Posted on 09/21/2015 6:19:35 AM PDT by WhiskeyX
Improbably Research, a comical science mag, awards the Ig Nobel Prize to honor "achievements that make people laugh, then make them think" -- sort of like a quirky Nobel Prize.
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Among the winners this year is Professor Colin Raston -- who figured out how to unboil an egg.
Boiling or cooking an egg is normally considered a chemical change, which is any change that results in the formation of new chemical substances -- and it's usually pretty irreversible.
Professor Raston pretty much just blew our minds on that one -- but how did he do it?
(Excerpt) Read more at aol.com ...
Unless he actually hatched a chick from the “unboiled” egg (he didn’t), then I’m not buying the premise.
OK - interesting problem in physics and physical chemistry.
Essentially the protein in egg whites, albumin, goes from a liquid (sol) to a semi-solid (gel) state, by the removal of some molecules of water. This process reverses the direction of the reaction, forcing the protein to accept additional water, reverting from the gel form to the sol form.
Science, ANY science, is far from ever being “settled”. There are reproducible outcomes within certain parameters, but change the parameters sufficiently, and behavior of various elements and compounds is altered to the point that some previously unpredicted outcomes become possible.
We CAN make cabbages out of asteroids.
Which came first- the boiled or un boiled egg?
If this is real, and it seems to be, then it is truly something new under the sun.
I would have thought that adding an anti-coagulant would be obvious. They do it for blood clots. It would be the same for egg whites. But why would anyone want to do it?
Big deal. Let’s see him unring a bell.
This only applies to the whites, not the yolk.
But can he undo a fertilized egg - like the one that became Barack Obama?
Impressed!
Now let’s see them put it back in the shell.
but can he unscramble an omelette?
“This only applies to the whites, not the yolk.”
White privilege again.
The same thing often happens after picking someone up at the bar on any given Saturday night.
Make a live body out of a dead one, and then I’ll pay attention...
...especially if they moan and keep mentioning “brains, brains!”
‘Can he core a apple?’
“Big deal. Let’s see him unring a bell.”
Done - noise cancelling technology. Bose makes some beautiful headphones for that, and subs have systems that do just that.
“I can turn back the hands of time, you better believe I can.
I can make the seasons change, just by waving my hand.
O, I can change anything from old to new.
The things I want to do the most, I’m unable to do.
Can’t unboil an egg,
Can’t unboil an egg”
~Temptations
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