Is this the best thing since sliced bread?

Immaculate Pasta

A ketchup bottle has been invented that lets you use all the ketchup inside the bottle :eek:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djwahGRi5iE

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-mit-prof-creates-major-ketchup-bottle-upgrade-20120524,0,2644692.story

MIT develops ketchup bottle that lets you use every drop

The research institution that brought you the fax machine and GPS has come up with another potentially world-changing invention: a bottle coating so slick that every last bit of ketchup slides out quickly and easily.

In what could be a disruptive technology for the ketchup industry, an MIT professor has found a solution to getting the last sticky globs of ketchup (or honey or jelly) out of a bottle.

No word yet on how it could affect ketchup sales, but the technology uses a new type of food-grade coating that has the slipperiness of a liquid, but the rigidity of a solid. In other words, it makes the ketchup come out faster, destroying the notion of "Anticipation," the popular ketchup jingle from the 1970s.

The slick coating -- dubbed LiquiGlide -- was developed by the Varanasi Research Group, a lab run by Kripa Varanasi, a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT.

Varanasi's lab has put videos online showing ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard and jelly sliding right out of containers treated with LiquiGlide, urged by nothing more than a gentle tilt of the container itself.

Varanasi, who worked at GE and did research for DARPA before starting his lab at MIT, is surprised and amused by the amount of attention his upgraded ketchup bottle has generated.

"It just went completely bonkers," he said.

As a mechanical engineer who develops nano-engineered surfaces and coating technologies, Varanasi usually works on large-scale energy and water projects, like developing surfaces that keep ice off wind turbines and airplanes or dust off of solar panels.

His other research projects include inventing coatings that enable oil and water to flow through pipes with greater efficiency and considering solutions for how to cool nuclear reactors more effectively.

"We usually think about big things," he said. "Big, big things."

Varanasi's research is generally funded by federal grants and money from private industry, but in the beginning of this year he decided he wanted the lab to bring a product to the consumer market. The super-slippery structured liquid coating that his team invented back in 2009 seemed like a good candidate.

"The real idea for this came from honey," Varanasi said. "I was thinking about honey and how hard it is to scrape honey out of the bottom of the jar. At the end it is very difficult to get anything out."

Varanasi said LiquiGlide is food grade and made of FDA-approved food materials. "It could even be made of organic food materials for the Whole Foods crowd," he said.

The coating can be applied to both plastic and glass and even metal, and Varanasi said it can be applied relatively inexpensively using techniques that already are used to coat the insides of bottles.

"We've talked to all the people in the supply chain going from equipment makers to bottle makers to food companies, and they love the idea," he said.

Varanasi isn't going to stop with condiment bottles. He said variations on LiquiGlide can be applied to other types of bottles as well.

"Now we're thinking about bottled cosmetics," Varanasi said. "You buy this expensive lotion and half of it is in the bottle and doesn't want to come out. All of us have been there. At least my wife has been there."

:cool:

bdoo

Ketchup sandwiches...perfection!

chin_grin

Squeezy bottle, you've had your day.

Doc Ruby

Nice. My tongue is eleven inches long though so its a bit redundant.

pebbles21

Whats the best before sliced bread?

Bell Butter

That's bleedin' savage. I wonder could they apply it to the u bend in a toilet as well?

flutterflye

pebbles21 wrote: »

Whats the best before sliced bread?

The wheel?

Guy:Incognito

Sqeezy bottles are better. How many times will you end up with loads more ketchup on your plate than you actually wanted with that?

It's good they spend the time, effort and money of some of the best minds on the planet to tackle the stuff that really matters though.

Diego Maradona

pebbles21 wrote: »

Whats the best before sliced bread?

Un-sliced bread

Guy:Incognito

Diego Maradona wrote: »

Un-sliced bread

They had that before sliced bread.

larchielads

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Sqeezy bottles are better. How many times will you end up with loads more ketchup on your plate than you actually wanted with that?

It's good they spend the time, effort and money of some of the best minds on the planet to tackle the stuff that really matters though.

thats why you use it wit the squeezy bottle top that way you can control the amount that comes out theres a mayonnaise video doin the same thing with the squeezy bottle top

My name is URL

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Sqeezy bottles are better. How many times will you end up with loads more ketchup on your plate than you actually wanted with that?

It's good they spend the time, effort and money of some of the best minds on the planet to tackle the stuff that really matters though.

It comes in squeezy bottle form too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbyxPgAg-6g

Fr_Dougal

It's probably the same glass they use on the iPhone 4.

My name is URL

The Dutch, in their infinite wisdom on inventing things to stick into holes, have already solved this problem with their flessenlikker

stoneill

Immaculate Pasta wrote: »

A ketchup bottle has been invented that lets you use all the ketchup inside the bottle :eek:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djwahGRi5iE

:cool:

It looks like the ketchup is pouring out and filling up the time slider bar.

Teyla Emmagan

I don't like it, it makes me feel sick.

Diego Maradona

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

They had that before sliced bread.

Therefore sliced bread is the best thing since un sliced bread.

OneArt

This is redundant, because I never eat the right amount. I always have too much or too little ketchup left over .

Also sliced bread is awful. We used to get normal loafs in South Africa which were simply unsliced. I miss being able to cut a huge thick slice of white bread and eat it with butter and apricot jam... Mmm...

I miss South African food.

dvpower

OneArt wrote: »

This is redundant, because I never eat the right amount. I always have too much or too little ketchup left over .

Also sliced bread is awful. We used to get normal loafs in South Africa which were simply unsliced. I miss being able to cut a huge thick slice of white bread and eat it with butter and apricot jam... Mmm...

I miss South African food.

We do unsliced bread here too.

And butter and apricot jam.

Gran Hermano

Meh, sliced cake will be the best thing since sliced bread.

TheBody

Looks like the work of satan!! Repent ye sinners!!!



*Runs off to find rosary beads*

Jester252

NO

yellowtrout

The Internet.