Spyce, a robotic kitchen created by four alumni, will open in Boston’s Downtown Crossing this May. The group “built their first prototype in [an MIT] fraternity basement in 2015; now they have patent-pending technology and backing from acclaimed chef Daniel Boulud,” writes Jenna Pelletier of Boston Magazine.
James Gallagher of BBC News speaks with several experts about the microbiome and how diversity in gut bacteria is essential to health. “One thing that we're learning is, based on the microbiome, different people may need to consume different diets in order to get the same effect,” says Prof. Eric Alm.
Four MIT alumni have teamed up with chef Daniel Boulud and will soon open Spyce, a fast-casual restaurant in downtown Boston. The restaurant will complete orders using a device the group first created as students, known as the Spyce Kitchen, “a self-cleaning robotic kitchen, designed to prepare an entire meal in less than three minutes,” writes Jay Cheshes for The New Yorker.
On WGBH’s Under The Radar, Amy Traverso, food editor at Yankee Magazine, speaks with host Callie Crossley about Spyce, the robotic kitchen developed by MIT students that will soon become an actual restaurant in Boston. “It’s going to be a fast-casual chain in Downtown Crossing and the consulting chef is Daniel Boulud,” explains Traverso.
Ripple Foods, co-founded by MIT alumnus Neil Renninger, produces pea-based milks with the same amount of protein as cow milk, Whitney Pipkin reports for NPR. Renninger notes the milk requires fewer natural resources to produce than cow's milk, as “anywhere from 20 to 40 percent of carbon emissions globally come from the food system — and a quarter of all food emissions come from the dairy industry.”
Boston Globe reporter Alyssa Meyers writes that a new study by MIT researchers shows that probiotics could be used to help fight high blood pressure. The researchers found that probiotics, “can boost beneficial bacteria in the human gut that prevent pro-inflammatory immune cells from increasing in number." Pro-inflammatory immune cells have been linked with hypertension.
Martin Finucane of The Boston Globe reports that MIT researchers are developing a method to allow oil and water to mix. Using a combination of a surfactant and condensation, “tiny water droplets form on the surface that sink into the oil and stay mixed for months, rather than separating in just a few minutes,” explains Finucane.
BostInno’s Karis Hustad spotlights how Solve tackles some of the world’s most pressing challenges. “You need a different type of innovation or technology or adaptation and affordability of technology for some of the big challenges of today,” explains Alexandra Amouyel, Solve's executive director. “To do that, you need a much more bottom up, grassroots innovation process.”
CSAIL researchers have developed an artificial neural network that generates recipes from pictures of food, reports Laurel Dalrymple for NPR. The researchers input recipes into an AI system, which learned patterns “connections between the ingredients in the recipes and the photos of food,” explains Dalrymple.
In this video for USA Today, Sean Dowling highlights Pic2Recipe, the artificial intelligence system developed by CSAIL researchers that can predict recipes based off images of food. The researchers hope the app could one day be used to help, “people track daily nutrition by seeing what’s in their food.”
Researchers at MIT have developed an algorithm that can identify recipes based on a photo, writes BBC News reporter Zoe Kleinman. The algorithm, which was trained using a database of over one million photos, could be developed to show “how a food is prepared and could also be adapted to provide nutritional information,” writes Kleinman.
MIT researchers have developed a new machine learning algorithm that can look at photos of food and suggest a recipe to create the pictured dish, reports Matt Reynolds for New Scientist. Reynolds explains that, “eventually people could use an improved version of the algorithm to help them track their diet throughout the day.”
CSAIL researchers have trained an AI system to look at images of food, predict the ingredients used, and even suggest recipes, writes Matt Burgess for Wired. The system could also analyze meals to determine their nutritional value or “manipulate an existing recipe to be healthier or to conform to certain dietary restrictions," explains graduate student Nick Hynes.
MIT researchers have found that by 2050 climate change could deplete water basins and reduce crop yields, reports The Boston Globe’s Alyssa Meyers. If no action is taken to combat climate change, “numerous basins used to irrigate crops across the country will either start to experience shortages or see existing shortages ‘severely accentuated.’”
Tangible Media Group researchers have created shape-shifting, edible pasta, writes Grace Williams for Fox News. The pasta, which transforms from a flat sheet into 3-D shapes, could cut packaging and shipping costs for “large supermarkets, mountain hikers and Mars travelers, or whoever has the need of saving shipping spaces,” says former MIT graduate student Lining Yao.