"make" news and stories

If you ever happen to find yourself with 7,200 -- that's 600 dozen -- bananas, you could bake a year's worth of banana bread for you, your family, friends, neighbors, and probably people you don't know, or you can create a work of art like Stefan Sagmeister's.

The artist's work, which includes this banana wall thing (I have no idea what to call it -- a sculpture?) are on display at Deith in NYC. All 7,200 of the bananas are real, and according to Make, "it smelled like 7,200 bananas too, slightly rotting." There are more pictures on flickr.

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Continuing with the industrious, DIY-style posts of a few days ago, here's a Make post with instructions for a meat dehydrator made from a milk crate. Of course, there are a few other components, like a PC fan, t-shirts, some bicycle inner tubes, and some sleeping pad foam. Amazingly enough, I think I have all of that stuff around my house. Not all of it is technically mine, but who would care about their useless bike and an overheated computer when they've got fresh jerky? Coincidentally enough, the Make page links back to the culinary commandos at Instructables. Thankfully, they're still using their skills for the forces of good, or at least jerky.

The do-it-yourselfers over at Make recently fielded an interesting question about whether or not LEDs in refrigerators can stimulate photosynthesis in fruits and vegetables. The idea was sparked by a Mitsubishi home refrigerator with orange LED lights in the crisper. The claim is that certain wavelengths of light will help keep produce fresher and maintain its nutritional value longer by triggering photosynthesis. The question posed to Make is, "Does this work and if so can't we just do it at home in our own refrigerators?" So far, the only reply comes from The Food Geek, who seems reasonably confident that it could work. As a side note, that Mitsubishi fridge also comes with UV light that will supposedly kill bacteria in your ice.