The promising possibilities of 3D printing have extended from rapid prototyping of new products and home manufacturing to the realm of space travel. NASA recently provided a Small Business Innovation Research contract to Anjan Contractor, a mechanical engineer who has been testing the feasibility of using 3D printed food to keep astronauts on long-haul missions fed and healthy.

The first meal in the planning is a 3D printed pizza. Using powdered ingredients with shelf lives of up to 30 years, the 3D printer will lay down a base of dough first which will be instantly baked by a heated plate. The tomato sauce comes next – a powder mixed with water and oil. The final layer is a “protein layer,” which could be made of material obtained from plants, animals or even insects. Apparently, in space, no one can hear you scream for cheese and pepperoni.

Contractor is using the open-source Rep Rap Mendel 3D printer as the basis for his project. The above video is one of his food-printing trials, laying a layer of chocolate onto a cookie. The software he develops will be open-source as well. The food cartridges he creates will have to comply with NASA’s guidelines for meeting astronauts’ nutritional needs for extremely long journeys, such as manned trips to Mars. There’s no telling whether the creations will actually taste like food, but they’ll at least provide the nutrients to keep future space explorers alive on their missions.

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Dunking cookies in milk and eating them is about the best thing in the world, but trying to reach the very bottom of the milk glass has driven reasonable people to madness. Even worse: when there’s milk left in the bottom of the glass, but it’s too far down to dunk cookies in anymore. The Cookie Dunker has come along to reduce the cookie dunking woes of the masses.

The small plastic cup looks a bit like a dessert dish, with its narrow bottom half and much wider top. It all sits on a wide base that makes the cup hard to tip over (which we always manage to do when enjoying cookies). This design was not a purely aesthetic choice; the top, wider portion of the cup allows you to dunk freely or even drink the milk.

When the milk level gets low and fills only the bottom portion, you will find that this part of the cup is precisely the right width and depth to dunk cookies in without getting your hands wet. In fact, thanks to its perfect proportions, the milk at the very bottom is displaced just right to soak your cookie when you push it down in there. The Cookie Dunker won’t solve the big problems like climate change (probably) but it will sure contribute to a happier world so we can finally get busy solving those big problems.

The post Slam Dunk: Ingenious Milk Cup Will Change Cookie Eating first appeared on Gajitz.

Like most bloggers, we’re huge coffee enthusiasts – but taking a big swig of piping hot coffee and getting a burned tongue is a nasty experience no matter how much you love the caffeinated treat. Brilliant designers Yang Dongyun, Wu Yichen, Sang Xinxin, Gu Zhiyu and Lin Xia have come up with a simple way to avoid those awful tongue burns.

The NoHot Cup looks much like a regular lidded coffee cup, but it has one notable difference. The lid features a circle of temperature-sensitive material which expands when it’s hot. When the liquid inside is 80 degrees C (or 176 degrees F), the circle is raised and puffy. Try to drink from the cup when the lid is expanded and you’ll hit your nose, making it difficult to get any coffee into your mouth.

But wait a while until the coffee cools down to around 60 degrees C (140 degrees F) and the circle will disappear, becoming flush against the rest of the lid again. You can drink your coffee comfortably and you don’t have to risk a burn by testing out the temperature. The redesigned lid isn’t yet a product that you can buy, but the concept was a 2012 Red Dot Award: Design Concept winner.

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Whether you’re trying to avoid eye contact with other diners or just can’t stand to stop watching cat videos long enough to slurp down some lunch, there are plenty of reasons to use your iPhone while you’re eating. But because it’s not always possible to prop your phone up and eat at the same time, the Anti-Loneliness Ramen Bowl is now a thing. The bowl, from MisoSoupDesign, is perfect for holding noodles and incorporates a slot on one side that’s the perfect size to hold your iPhone.

Is it a fantastic idea to have your expensive phone so close to a bowl full of wet noodles? Maybe not so much, but with the addition of a sturdy screen protector the bowl can make mealtime a lot more fun. After the food is gone, you can even use the empty bowl as a kind of amplifying speaker for your phone. The Anti-Loneliness Ramen Bowl isn’t for sale just yet, but MisoSoupDesign says that the product will be available to order soon.

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What do you usually do when an important text comes in but you’re walking around drinking your expensive gourmet coffee drink? Set the drink down? Try to balance it between your arm and your torso to free up both hands for typing? An invention that is either totally brilliant or completely insane will make it simple to text with both hands, even when you’re carrying a steaming cup of $8.00 latte.

The UpperCup is the world’s first drink carrier iPhone case. It features a pop-out circular holder for your beverage that looks a lot like the cup holders found in a car. When you need it, it extends away from the case to safely hold your cup while you text. When you’re done with it, it folds flat against your phone.

Provided you are smart enough not to try drinking and texting at the same time, the UpperCup could be the cleverest iPhone case ever. Natwerk, the company behind the invention, is currently raising funds on IndieGoGo for a production run. A $25 or $30 contribution gets you one of the world’s first UpperCup cases, plus the satisfaction of knowing you’re a trendsetter.

The post Brilliant or Crazy? IPhone Case With Built-In Coffee Cup Holder first appeared on Gajitz.