DISPENSARY CORNER 21 Sep 15
September 21, 2015
Unboil an egg? How ignoble.
Professor Colin Raston from
Flinders University has won this
year’s Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry
for his invention of a machine,
the Vortex Fluid Device, that can
at least partially ‘unboil’ an egg,
according to a SciMex report.
The compact machine is
capable of unravelling proteins
(a process required in order to
make the white of a cooked egg
runny again) and has applications
in treatments for cancer, the
manufacture of pharmaceuticals,
the production of biofuels
and in food processing, the
announcement explained.
Ig Nobel Prizes were created
by the Annals of Improbable
Research to “honour achievements
that first make people laugh, and
then make them think” and are
presented each year by a group
that includes Nobel laureates at a
ceremony at Harvard University.
Oth er Ig Nobel prize winners
this year included a study which
looked at the most painful parts
of the body for bee stings.
The research was undertaken by
a sacrificial Michael Smith, who
allowed himself to be stung three
times in each of 25 locations as
part of his PhD. dissertation at
Cornell University.
Apparently the best places to be
stung are the skull, the “middle of
the tip of the toe” and the upper
arm - while for a man the most
painful spots are the nostril, the
lips and - what a surprise - the
shaft of the penis.
Another winner was a group
from the University of Oxford who
linked diagnosis of appendicitis
with speed bumps.
Apparently the pain experienced
by people going over bumps en
route to the hospital was a highly
accurate predictor of whether
they needed surgery on arrival.
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 21 Sep 15To see the full newsletter, see the embedded issue below or CLICK HERE to download Pharmacy Daily from 21 Sep 15
