Ice cream that doesn’t melt

Gastronaut Ice Cream, which comes in a bar, is an organic snack very different from its frozen counterpart, as it can be crumbled in your hands. But once you begin eating it, the product transforms into the ‘exact same sweet and creamy ice cream you’ve known all your life.’

The recipe takes real ice cream which has been freeze-dried to preserve and dehydrates it, with nothing added to it except a pinch of salt. Freeze-drying involves first freezing a food substance and then creating a powerful vacuum before adding heat which draws out the frozen liquid from the food as vapour.

The product name ‘Gastronaut Ice Cream’ combines the word gastronomy — the art of cooking and eating fine food — with the original name for freeze-dried ice cream, ‘Astronaut Ice Cream.’

The Gastronaut range currently consists of three mouth-watering flavours — Mexican Chocolate Chip, Cookies and Cream and Mint Chocolate Chip. Rob Collignon, owner of Gastronaut Foods, said: “This is the only premium organic freeze-dried ice cream on the planet.

Once you take a bite, it absorbs the moisture and transforms into the exact same sweet and creamy ice cream you’ve known all your life — but with no brain freeze.

He added: “Freeze-dried ice cream has traditionally been for astronauts and backpackers, but I’m expanding that to every activity on the planet from living in a van to being in boring meetings.

An uninvited guest in the bathroom!

An Australian family woke up to a bizarre discovery — someone broke into their house and left a 5-1/2-foot crocodile in their bathroom. Homeowner Becky Myers said she and her family members often spot crocodiles near their home in the Bees Creek area of Darwin, but the saltwater croc her tenant discovered in their home recently was the first they had ever found inside the house.

The tenant sent a photo of the croc via Snapchat to Myers’ daughter, Coralie, 16. “I woke up like, ‘Am I dreaming? This can’t be real,’” Coralie Myers told. “I went into bathroom and there’s a croc sitting there on my floor. I didn’t know if it was alive or not — its eyes were open but it wasn’t moving.”

The crocodile was alive, but in poor health. Ita mouth had been taped shut before being abandoned in the bathroom by an unknown prankster.

“The croc didn’t creep me out, the fact someone came in to our house freaked me out,” she said.

Crocodile ranger Tom Nichols said the croc put up a bit of a fight despite its poor health and taped mouth. He said it was taken to a nearby farm for medical attention.

Nichols said the prankster or pranksters could face hefty fines for interfering with wildlife.

Penguin receives special 3D printed walking boot

A Connecticut aquarium teamed up with a 3D printing company and a local middle school to give an injured penguin a special walking boot.

Mystic Aquarium sought help from long-time partner Mystic Middle School, which had recently received a 3D printer from the ACT Group to use resources from 3D Systems to create a boot for ‘Purps the penguin’.

“The students truly amazed us in how their creative thinking, imagination and intuitiveness led this process,” ACT Group Director of Additive Manufacturing Nick Gondek told. The group scanned a cast of Purps’s foot and used the 3D printing software to create a more lightweight boot.

When the process was complete the Mystic Middle School students had learned more about 3D printing and Purps was able to move about more comfortably.

Published in Dawn, Young World, August 20th, 2016