BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!

Subject: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Aug 12 - 12:24 PM

Scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have solved a problem that has stumped the world for a century.
A team of engineers, chemists and physicists have invented "LiquiGlide," a nonstick lining for glass bottles that allows the sauce, e. g., Ketchup, to slide right out.
The researchers note that the material is harmless, "even if you scraped it off and ate it."
New York Times Magazine, August 5, 2012; Don't Hit the 57," Hope Reeves.

These scientists should be first in line for the next Nobel Prize in Chemistry for solving a problem of Einsteinian complexity.

Can you think of other great scientific breakthroughs that have solved problems that trouble mankind?

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 16 Aug 12 - 01:11 PM

But a simpler solution would be to sell things like ketchup in margarine tub-shaped containers with a clip-on lid, so you can access all parts of the container with a spoon.

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: GUEST,999
Date: 16 Aug 12 - 01:17 PM

Q, do you know if it would work on divers' facemasks? (If so, it might also work on firefighters' BA masks to keep them de-fogged.) I guess I'm asking just how slippery is slippery.

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: Wesley S
Date: 16 Aug 12 - 01:27 PM

I'm still hoping that someone will invent an invisible cone of silence that will surround a cell phone while it's being used...

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Aug 12 - 01:31 PM

Eliza, that is a recipe for dirty spoon syndrome.

(And those little squeeze bags of Ketchup lead to smelly, sticky hands).

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Aug 12 - 02:24 PM

Simple 'great invention'... the flip feature rear-view mirror in cars to cut down on headlight glare at night.

The multi-speed windshield wiper. (I saw an entire pile of hand-operated wipers at a surplus store where I worked. You had to stick your arm out the window and move a lever.)

Automatic turn signals. (who remembers having to stick your arm out the window for signaling? My parents did it until 1951)

dozens more odd little inventions that are so common we forget we once did without them.

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: Amos
Date: 16 Aug 12 - 03:05 PM

PErhaps the ultimate in elegance, simplicity, utility and popularity is the simple church-key or beer opener. Until pull tabs came into their own. Or perhaps it was the bobby pin or the paper clip.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: Joe_F
Date: 16 Aug 12 - 03:29 PM

Plastic bags

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: MarkS
Date: 16 Aug 12 - 04:29 PM

Nah

Ultimate breakthrough has to be the thermos bottle.

You put stuff in hot, it comes out hot.

You put stuff in cold, it comes out cold.

How does it know?????

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Aug 12 - 07:29 PM

The flush toilet?

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 16 Aug 12 - 10:35 PM

As a nitpicking grouch, it should be pointed out that nearly all of the above cited stuff is properly called "technology" rather than science, although some of these things are based on good science.

"Science" is the stuff more akin to the recent research that showed that men under stress are attracted to "chubbier" women than men who are more relaxed, and the more stress they are under the "fluffier" the ones they find most interesting.

(I'm still trying to figure out what technology can be developed to apply this new and very important knowledge. There must be a way to use this to benefit the whole of humankind, and I'm sure the Gates foundation - or someone similar - will fund development of my idea if I can come up with one.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: Amos
Date: 16 Aug 12 - 10:40 PM

Easy-- spectacles that detect, through micr4o sensors in the templates, what your level of stress is and warp the images of women you see through them fatter or thinner accordingly! You could call them "FearGoggles"...

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: Amos
Date: 16 Aug 12 - 11:26 PM

But back to the subject, surely one of the really great scientific breakthroughs of all time was the constancy of g and its uniform acceleration on all masses. To think the same guy ALSO proved the solar system was heliocentric, among other things! Wodda dude!!

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 17 Aug 12 - 03:20 AM

'Dirty spoon syndrome' Q? Surely when you use a spoon for any purpose you wash it afterwards? I wasn't suggesting one leaves the spoon in the tub permanently!

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: Penny S.
Date: 17 Aug 12 - 06:56 AM

I think the major problem with broad topped tubs for ketchup and salad cream, etc, would be the oxidisation of the top layer of the sauces, with discolouration, change of flavour, and general yuckiness, causing wasting of the mass of the product. Not to mention colonisation by various fungi. People wouldn't continue buying the stuff under those conditions.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 17 Aug 12 - 01:39 PM

Very true Penny, I hadn't thought of that. I suppose a narrow-necked bottle-type container minimises contamination. I often put a drop or two of vinegar in the blessed thing and shake it up a bit to dilute it so the last amount can come out. My old hands find it increasingly hard to manipulate bottle, jar and container tops. Poor old hubbie gets the job usually!

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: Ed T
Date: 17 Aug 12 - 04:35 PM

I believe Heinz solved the "Ketchup -aks catshp- slide problem" in 1983, with the introduction of the low-tech squeeze bottle. Possibly the scientists/inventers were too busy working late in the lab to "catch up" on the earlier solution (if that was the problem they attempted to solve)?

1983

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: bobad
Date: 17 Aug 12 - 05:42 PM

A major breakthrough in maser technology has the potential to revolutionize medical imaging, radio telescopes for searching for extraterrestrial intelligence, communication technology and a myriad of yet unconceived applications.

Scientific American

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 17 Aug 12 - 06:28 PM

Ah, but if you make all of the ketchup inside slide out, you are eliminating "tret" (the name for the product left behind). If you do that, you are going to bankrupt the ketchup companies, methinks! The tret represents a good deal of their profit!

And another "ah, but": Various ketchup companies have experimented with wider-mouthed bottles. They found that the public wouldn't buy ketchup in the wide-mouth bottles, presumably because it wasn't what their childhood experience had taught them was the proper container for "real ketchup".

Which I'm sure caused the ketchup manufacturers to breathe a huge sigh of relief! And probably drove their stock prices up, too.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: EBarnacle
Date: 17 Aug 12 - 06:36 PM

To toot my own horn, turning humidity into potable water in usable quantities.

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 18 Aug 12 - 01:21 AM

Since I have not in my adult life purposely used catsup, I don't know if it is still hard to pour. But I do use 57 Steak Sauce and A-1 Steak sauce (usually on french fries); it does pour more easily than, say, sixty years ago. While I have no actual information that it's true, I believe that somewhere along the line it was reformulated to be less viscous...probably around the time they added additives to allow it not go bad even if kept for two generations after opening.

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Aug 12 - 12:25 PM

...which makes me wonder if this new slick coating can be used on/in glass AND plastic. Some sauces..etc... are not in plastic at all. Some are only in plastic.

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 18 Aug 12 - 04:26 PM

(Geriatric alert) Does anyone remember those plastic tomatoes in the early Wimpy bars in UK? You squirted the ketchup out of the green stalk at the top. We used to think them ever so modern and with-it. And the Wimpys themselves seemed delicious to us. They were tiny, like a beer mat. Americans would think they were pathetic I expect.

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Aug 12 - 05:17 PM

It should be easy to find reports on the finals for the first round of the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation's competition to develop an eco-friendly potty. A couple of the winners (and maybe some of the losers) appear to be headed for much needed commercialization.

I cannot suggest a more important development than a decent place to take a CRAP, and large portions of the world population "ain't got no place to GO."

John

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Aug 12 - 05:22 PM

OOPS: That's Bill and Melinda Gates ...

Apologies for typing faster than I was thinking.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Aug 12 - 07:14 PM

Many years ago...like about 40, there was a paperback book called "The Bathroom", which was an analysis of how to update the entire place... with special emphasis on the toilet. I had it for years, but it's gone and I have never seen a copy since. It was a study of ergonomic ideas as well as technology......

(it was a blue book, and fairly thick)

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: gnu
Date: 18 Aug 12 - 08:06 PM

Bill D... that's the shits!

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: Ed T
Date: 28 Aug 12 - 10:19 AM

What if the Earth were Hollow?

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: Penny S.
Date: 28 Aug 12 - 10:28 AM

I regularly buy ketchup and salad cream in widemouthed squeezy bottles designed to stand upside down. The actual delivery is through a narrow nozzle, but at the end one can remove the lid and scrape. Can't ever get it all out, though. But it does stop what someone once described in verse...

Tomato sauce, you shake the bottle,
First none comes, and then a lot'll.

I don't think many people are turning down the opportunity to buy this way.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: Ed T
Date: 28 Aug 12 - 10:48 AM

If Earth were hollow, would ketchup come out of the bottom better?

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Aug 12 - 11:40 AM

Maeve found the book on "The Bathroom" at Amazon!

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 07:13 PM

A number of "tech reporters" have recently touted the "invention" of the Smartype keyboard, which they say will "revolutionise" keyboarding.

A description is at Smartype Keyboard

The article asserts that this is from the same guy who "invented the flash drive" and sold the invention for about 2*10E6 bucks, which does show some talent(or luck?) but I'm afraid I give this "invention" little in the way of prospects. Although I could be wrong.

When I was about 9 or 10 years old my very much older sister now too senile to ever answer my emails got herself signed into a high school typing class, and my parents bought her a (cheap) portable typewriter. Once, when she left town for the weekend, she left the typewriter and her "how-to-do-it-for-idiots" textbook on a table at home. I spent the weekend (about 6 hours) "teaching myself" to type. (And carefully put my sister's last page back in the typewriter and lined it up carefully so she never knew.)

That was sufficient that - until the appearance of the lousy keyboards most common on laptops - I've never needed to look at the keyboard, and once "tested" at 128 wpm on a mechanical typewriter. (The young lady who tested me as a joke had just won a new IBM selectric by typing >1200 wpm in a contest, so there was "office discussion" about our relative skills and several of us submitted to her tests, but she wouldn't let us use her new typewriter.)

The recent trend to "idiotize" most programs does perhaps portend an era when even fewer people will be willing to learn simple skills, so there's some hope for the concept in mass distribution. Of course with so many skills to learn, there will always be some usefulness for those who "never got around to it," and certainly there are those of us who know how but are just too feeble (or crippled by excessive fretting and such) to still use former abilities. The expected market once would have been rather small, but it's probably a great idea for the newbies.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 07:18 PM

Almost unworthy of mention, a "new technoloical development" is reported as World's Longest Bus can carry 256 Passengers.

I forsee significant problems for bus schedulers, since the front end will need to be scheduled for Monday arrivals, while the A** end won't get there 'till Wednesday - (but then published schedules have never been all that accurate, I guess).

There is a fairly nice photo at the link.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 07:26 PM

SOMETHING WORTH NOTICING!!!

Have three little photons broken theoretical physics?

The article reports that three photons that arrived within a couple of miliseconds of each other, from what is believed to be a single source that is believed to have been 7 billion light years away are believed to have arrived undistorted by the "fuzziness" that has been believed to be a fundamental characteristic of the space-time continuum.

The article is too long to post; but almost unbelievably, it seems to explain in very simple language that should be understandable by almost all here who might be interested - why this is of significance.

A good article to read, even if it turns out to be wrong(???).

John

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: gnu
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 07:46 PM

It's late on Friday night. Goldilocks and the Three Photons may have to wait until tomorrow as Goldilocks and the Three Buds may be along soon. Priorities, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: Bill D
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 10:40 PM

Long buses... in the Greater Wash. DC area, we have something similar to this thing operating now. Only on certain routes and usually at rush hour... but quite common.

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 10:57 PM

The US Army tried out the "train" concept back in the 50s, with very little success; but what they built was certainly longer than what the news is touting as "longest bus." Of course the Army thing wasn't intended for communters.

Several cities have used articulated buses for quite a while, with varying reports of how effective they really have been. This one is a little longer than ones I've seen in operation. There's little reason why it couldn't work for a few suitable routes; but I can't see ones of this size being very widely used.

Best use for something carrying that many passengers would likely be between cities, but all previous large articulated vehicles have suffered from a tendency to "wag their tails" at higher speeds, and this one doesn't appear to be intended for that kind of usage.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 11:12 PM

Articulated buses, popularly called bendy buses, were introduced to London in June 2002 when the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, introduced new Mercedes-Benz Citaros to Red Arrow commuter services 507 and 521. While articulated bus operation had been standard in several other countries, the UK had only sparingly tried their use, so their introduction in London caused a lot of press attention.

In 2007, as part of his 2008 Mayoral campaign, Boris Johnson had pledged to withdraw bendy buses on the grounds that they were unsuitable for London, and to introduce a modern replacement of the Routemaster bus. The withdrawal began in 2009, when bendy buses on three routes were replaced with conventional low-floor single and double decker buses, and a prototype for a New Routemaster was promised to be on the streets by 2012. The withdrawal of all bendy buses was completed by the end of 2011.
    WIKI

Subject: RE: BS: Scientific Breakthroughs!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Sep 12 - 12:35 AM

There are places in Los Angeles where there are "controlled access" roads that would require very little maneuvering and might make good use of a "streetcar without rails" sort of thing. I believe Seattle used some articulateds a couple of decades back, but don't know if they still do.

London, and here Boston, might have significant difficulties finding suitable routes, since the city planners in both places appear to have been the cows who wandered around and made cowpaths. They paved the cowpaths, since those didn't go through any buildings when they discovered bricks and rocks.

John