Heme Here to Disrupt

Here it is Canadian Thanksgiving.  There's a turkey in the oven and my topic today is the key to the beyond meat and meatless trend these days.  CBC Radio told me about it yesterday - it is heme protein.  Impossible Foods have patents covering the use of heme in plant-based meat.  The core ingredient is soy protein and star ingredient is heme made via genetically engineered yeast. These are the proteins that transport and store oxygen in mammals.  This is  what makes the juicy, meaty flavour in non-meat burgers.  It can be used to produce anything like this - cheese, milk, and so on. The CBC interview was with Catherine Tubb from technology disruption think-tank company RethinkX - her point was that food and agriculture will no longer be raising livestock.  Instead protein will be generated - like yeast - we'll be doing it at home.  I found recipes for Impossible Burgers to make at home HERE.  I have to try this - it looks fun. So the prediction is that cows will be obsolete as a food source by 2030.  With precision fermentation products, food will be cheaper and superior to animal-derived foods.  The agricultural industry will collapse, including the value of agricultural land.   And the trend is unfolding - the Good Food Institute says that $16 billion has been invested into US plant-based meat, egg, and dairy companies in the last 10 years.  Impossible Foods is now valued at $2 billion.  In 2015, Google offered $300 million for the company. Just in our recent past, disruption occurred when the car replaced the horse and carriage.  There was no need causing it - there was opportunity.  She says that disruption in agriculture is the same.  There's more transportation disruption on the horizon.  Their website says: "By 2030, within 10 years of regulatory approval of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs), 95 percent of U.S. passenger miles traveled will be served by on-demand autonomous electric vehicles owned by fleets, not individuals, in a new business model we call “transport-as-a-service” (TaaS).  This means that even if it is slower than 10 years, we will experience it. Today we have a colourized version of one of the motion blur palm pictures.

Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com

Fear & Looting in Las Vegas

Isn't it ironic that 'fear and looting' retrieves 'fear and loathing' in google,  but that 'fear and loathing' is transformed to 'fear and looting' in spell checking.  That was in yesterday's story. There is such a thing as 'fear and looting' - in America, in Peru, in Egypt, the French Caribbean, in St. Martin, ini Johannesburg, and 'sex' is added to the article about stories of the Blitz.  One can play Fear & Looting at casinos as well. Is there anything to loot in Las Vegas?  Supposedly the Looting in Las Vegas article is about the 9% room tax to fund the convention centre and that there shouldn't be such a tax.  Then there is a more intriguing article about casino owner, Ted Binion's murder and the looting of his $3.5 billion coin and ingot collection buried in underground vaults. Real looting certainly happens in Egypt.  The underground global economy of illicit antiquities has been estimated at $2 billion per year. Sarah Parcak of the University of Alabama counted 10,000 looting pits using high-resolution imagery from space.  She has done all kinds of discovery with satellite imagery - she used satellite imagery to detect possible remains of a Norse/Viking presence at Point Rosee, Newfoundland.  Parcak is an Egyptologist, and has been documenting tombs and collecting images and GPS coordinates to assemble a database to answer questions about ancient Egyptian life. National Geographic partially funds Parcak's work for the database. Her discoveries include the tombs at Lisht. She was  recognized with the 2018 Lowell Thomas award and is a 2016 TED Prize winner.  She has helped locate 17 lost pyramids, more than 1,000 tombs and more than 3,100 potential ancient settlements in Egypt.  Egypt's Minister of Antiquities denies these numbers. Her website says: "She aims to revolutionize how modern archaeology is done altogether, by creating a global network of citizen explorers, opening field schools to guide archaeological preservation on the ground, developing an archaeological institute, and even launching a satellite designed with archaeology in mind".  Here's her website HERE.  She invites us to become an explorer. My recent explorations on holiday were focused on Arbutus tree bark.  Here are a few of them.

Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com

Did You Stop?

“Pedestrians are considered traffic,” writes Ontario Ministry of Transportation spokesman Ajay Woozageer.  That was a most interesting statement - it seems to have two messages - 'pay attention drivers', and then 'look out pedestrians.'  The statement was made in response to a Globe and Mail question and answer article on whether cars should (are required to) yield to pedestrians at a crosswalk.   What I so enjoyed about the Toronto Islands was the lack of crosswalks - there are no cars on the Islands.  And in Grimsby Beach where the Painted Ladies are, the streets are 'lanes' so narrow they are effectively one-way streets in whichever direction the car is going.   Today's pictures again showcase TBG's Wilket Creek.  I was at Grimsby Beach yesterday, and wished for the golds and oranges to reflect in Forty Creek.  But alas, there aren't any Autumn colour reflections so far.