Will There Be Pizza on Mars?

Read about a very cool application of 3D printing technology is outlined in, "The Audacious Plan to End Hunger With 3D-Printed Food," from Mashable

Anjan Contractor’s 3D food printer might evoke visions of the “replicator” popularized in Star Trek, from which Captain Picard was constantly interrupting himself to order tea. And indeed Contractor’s company, Systems & Materials Research Corporation, just got a six month, $125,000 grant from NASA to create a prototype of his universal food synthesizer.

But Contractor, a mechanical engineer with a background in 3D printing, envisions a much more mundane—and ultimately more important—use for the technology. He sees a day when every kitchen has a 3D printer, and the earth’s 12 billion people feed themselves customized, nutritionally-appropriate meals synthesized one layer at a time, from cartridges of powder and oils they buy at the corner grocery store.

Contractor’s vision would mean the end of food waste, because the powder his system will use is shelf-stable for up to 30 years, so that each cartridge, whether it contains sugars, complex carbohydrates, protein or some other basic building block, would be fully exhausted before being returned to the store. Ubiquitous food synthesizers would also create new ways of producing the basic calories on which we all rely. Since a powder is a powder, the inputs could be anything that contain the right organic molecules. We already know that eating meat is environmentally unsustainable, so why not get all our protein from insects?

If eating something spat out by the same kind of 3D printers that are currently being used to make everything from jet engine parts to fine art doesn’t sound too appetizing, that’s only because you can currently afford the good stuff, says Contractor. That might not be the case once the world’s population reaches its peak size, probably sometime near the end of this century. “I think, and many economists think, that current food systems can’t supply 12 billion people sufficiently,” says Contractor. “So we eventually have to change our perception of what we see as food.”

Hey! It's September's Reading List Extravaganza!

September is off to a roaring start. I hope the rest of the year is like this!

Oh, by the way, scientists have just discovered that the 80% of DNA that they thought did nothing...actually are integral to how cells behave and how diseases progress. Chew on that..

Bits of Mystery DNA, Far From ‘Junk,’ Play Crucial Role, by Gina Kolata, New York Times

Oh and then there is this little piece of awesome...

Phones will get all charged up about new Ultrabook feature, by Eric Mack

Yes, charging your phone without cords is coming, and coming soon.

For now, here are some marketing/business/economics articles to read while your phone is charging.

BII MOBILE INSIGHTS: Multi-Screen Media Consumption Is The New Normal by Heather Leonard, Business Insider

7 Pros and Cons of Content Marketing, by Erin Nelson, Business 2 Community

3 Little-Known Social Media Misconceptions that Can Destroy Your Marketing Strategy, by Brad Smith, Social Media Today

Mobile Entertainment Consumption Soared 82% in One Year, by Samantha Murphy, Mashable

ESPN: Everywhere Sports Profit Network, by Karl Greenfield, BusinessWeek

ESPN’s $5.6 billion deal with Major League Baseball, announced on Aug. 28, is typical of the kinds of multiplatform rights packages the company now seeks to acquire. Not only will ESPN continue to televise regular-season and playoff games through 2021, it also gets radio rights, international rights, unlimited highlights and, most important, the right to stream all that content through its mobile applications.

“Right now,” says Norby Williamson, a vice president for production, “what you can pay for a property is based on what you can bring to a property, how you can surround a property.” ESPN’s continued success is predicated on its being willing to pay more for those properties than anyone else. It comes down to a race between ESPN’s ability to develop and succeed in new platforms—and sell ads and subscriptions against them—and the ever-escalating costs of televising live sports.

GIF Illustrates Massive Growth of Walmart, Mashable
Pretty awesome...

The Lost Bush/Obama Era Gave Us the Gold Commission,by John Tamny, RealClearMarkets

Monetary Angioplasty Required,By Barry Ritholtz, The Big Picture