| How Mexican Food Conquered America Posted: 24 Apr 2012 03:03 PM PDT 
In Gustavo Arellano’s new book, Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, he explains our love of all things folded into a tortilla. NPR’s Carolina Miranda recently joined him for a 150-mile tour of Southern California’s taco trail, visiting cultural touchstones in the evolution of the Mexican snack in America. Stop One: Cielito Lindo Food Stand, Olvera Street, Los Angeles Since the 1930s, this tiny stand — located in the heart of historic L.A. — has been famous for its rolled, fried taquitos, covered in avocado sauce. Arellano thinks of the food stand as a Plymouth Rock of tacos, one place where the Mexican staple met a broader American audience. Cielito Lindo’s taquitos quickly gained a following among Mexicans and non-Mexicans alike. “People all over Southern California started copying it,” Arellano says. “The exact same way to fry it, the avocado salsa, everything.” Americans had discovered the taco. 
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| A Vending Machine for Everything Posted: 24 Apr 2012 03:01 PM PDT 
OC Register: A local company aims to make dispensing medical marijuana as simple and secure as a withdrawal from an ATM. Aliso Viejo’s Dispense Labs unveiled today the Autospense, an automated dispensary that looks like a vending machine. Founder Joe DeRobbio prefers to call it a “dispensing system.” With its proprietary software and security features, he said, the Autospense bears little resemblance to a break-room snack vendor. “These are very sophisticated machines,” he said. The self-contained systems could be located anywhere, DeRobbio said, and the company will likely lease them to qualified dispensaries for $1,500-$2,000 a month. To use, patients must swipe a registration card, then enter a PIN number. Payment may be made with cash, credit or debit, then a door opens to release the product. For after-hours purchases, the Autospense must be surrounded by a vending cage that is only accessibly by swiping the registration card. Fingerprint recognition offers one more step of security. 
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| Las Vegas: Medical Tourism Posted: 24 Apr 2012 12:45 PM PDT 
Medical Tourism Mag: Medical tourism has been on Southern Nevada's radar for more than a decade, but only recently have the medical community and the tourism industry coordinated efforts well enough to begin turning the concept into reality and make medical tourism into a bona fide piece of Gov. Brian Sandoval’s economic diversification package. For years, medical tourism in Southern Nevada languished. It had the "tourism" part of the equation down, but the “medical” part was lacking. Everybody's heard the old joke: Where is the best place to go for medical treatment in Southern Nevada? McCarran International Airport. But now, through a series of initiatives by several parties, McCarran is the gateway for people coming to Las Vegas for medical care. Photo by ruigsantos/ShutterStock. 
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| This Math Class Has No Instructors… Posted: 24 Apr 2012 12:07 PM PDT 
and it meets in a mall! The Bend Bulletin: has more There are no professors in Virginia Tech's largest classroom, only a sea of computers and red plastic cups. In the Math Emporium, the computer is king, and instructors are reduced to roving guides. Lessons are self-paced, and help is delivered "on demand" in a vast, windowless lab that is open 24 hours a day because computers never tire. A student in need of human aid plants a red cup atop a monitor. The Emporium is the Wal-Mart of higher education, a triumph in economy of scale and a glimpse at a possible future of computer-led learning. Eight thousand students a year take introductory math in a space that once housed a discount department store. Four math instructors, none of them professors, lead seven courses with enrollments of 200 to 2,000. Students walk to class through a shopping mall, past a health club and a tanning salon, as ambient Muzak plays. Sounds weird, but Virginia Tech students pass introductory math courses at a higher rate now than 15 years ago, when the Emporium was built. Can’t beat that. 
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| The Car Wash for Cows Posted: 24 Apr 2012 11:54 AM PDT British farmers are aiming to milk profits and boost productivity with this latest agricultural machine – a car wash for cows. The industrial-sized device features a huge swinging “cow brush” similar to those used to clean vehicles and lorries. It is fixed inside a barn and herds of cows can pass through and receive a thorough cleaning one at a time. The designers claim that the grooming device makes cattle more healthy and stops the spread of disease. 
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| The Golden Age of the Inventor Posted: 24 Apr 2012 11:25 AM PDT 
NY Times: America has always been the land of tinkerers, from Benjamin Franklin and Henry Ford to Steve Jobs and the guy who created the Flowbee. But today's basement inventors have it easy in ways their predecessors couldn't have imagined. In the past, someone with a new idea would have had to actually build the thing themselves, find a market for it and figure out how to get it mass-produced. Now inexpensive technology means that anybody can quickly transform an idea into a physical product. Google SketchUp makes it easy for even the sloppiest untrained draftsperson to mock up a 3-D digital model. Any inventor can contact a Chinese factory, many of which are so hungry for American business that they will create a prototype for next to nothing. Sites like Etsy.com make it easier to reach a market, and others, like Quirky.com, allow users to simply suggest an idea and share the royalties if it makes it to the market. This environment approaches the ideal economy that Adam Smith wrote about — one in which size and power don't always beat good ideas in the market. Comprehensive data are difficult to come by, but the largest inventor's organization, the United Inventors Association, says their membership has tripled to 12,000 in the last 18 months. This spike is undoubtedly due in part to the economic slowdown and high unemployment, but the new tools seem likely to inspire a permanent increase in amateur inventing when the economy starts growing more aggressively (whenever that is). This is good news for noninventors too. Many of the things that make life better started off in the brain of some lonely experimenter: the steam engine, airplanes, antibiotics, maybe even self-supporting lollipop holders. Photo by Kostia/ShutterStock. 
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| Today in Entrepreneurial History: April 24 Posted: 24 Apr 2012 09:07 AM PDT 
- 1704 – The first regular newspaper in the United States, the News-Letter, is published in Boston, Massachusetts.
- 1800 – The United States Library of Congress is established when President John Adams signs legislation to appropriate $5,000 USD to purchase “such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress”.
- 1885 – American sharpshooter Annie Oakley was hired by Nate Salsbury to be a part of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.
- 1922 – The first segment of the Imperial Wireless Chain providing wireless telegraphy between Leafield in Oxfordshire, England, and Cairo, Egypt, comes into operation.
- 2005 – Snuppy, the world’s first cloned dog, is born in South Korea.
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