BeijingUniversity
Latest
China starts 200-day simulation of living on another planet
The US definitely doesn't have a monopoly on long-term simulations of living on another planet. Four university students in Beijing have begun a 200-day isolation experiment, Lunar Palace 365 (why not Lunar Palace 200?), where they'll live solely on the resources they would have on the Moon or Mars. That means generating life-giving oxygen from plants, recycling urine to produce drinking water and otherwise making the most of limited supplies.
Human-derived gelatin spares the livestock, confuses vegans
Vegans are going to be super-conflicted by this one. Researchers at Beijing University's College of Life Science and Technology are pioneering a four-legged creature friendly method for cranking out the 300,000 tons of gelatin produced each year. Their solution: people. Well, not in the Soylent Green sense. No, the process in question here takes "human gelatin genes [and inserts them] into a strain of yeast [producing] gelatin with controllable features." Sound appetizing? It might, if you want to avoid chowing down on "Mad Cow" tainted gummy worms at the cinema. Alright, so maybe these Chinese scientists are signaling the sensationalist red alert a bit prematurely -- it's just too bad Charlton Heston isn't around to witness this bit of life science imitating his art. [Image credit via Film Critic]
