Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Combat Feeding: Just Add Water - Any Water
Soldiers in the field carry their own food; one day's supply weighs about 3.5 kilograms. However, remove the water, and it only weighs 0.4 kg. But where can you find potable water in the field?
This problem has been solved by using special pouches that have holes big enough for water (about 0.5 nanometers) but not big enough for bacteria. So, just pour in any old dirty water you can find, and voila! dinner is served.
Yes, that means any water, including urine. However, scientists caution users that the pouches do not filter out urea; kidney failure could result from overuse.
The osmotic membrane is provided by Hydration Technology. Here's how it works with chicken and rice (sounds good already). The two indgredients sit in their own pouches surrounded by a semipermeable membrane; when water is poured into the meal, osmosis draws water to the more concentrated (drier) side.
SF writers have not neglected filtration as an area for speculation; see the filter wheel from The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
See Food rations hydrated by swamp water ... or worse,
Combat Feeding and
Hydration Technology X-Pack for more info.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 7/21/2004)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 6 )
Related News Stories - (" Food ")
Holland Factory 3D Printing 500 Tons Of Steak Per Month
'...I don’t understand technical things — tell me, does it ever feel anything?" - Margaret St. Clair, 1955.
Robochef Robotic Food Prep
'No hand touched the food...' - Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1912.
Drone Deliveries Instead Of Waiters In Restaurants?
'It was a smooth ovoid floating a few inches from the floor...'- H. Beam Piper, 1962.
SliceIt! Why Not Teach Robots To Use Knives?
'One building now gushed forth smoke and another stench that was unmistakable.' - Anne McCaffrey, 1996.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
Caterpillar Electric Mining Loader Not Yet Ready For Moon
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
Centipede Robots Down On The Farm
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
Anthropic's Claude AI Creates Legal Citation From Whole Cloth
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
Students Vie For Lunar Regolith Mining Robot Prize
'About time you got here,' the astronaut said.
'They Erased My Memory' Says Ariana Grande
'...using a neutralizing electronic impulse.'
Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space
'...the Hole is something like a vortex or a whirlpool?'
Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
DARPA Wants 'Large Bio-Mechanical Space Structures'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
Robot Hand Creeps Along, Separate From It's Owner
'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
Taikonauts Exercise In China's Tiangong Space Station
'Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses...'
Korean Exoskeleton Suit F1 Helps You Put It On
'Better late than never.'
Have AI Researchers Given Up On 'Bio-Babies'?
'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
Bunker Busters and Bore-Pellets
'The first revelation of the new Soviet bore-pellets.'
'Spikeless' Brand Swizzle Stick Detects Spiked Drinks
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
