One startup thinks that someday we'll all be eating a powdery protein called Solein that tastes like nothing.
Finland-based Solar Foods, which Crunchbase reports has raised 2 million euros thus far, uses gas fermentation to turn electricity, water, and carbon dioxide into protein by using naturally-found microbes, CEO Pasi Vainikka told Cheddar.
"When you make, for example, wine, you use yeast that eats sugar. Now our microbe, which also sits in a liquid, doesn't eat sugar, but it eats, actually, small bubbles of hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Hydrogen we can make with electricity from water and carbon dioxide we can capture from the air," he explains. "By this way, we can skip the whole process of photosynthesis, and the concept of plant and animal."
The bizarre protein source was designed to help with an eye toward human space travel to Mars. The company says the product was originally conceptualized through a NASA space program and further incubated through research at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the country's Lappeenranta University of Technology.
Today Solar Foods is collaborating with the European Space Agency.
Still, Vainikka says we won't have to wait for a trip to the red planet to try its protein. Here on Earth, it has potential to be used as an ingredient in plant-based meat alternatives, like those produced by companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods.
"You can incorporate this protein into grit, or different kinds of plant-based drinks, shakes, pasta, and so on, like plant-based dairy," he explained.
"It doesn't have any taste, or hardly any taste, and that's good news for us," said Vainikka, explaining that a neutral flavor allows Solar Foods to more easily integrate its protein into products familiar with consumers. And because there are fewer inputs, Solar Foods says it could be better for the environment than agriculture-based protein sources.
"We don't have to wait for seasons, but we can scale up production and double production by just adding another reactor," he added. "It is like a brewery, so we don't really have to invent any new technologies. The magic is in the natural organism, the recipe, and how it's grown."
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Tuesday, adding that they will trigger toug
