Tech Tuesday

  Plastic was first invented in 1855. In the past 70 years, we humans have refined its use, so much so that today around 380 million tonnes of plastic is produced worldwide each year. But not everyone was following the crowd, in 2006 a small company in New York came up with a possible alternative to plastic that was both sustainable and eco-friendly.    What is Mycelium Fungus? Mycelium Technology was first introduced by ‘Ecovative Designs’ in 2006. Mycelium is a multicellular fungus that produces a branched network of fine, white filaments that grow underneath the ground. It may sometimes develop into visible structures like mushrooms. Think of it as the root structure of a mushroom.  M ycelium growing in a petri dish on coffee grounds This mycelium can be used to create different structures by providing it a framework in a controlled environment. The cells are grown to create intricate 3D structures that form materials like a brick or a piece of packaging or ev...

  1. What is the main incentive behind the idea of a reusable rocket system? Traditionally, we had a tried and tested system of launching rockets that had been in use for over three decades and that has been used enough times to ensure minimum failure rate. This was the Expendable rocket launch system where we would divide the parts of the rocket, each part to serve the requirements of the different stages of launch of a rocket and as each stage was executed the parts responsible for the stage would detach from the rocket and in the end only the final satellite would reach the destination or orbit. But, as the technology with these systems improved and as more and more rockets and satellites began to be launched into outer space, people found out two major problems with the system that was in use. First one being that the price of operation of a single rocket launch had increased by up to three-fold for certain large-scale launches. The second problem, which was slightly more...