside Penicillin — A Deep Dive into Fungus Genes Reveals Over 1,300 Potential Antibiotics Waiting to Be Discovered

On October 17, 1943, a story in the New York Herald Tribune read "Many laymen — husbands, wives, parents, brothers, sisters, friends — beg Dr. Keefer for penicillin," according to the American Chemical Society. Dr. Chester Keefer of Boston was responsible for rationing the new miracle drug, penicillin.

News: Waveguide Developer Wins Big in New Round of Funding for Augmented Reality Displays

DigiLens, a company specializing in optical waveguide technology, recently announced that they had closed a $22 million round of strategic investment, also known as Series B funding. This round brought in Sony, Foxconn, Continental, and Panasonic, as well as more traditional venture investors such as Alsop Louie Partners, Bold Capital, Nautilus Venture Partners, and Dolby Family Ventures.

News: How Virtual & Mixed Reality Trick Your Brain

Our brains do a magnificent amount of work to process visual stimuli, but they aren't difficult to fool. Optical illusions can trick our minds into believing what we're seeing is real, even if it's not—and virtual and mixed reality technologies take advantage of this little loophole in our brain to help us accept the unreal.

How To: Five Ways to Repurpose Shellfish Shells

When I was a little kid, I was obsessed with shells. And while most of my shell collection came from combing the beach for treasure, some of it came from a different source: dinner. Whenever my parents had fresh clams or mussels, I would take the leftover shells, soak them overnight in soapy water, and add them to my collection.

How To: Dehydrate Food Without a Dehydrator

I grew up in a rural town, and that meant that we dehydrated a lot of food. Even with a hungry family of five, there was no way that we could eat all of the season's tomatoes before they molded, or all of the orchard's apples before they grew soft, or all of the wild mushrooms that we picked. And so our dehydrator was always getting a good workout.

Weird Ingredient Wednesday: Zucchini Blossoms

Those ordinary green zucchini you see in the market are hiding a lovely, delicious secret: Actually, all summer squashes produce these delightful blooms, but the zucchini's are most frequently used for eating since they taste the best: fresh, clean, and zucchini-like, but with a little something extra. They used to be a rarity at supermarkets, so you had to have a garden or a gardener friend who would generously share the bounty with you.

How To: Make a No-Bake Ice Cream Sandwich Cake in 10 Minutes

Icebox cakes are some of the most satisfying, easy desserts to put together. This version made out of ice cream sandwiches takes the cake, literally, because the layers are almost pre-made for you. Simple and pretty when cut and served, it will be love at your first creamy bite. Depending on whether you want a layer of chocolate crunchies in your ice cream sandwich cake or not, this could be either a two-ingredient ice cream cake or a four-ingredient one. If you don't need the crunchy layer, ...

How To: Running Low on Storage? Safely Clear the Cache of All of Those Hungry Third-Party Apps on Your Galaxy Note 3

Repetitive use of apps over time will eat up your storage space with by caching data on your device. This can be useful at first, speeding up your apps by not requiring them to re-download frequently used data, but as a cache grows, even the initial performance improvements can be outweighed by the unwelcomed loss of storage space. And if a cache grows too large, the time it takes an app to access the cached data can be even slower than the time it would've taken to re-download the data in th...

How To: Hack unlimited fuel in FarmVille (05/06/10)

This video tutorial shows how to hack FarmVille (05/06/10). At this point, it seems like people are more interested in hacking FarmVille than they are in actually playing the thing. This video will teach you how to use Cheat Engine 5.6 to get unlimited tractor fuel, improving your farm's efficiency and increasing your profits. In the game, of course. You'd have to do work to get real money.

How To: How Do You Know if You Can or Should Start a Business Part 2 of 3

Starting a business has to involve a desire to benefit someone else other than you. If all your reasons for starting a business are to benefit you, chances are good that you have missed the big picture. At least one reason you have to want to stat a business needs to be to help someone else. Either use proceeds from the business to help a charity of your choice or to solve a problem or provide a solution to a need for the target group that your business serves. Focus on one issue to start wit...