3. Large-Scale Problem: Our Broken Global Food System

The report in question, “The Future of Food and Farming”, synthesized findings collected from more than 400 scientists from 34 countries and was published in January 2012 by the British government’s Department for Business Innovation & Skills²⁴. Its troubling conclusion is that the world’s existing food system is failing half of the people on the planet.

Economic inequality among nations and other factors have contributed to a global food system in which a billion people are hungry (lacking access to sufficient amounts of macronutrients²⁵ such as carbohydrates, fats and proteins), another billion suffer from “hidden hunger” (lacking crucial vitamins and minerals from their diet), while another billion are “strongly overconsuming,” spawning²⁶ a new epidemic involving chronic conditions such as Type 2 diabetes and widespread cardiovascular disease.

The report, which was prepared by the research firm Foresight on behalf of the British government, also predicts that the cost of food worldwide will rise sharply in coming decades, increasing the likelihood of food-based conflicts and migration, and that people won’t be able to feed themselves without destroying the planet unless we can transform the global food system.

The report warns that an expanding world population that is already overexploiting its natural resources is a recipe for disaster²⁷, especially given the onset²⁸ of climate change.

That fixing the global food system won’t be an easy task is well known. “Farmers have to grow more food at less cost,” said Caroline Spelman of the U.K.’s Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs²⁹ (DEFRA). Other keys to solve this problem include dramatically reducing food waste – Americans toss³⁰ as much as 40 percent of their food – especially since food production and distribution accounts for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. Also, researchers suggest that investing in genetically modified crops³¹ and cloned livestock³², despite the potential risks, may be “essential in light of the magnitude of the challenges.”

What can those of us in developed nations do? Staying active and eating right is the best way to prevent obesity³³ and health problems. And choosing locally produced food over that which is shipped in from far away will help reduce our food’s carbon footprint³⁴.

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4. How 3d printers work

AT FIRST, 3D printing was known as stereolithography, a process invented in 1986 by Chuck Hull of 3D Systems. Variations of this process are still used. It begins, like all 3D printing, with software that takes a series of digital slices through a computer model of an object. The shape of each slice is used selectively to harden a layer of light-sensitive liquid, usually with ultraviolet light, to form the required shape. After each layer has been made, the build tray lowers by a fraction, another layer of liquid is added and the process is repeated until the object is complete.

Many other approaches have since been developed. Laser-sintering involves zapping layers of powdered plastic or metal with a laser to harden the powder in some places, but not others. Other machines use an electron beam in a similar way. An alternative process melts a metallic powder as it is deposited. This can be used to repair worn parts, such as turbine blades. Some machines operate a bit like 2D inkjet printers, jetting light-sensitive liquid materials to form layers and then hardening them. Some machines can print a dozen different materials in a single pass of the print head.

One of the most popular techniques is fused deposition modelling (FDM), which is akin to a computer-controlled glue gun (pictured below). A heated nozzle extrudes a filament of thermoplastic, which sets as it cools. Multiple heads can extrude different colours. FDM is the mechanism used in many of the small 3D printers used by hobbyists, some of which now cost less than $1,000. More capable 3D printers cost tens of thousands of dollars, and big industrial systems, like the laser-sintering machines capable of printing aerospace parts in titanium, cost as much as $1m.