These 'food computers' can maximize the deliciousness of your vegetables

Researchers are using artificially intelligent greenhouses to grow vegetables for maximum deliciousness, said Adele Peters at Fast Company. MIT Media Lab has developed "food computers" that constantly adjust their internal climate to find the perfect combination of light, humidity, and nutrients for the specific crop growing inside. The resulting "climate recipes" can be tweaked to make vegetables tastier by boosting a plant's production of specific flavor molecules. Food computers could also make agriculture more sustainable.

"Instead of shipping avocados from Mexico to China, a Chinese greenhouse could precisely re-create a Mexican climate in Beijing." They would also eliminate the need for genetic modification, says Babak Hodjat, CEO of Sentient Technologies, whose software powers the computers. "You’re not messing with the plant's DNA," he says.

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