MIT Solved the Ketchup Problem

Alex

No more hitting the 57, Neatoramanauts! Thanks to MIT researchers, pouring ketchup out of a bottle will be easy:

[MIT grad student Dave Smith] and a team of mechanical engineers and nano-technologists at the Varanasi Research Group have been held up in an MIT lab for the last two months addressing this common dining problem.

The result? LiquiGlide, a "super slippery" coating made up of nontoxic materials that can be applied to all sorts of food packaging--though ketchup and mayonnaise bottles might just be the substance’s first targets. Condiments may sound like a narrow focus for a group of MIT engineers, but not when you consider the impact it could have on food waste and the packaging industry. "It’s funny: Everyone is always like, 'Why bottles? What’s the big deal?' But then you tell them the market for bottles--just the sauces alone is a $17 billion market," Smith says. "And if all those bottles had our coating, we estimate that we could save about one million tons of food from being thrown out every year."

Fast Company has the video clip of the fancy schmancy nanotech coating: Link  

Comments (6)

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Interesting, but according to one UK report, the majority of condiment waste breakdown looks something like this:

out of date: 34%
left over after cooking: 26%
left on plate: 20%
(Don't know about the other 20%)

Condiment/Herb offenders sorted by severity are:

Other sauces: 15.4%
Cook-in sauces: 12.2%
Herbs & Spices: 10.9%
Other condiment, spice, sauce, oil or herb: 10.2%
...
Mayonnaise / Salad cream: 4.6%
...
Ketchup: 2.9%

Proportion of the weight of food items purchased that is thrown away (mixed adult households)

Salad: 38.6%
Bakery: 23.9%
Vegetables: 14.7%
Confectionary: 11.1%
Meat and Fish: 10.4%
Condiments: 9.8%
Dried Food: 9.8%
...

Source: http://www.ns.is/ns/upload/files/pdf-skrar/matarskyrsla1.pdf

So, it kind of does look like it was a pet project that the researchers identified with, and the $17 billion (big scary number) is a rationalization after the initial impulse that was then carried out under the pretext of altruism, when in fact it was probably just curiosity and personal identification with the pet-peeves of condiment use.

Apparently the "Bagged Salad & Dressing" market (UK data) reached $10 billion in 2011 and was expected to grow as consumers become more health conscious. 38.6% of $10 billion is greater than 9.8% of $17 billion. Maybe they should have been working on a way to keep salad fresh longer.
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Possible problem: when the bottle is full, you tip it towards your plate and the entire contents slide out, all at once. The ketchup video demo seemed to suggest that would happen. You'd be fine with a squeezy bottle, which can be controlled with the squeezing action, but in open-top bottles the coating seems to be TOO effective.
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So, Nick, you only use it in bottles with a small opening.
Consumers would like it, but do the manufacturers want less waste? After all, they would end up selling less, not to mention the cost of adding the coating.
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WHOAAAAAA!!!!!! Hold on there sparky... I thought the buildings were rigged from the inside, and that it was impossible for 10,000 gallons of jet A fuel to further weaken the supports to the point of collapse????? Now you’re expecting me to believe that the buildings collapsed from 100,000lbs of plane moving at 200mph slamming into it???? Obviously the researchers who created this video are in cahoots with our government in order to calm the minds of its suspecting population.

I don't buy it for a second!!!!!!
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if only some of the columns were weakened, it would have tipped over, not fallen straight down, and it still doesn't explain why everything underneath fell at the speed of gravity.

hey wow, a dig at Rosie! way to label yourself a turd.
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Note that when Nist ran their little simulation, they could only go to the point of collapse, on account of some serious difficulty with, oh hey, those pesky laws of physics...a simulation can ignore the laws of physics, thus does not constitute proof. does not answer the freefall speed question, nor WTC Seven, which even Nist had to back off from. A simulation is just that-a simulation. Not proof. And now only 25% of the building can precipitate a never before seen collapse, of any skyscraper, anywhere in the world? Nice try, though. I think some hill billies might buy it. Man, the offical explanation has changed it's pants, er data, more times...
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It's astounding how many people fuss over the historical fan-fiction of 9/11 being an inside job when so much else is genuinely wrong in the world/with the present U.S. government... Do you really believe that all the people that would have been needed to pull off 9/11-the-consipiracy would have kept quiet/completely covered their tracks? Please, go back to griping about the moon landings or JFK, or at least consider tackling more tangible things like how we wound up in a war in Iraq or why healthcare costs a fortune...
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Watch the wings destroy the vertical steel beams as they make contact inside the building. Someone else pointed it out to me, so I had to look at it twice to confirm. That's indeed the picture they drew.
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a little off topic but I recall a couple years back some researchers were trying to measure the speed of gravity - they concluded that it was the same as the speed of light, but I'm pretty sure the experiment was flawed.
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Hey [deleted - come on, please no name calling - you guys aren't in 3rd grade anymore] instead of attacking me how bout just answering my question. I could really care less as to what any of you think the reason is for the towers falling, i learned long ago that those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still. I just want to know what all the arguments are, so i can decide for myself what i think reality is, and not let someone else decide for me. If you have a good argument please present it to me, don't just attack..... John I have often thought of your argument as well, as far as the logistics of 9-11 being an inside job. How many Americans do you think the government had to convince to pull this plan off? 100,200,maybe just 50 or for arguments sake lets say they rigged all the buildings and the pentagon and the plane in Pennsylvania with just 10 people heck even the terrorist needed 13 but hey they are not as organized as our government are they? Imagine you are one of them, and someone approached you and said hey want to help us kill 3000 fellow Americans? What would you say? Do you really think it would be possible to keep all of those people quiet? Don't you think they would have been able to find 1 person that would have come forward and said yes i was one of the people that helped murder over 3000 of my fellow Americans and i am ashamed of it. I mean come on if I had Rosie's money i would have paid someone by now to come forward and admit they were part of the big conspiracy.........
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Well said, JDJK. It's incredible how these cockroaches come out of the woodwork, defending the crazed Rosie O.D. theories and calling people turds because they buy into the moronic idea that it was an inside job. The sort of sick mind that believes that venal nonsense is far, FAR more cynical than the evil hate-filled portraits they paint of Bush, Cheney et al. It's sick to have that much hate and cynicism in one's heart.
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Squirrels were responsible for the whole thing. They strapped on tiny suicide bombs and catapulted themselves at the buildings.

See the recent squirrel posts here for further proof.
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Building 7? nah, nevermind. Most of the people here like living in the realities created for them by the government, and mainstream media. Keep buying into it, keep defending it, and by all means don't even look into the existence of building 7, or why it fell. Stay focused on the towers and their connection to Iraq. Stay focused on muddying the issue, and scapegoating it into an anti-Rosie rant. Bill O Reilly would be proud. The reason we are in Iraq is September 11th, the reason why people supported the war in Iraq was september 11th, Cheney said previously that an invasion of Iraq would be impossible to sell outside a "catalyzing event, such as a new Pearl Harbor" that event took place. Both the 911 commision and NIST report can't explain why building 7 fell. So ask yourself, who benefits from september 11th, and who has lost. The truth of what the government actually does will always be worse than what's fit for mainstream consumption. Maybe it was an inside job, maybe it wasn't, but perhaps it may be prudent to further study the catalyzing event which whipped a country into war, and has subsequently killed thousands more, and created a war without end. The problem with those who like to toe the Bush administration line is that they rarely seek out any differing opinions. I'm interested in both sides. not throwing mud.
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Guys, 9/11 was an inside job formulated by those who really run our government...

The Lochness Monster and Bigfoot!!

Apparently people were getting too close to discovering them so they created 9/11 to distract the public!!

Yeah thats it...

(keeps his eyes peeled for UFO's flown by Ghosts)
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Look at the period when the plane is moving through the building. The floor directly above the plane is pulled down towards the plane. Why is it moving at the same speed that the plane is moving forward? Acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 meters per second squared. The falling material is moving way too fast.
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Another MAJOR INSIGHT is that these studies were funded by government sources. The same sources that gave you the 911 COMMISION'S OFFICIAL CONSPIRACY and its nothing but more hot air.

http://www.infowars.com/articles/sept11/purdue_sim_full_of_hot_air.htm

And a rebuttal. But the "LOYALTY THEORISTS" out there can't be bothered with annoying things like scientific facts.

http://www.infowars.com/articles/sept11/purdue_sim_911_study_rebuttal.htm
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