The Appliance of Science

Satellites are being used to decide whether rice being grown in Hokkaido will be tasty or not.　Apparently, rice with less protein is tastier, and rice with less protein shows up greener in satellite images, owing to the reflection of light.

Unsurprisingly, rice farmers aren’t the biggest fans of the system though, as they’re worried it’ll affect their profit margins. The rest of can be happy that we’ll know how tasty our rice is even before its finished growing.

Now I’ve written about satellites, I have Lou Reed stuck in my head. And sadly no clever pun involving ‘Satellite of Love’ with which to conclude this post.

So here’s the link to the original Zee news.
(Beware, they’re fans of the pop up windows.)

Thursday, June 1st, 2006 Japan, Japanese News Trackback URL for this entry