From Wired Science:Thanksgiving is about eating, and though local, organic food might be what the cool kids are eating, most people are still eating products of the industrial food system.
Whether you’re talking turkey, cranberries or potatoes, industrial-scale processes have been developed to drive down food costs, drive up corporate profits and feed America’s incredible hunger for novel food items.
But most consumers of these manufactured meals have little or no knowledge of the machines and methods used to freeze turkeys, turn potatoes into fake potatoes, and cranberries into TV-dinner cranberry sauce. It’s not always pretty, but food scientists’ epic battle to scale up your mom’s recipes without making them taste nasty is worth examining, if not giving thanks for.
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Redstone Arsenal Base
Allen Hills Meteorite Thar be life? NASA 
Lack of incentive to invest in more uranium mines
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Photo: The effect was shown in silicon, the standby of the semiconductor industry
Computer rendering of E. coli bacteria. A newly developed E. coli strain is capable of efficiently producing unnatural polymers, through a one-step fermentation process. (Credit: iStockphoto/Sebastian Kaulitzki)
Eastern wild turkeys. Credit: Maslowski/National Wild Turkey Federation
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Photo by Steve Voght; used under CC license.
From Daily Tech:
Image: Bladder control: Manipulating a magnetic fluid on top of the researchers' "sensor tile" (top) offers a novel way to control a computer. The interface can be used to sculpt virtual shapes (bottom). Credit: Microsoft 
Even nonalcoholic red wine can offer the oral health benefits to consumers. iStockPhoto
This schematic shows the structure of the new material, Xe(H2)7. Freely rotating hydrogen molecules (red dumbbells) surround xenon atoms (yellow). (Credit: Image courtesy of Nature Chemistry)
Batteries made of paper may power electronics in the future, researchers say. Shown are images from an experimental paper-based battery. Credit: The American Chemical Society.
