The New New Thing

As you wolf down chips at summertime picnics, it’s nice to know that Pentagon futurists are busy working on a whole other kind of chip for hungry soldiers. Army scientists want to develop a “grocery store on a chip” for use during battle.

The dime-size wafer, not expected before 2025, would store micronutrients in hundreds of mini-reservoirs. After the wafer is swallowed, built-in sensors would respond to various chemicals, acids and proteins in the G.I.’s gut signaling hunger. A resulting small electrical charge would dissolve a thin gold cap on a reservoir, releasing the needed nutrients.

Scientists at the Pentagon’s COMBAT FEEDING PROGRAM in Natick, Mass., say the chip could also carry “nutraceuticals.” Those are pharmaceutically enhanced foods to better performance, improve autoimmune responses or cut combat-related stress. Now, if only they could make them in sour-cream-and-onion flavor.

–By Mark Thompson/Washington