Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"The idea I want to push next is that the United States should make Siberia a Protectorate. Pay the Russians off – a hundred, two hundred billion dollars – and simply run Siberia in an ecologically responsible way."
- Gregory Benford
 |
| Happicuppa Coffee Bush | ||
| A species of coffee bush designed for ease of harvesting. |
| ...the Happicuppa coffee bush was designed so that all of its beans could ripen simultaneously, and coffee could be grown on huge plantations and harvested with machines. This threw the small growers out of business and reduced both them and their labourers to starvation-level poverty. |
| From Oryx and Crake,
by Margaret Atwood. Published by Nan A. Talese in 2003 Additional resources -
|
Mechanical harvesters have been in development since the 1960's; good results have been seen since the 1980's. However, the continuing problem is that the beans on a given plant can vary by several months. Some growers who use mechanical harvesters use a strategy that utilzes a number of passes some weeks apart. The beans on the top of the plant tend to ripen first.
SF fans, don't forget about coffiest (Pohl and Kornbluth) and syn-cof (Philip K. Dick).
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Oryx and Crake
More Ideas
and Technology by Margaret Atwood
Tech news articles related to Oryx and Crake
Tech news articles related to works by Margaret Atwood
| Worms Eat Plastic Now |
| Mini-Brains In A Dish |
| NASA's Prototype Lunar Greenhouse For Mars And Moon |
| Researchers Say 'Biohybrid Robot' - Clarke Said 'Biot' |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'About a third of the people in Manhattan have replaced their Freedom Card with a radio-frequency chip...'
'The... machine, being homotropic, headed toward them, still bleating...'
'Most of the crew have the tiny imp ride on their shoulder...'
'And just as a daydreamer forgets his actual surroundings, and sees other realities...'
'Ender doodled on his desk, drawing contour maps of mountainous islands and then telling his desk to display them in three dimensions...'
'The bulldozer moved through the lunar strip mine... '
