A gummy candy tastes like a fruit that doesn’t exist

As if there weren’t enough fruits in the world, Japanese sweets maker Kanro recently came up with imaginary fruits to add flavours to their candies.

The company launched a new type of gummy candy that tastes like ‘Kiraspika no Mi’, a made-up fruit with an original flavour, design and even an origin story!

According to the Kanro official website, the star-shaped Kiraspika only grows in the mountainous region of Blue Knife, where temperatures drop to -50 degrees Celsius in winter.

It is very difficult to obtain, as when the fruit ripens, on a full-moon night around the winter solstice, the fruit explodes as a mechanism to spread its seeds. Pieces of the fruit fly at a speed of 300 metres per second, and a direct hit can be fatal.

Everything about Kiraspika was invented in Kanro’s fruit lab where its flavour experts combined various existing flavours to create an entirely original one that tastes like nothing you’ve ever eaten.

The Kiraspika-flavoured gummy candy has a mysterious sweetness combined with a sliced sourness, but many of those who have tried

it have their own description of the taste.

To some, it tastes like an energy drink, others say it tastes a bit like a spicy apple, while some compare its sweetness to that of cherry gummies, combined with a tongue-numbing spiciness. It is the mystery of the flavour and the personal interpretations that make Kanro’s product so popular.

World’s largest grilled cheese sandwich

A pair of Wisconsin brothers led their friends and family in the creation of a massive grilled cheese sandwich measuring 10.9 feet long and 6.25 feet wide.

Exodus Chaudhry, 11, and brother Iggy, 10, stars ofThe Exodus and Iggy Showon YouTube,used a custom-welded pan, more than 300 pounds of dough and 60 pounds of cheese to create the 2.75-inch-thick sandwich.

The brothers aimed to break the Guinness World Record forlargest grilled cheese sandwich, which was set by Cabot Creamery of Vermont in 2000 with one that measured 10 feet long, 5 feet wide and 2.5 inches thick.

The Chaudhry brothers’ record attem­pt raised money for local food banks.

Bipedal robot workers in Amazon warehouses

As part of its ongoing efforts to integrate robotics into its gigantic warehouse operations, Amazon recently began experimenting with a bipedal robot called Digit, to do the most repetitive tasks.

Amazon warehouse employees have been working alongside robots. The company’s BFI1 experimental facility in Sumner, Washington, is using Digit, a new type of humanoid robot developed by Agility Robotics, a startup based in Corvallis, Oregon. Standing 5ft 9in (175cm) tall and weighing 143lb (65kg), Digit can walk forwards, backward and sideways, and can also crouch if it needs to. It has two arms, two legs, a blue chest and two square lights for eyes, and is currently tasked only with recycling the iconic yellow boxes once they have been emptied of inventory.

The company insists that Digit is meant to work alongside humans, not replace them.

Published in Dawn, Young World, November 11TH, 2023