Plumpy Nut - Helping feed the hungry around the world

 If you are now aware of Plump Nut, here's an introduction. This is a simple mix of peanut butter, milk, sugar, vitamins and minerals, that is in the form of a paste. It can be stored at room temperature and has a good taste, especially to children. Groups like Doctors Without Borders use plumpy nut in places of extreme poverty and hunger in order to quickly build up the nutrition of their diets. This has been highly effective for a number of years with severely hungry and malnourished children, where a couple weeks of plumpy nut can revitalize their health and energy levels. 

I have always loved this example as one where it is sometimes the 'simplest' solution that can solve real problems. Can you come up with simple, creative ways of solving an important problem? It is so tempting to overthink problems, and assume one needs fancy equipment, technologies or mathematics to reach a solution - and often it just take some common sense and trial and error to develop a simple solution. It reminds me of early in the space race, when the US spent all sorts of money to build pens that could write in space, whereas the Soviets used pencils. Einstein was a fan of thinking conceptually about a problem in as simple a way as possible, and then add in the math after a simple physical model was in his head.