The question “what’s in your fridge” may seem like a simple one, but the answers are as varied as the people you ask.

“It’s pretty empty,” answered one student in the ASUCD Coffee House.

“Oh god, it’s embarrassing!” said another.

“I don’t even know,” said a third.

That third response brings up an interesting idea. What if there was an easy way we could keep track of what was in our fridge? That is exactly what a group of hackers at UC San Diego set out to do for the Yahoo! HackU competition. In this instance, ‘hack’ does not mean to break into an electronic system, but to hack something together.

The competition is a 24-hour race between teams to create a hack that will, according to the Yahoo! HackU webpage, revolutionize an industry or at least make the judges laugh.

The UCSD team hack consisted of modifying a refrigerator with pressure sensors and a tiny computer processor that wirelessly sends the pressure data to a web server. The team also created a website to visually represent the sensor data. When something is placed in the fridge, a question mark appears on the website and the user tells the program what is on that sensor.

The team also optimized the website for mobile devices, making it easy to keep track of your fridge contents on the go.

“Say you’re at the grocery store and you need to remember what you need to buy. It would be nice to have a way to know what’s in your fridge at all times,” said David Vanoni, team leader for the UCSD team, in a post-victory UCSD press release.

Davis students responded well to the idea of a fridge keeping track of their food.

“I want an app that tells me when my leftovers spoil. There are some funky smells in [my fridge],” said one Davis student.

Another Davis student wanted an app that kept track of their food’s expiration dates.

Although these are all potential ideas for the future, the UCSD team only had 24 hours to create their program, so they kept their program as simple as possible.

Future versions of their program may include weight sensors to automatically identify what is placed in the fridge, barcode scanners to retrieve nutritional information about the food and may even implement some of the ideas that the Davis students mentioned.

This “smart fridge” is the beginning of the futuristic smart-kitchen concept. In a smart-kitchen, appliances could communicate, create meals based on available ingredients and tailor meals to users’ dietary needs. The system could even keep track of your favorite foods and automatically order them when you are running low. And it could all be controlled from a smartphone or central console.

One of the more interesting features of the UCSD hack is a social network component called Fridge Connect that will allow you to “connect” with your friends’ fridges and generate recipes based on the combined ingredients. This takes the idea of borrowing a neighbor’s cup of sugar to the next level.

If the UCSD team did all this in just 24 hours, imagine what they could do with 48 hours, or a week or a year?

HUDSON LOFCHIE can be reached at science@theaggie.org.

Looking to become healthier and fitter this summer? There are apps for that.

MyFitnessPal

With close to 95,000 likes on Facebook, MyFitnessPal may be the most popular app out there for simple calorie-tracking. After users have entered their current stats, activity level and ideal weight, MyFitnessPal then computes a suggested daily caloric intake to achieve that desired goal. The app boasts that users can log their consumed foods from its database of over 750,000 items. A wide range of exercise activities can also be tracked and graphed.

This free app is available on Apple iOS devices, Google Android and Blackberry. Meals and exercises can also be logged at myfitnesspal.com.

Adidas miCoach

Using GPS and real-time coaching, miCoach allows you to stay motivated with audio feedback, such as race time or running speed to guide you through a workout or sports practice. Users can select their desired workout plan to improve speed or stamina and can still listen to music.

The miCoach app is free and available on iOS4 devices, Android and Blackberry. Runs can also be tracked and shared on miCoach.com

EVA TAN can be reached at science@theaggie.org.

This column is not about the end of the school year. This is not about my stress over graduation or my bittersweet thoughts regarding the end of my time at The California Aggie.

This column is about the end and the trouble scientists have determining when, exactly, the end is.

Some animals have a very certain end. Mayflies, for example, flit about on their elegant, glassy wings for only about a day. They find each other on chilly spring or fall nights, mate, lay eggs and then die.

On the other side of the lifespan spectrum are certain species of jellyfish and microscopic lake animals called hydra. These animals are called “immortal” for their ability to replace cells indefinitely. A jellyfish species called Turritopsis dohrnii goes through a process called transdifferentiation, which allows it to regenerate its entire body. When the jellyfish starts feeling old and creaky, it turns back into its youthful, polyp form and its cells start building a fresh body.

The fact that some animals seem to live forever has some scientists wondering why there has to be an end to human life at all.

Unless you’re a hydra or some freaky jellyfish, you will die. Scientists have kept a pretty good record of maximum animal lifespans. Mice live up to four years. Cats can live for 36. The oldest wild chimpanzee was 59, and an Asian elephant made it to 86. Humans can live a maximum of 122 years, followed by the lobster at 170 and the koi fish at 200.

Death is in our genes.

In the 1970s, geneticists Elizabeth Blackburn and Joseph Gall discovered that a tiny bit of DNA that bookends our chromosomes is responsible for aging. The DNA bookends, often compared to the little plastic nubs on the ends of shoelaces, are called telomeres. Telomeres hold repetitive sequences of DNA that don’t actually code for anything – sequences nicknamed “junk DNA.” Blackburn and Gall found that when chromosomes are copied during cell division, the telomeres get shorter.

After a certain number of cell divisions, telomeres simply get too short to divide again and the cell dies.

Turns out telomeres are far from junk.

This small-scale death is usually a good thing. When chromosomes copy, there’s always a chance of mutation. Too many divisions increase the chance of a mutation that will cause a disease like cancer. By limiting the number of cell divisions and chromosome replications, telomeres act as safety devices. On average, human cells can only divide 52 times.

Even knowing the important role of telomeres, some scientists want to know if it’s possible to keep cells dividing forever.

In 2004, a team of scientists from Korea did an experiment where they genetically engineered a species of roundworm to over-express a protein called HRP-1. This protein gradually increased the telomere length in the worms, and they lived several weeks longer than their non-mutated friends. These super worms even passed the trait to their offspring.

And in 2010, Harvard scientists tried an experiment where they bred genetically engineered mice that lacked the enzyme that shortens telomeres. Without the enzyme, the mice aged prematurely and suffered cell damage. But when the scientists injected fresh enzymes into the mice, aging reversed. The Benjamin Button mice even grew new brain cells, an unusual process in mice and humans.

Telomeres are important, but imagine a future where they’ve found a cure for cancer and a way to lengthen human telomeres. When would life end?

Maybe never.

MADELINE McCURRY-SCHMIDT can be reached at science@theaggie.org.