LiquiGlide, developed by a team at MIT’s Varanasi Research Group.

When it comes to those last globs of ketchup inevitably stuck to every bottle of Heinz, most people either violently shake the container in hopes of eking out another drop or two, or perform the “secret” trick: smacking the “57″ logo on the bottle’s neck. But not MIT PhD candidate Dave Smith. He 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.” …

As Smith describes it, LiquiGlide is a surface that’s unique because it’s “kind of a structured liquid–it’s rigid like a solid, but it’s lubricated like a liquid.” It works with many types of packaging–glass, plastic–and can be applied in any number of ways, including spraying the coating onto the inside of bottles. Now, thick sauces that would normally move like sludge seem to just fall out of LiquiGlide-coated bottles, as if they were suspended in space. “It just floats right onto the sandwich,” Smith says.

One of the most significant challenges his team faced was making sure the coating was food safe, meaning his team could only work with materials the FDA had approved. “We had a limited amount of materials to pick from,” Smith says. “I can’t say what they are, but we’ve patented the hell out of it.”

Source: Xenophilia.

Each week a global thinker from the worlds of philosophy, science, psychology or the arts is given a minute to put forward a radical, inspiring or controversial idea – no matter how improbable – that they believe would change the world.

This week science fiction writer Elizabeth Moon argues that everyone should be given a barcode at birth.

“If I were empress of the Universe I would insist on every individual having a unique ID permanently attached – a barcode if you will; an implanted chip to provide an easy, fast inexpensive way to identify individuals.

It would be imprinted on everyone at birth. Point the scanner at someone and there it is.

Having such a unique barcode would have many advantages. In war soldiers could easily differentiate legitimate targets in a population from non combatants.

This could prevent mistakes in identity, mistakes that result in the deaths of innocent bystanders. Weapons systems would record the code of the use, identifying how fired which shot and leading to more accountability in the field.

Anonymity would be impossible as would mistaken identity making it easier to place responsibility accurately, not only in war but also in non-combat situations far from the war.”

You can listen to Elizabeth discuss her idea with aerial warfare expertElizabeth Quintana  and war ethics authority David Rodin in more detail on the BBC World Service programme The Forum, where you can also download more 60-second ideas.

If you have a 60-second idea or would like to comment on this story, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.

Source: BBC.

A team of archaeologists from the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) has discovered a spectacular tomb containing more than eighty individuals of different ages. This discovery — provisionally dated to around 1000 years ago — was made at the site of Pachacamac, which is currently under review for UNESCO World Heritage status.

Pachacamac, situated on the Pacific coast about thirty kilometres from Lima, is one of the largest Prehispanic sites in South America. Professor Peter Eeckhout — under the auspices of the ULB — has been carrying out fieldwork at the site for the past 20 years. The 2012 season resulted in some particularly remarkable discoveries.

The Ychsma Project team undertook to record and excavate a series of Inca storage facilities (15th-16th c. AD), as well as a more ancient cemetery which had been detected during exploratory work in 2004.

It was here — directly in front of the Temple of Pachacamac — that the most important discovery was made. A scatter of later period burials was found to conceal an enormous burial chamber 20 metres long ; miraculously, it had survived the pillaging of the colonial period — which was particularly intensive on this site — and was completely intact.

CONTINUED at Science Daily.

Cross-breeding of dogs over thousands of years has made it extremely difficult to trace the ancient genetic roots of today’s pets, according to a new study led by Durham University.

An international team of scientists analyzed data of the genetic make-up of modern-day dogs, alongside an assessment of the global archaeological record of dog remains, and found that modern breeds genetically have little in common with their ancient ancestors.

Dogs were the first domesticated animals and the researchers say their findings will ultimately lead to greater understanding of dogs’ origins and the development of early human civilization.

Although many modern breeds look like those depicted in ancient texts or in Egyptian pyramids, cross-breeding across thousands of years has meant that it is not accurate to label any modern breeds as “ancient,” the researchers said.

CONTINUED at Science Daily.

Bright black-and-red butterflies that flit across the sunlit edges of Amazonian rain forests are natural hedonists, and it does them good, according to genetic data published May 16 in the journal Nature.

An international consortium of researchers at UC Irvine and elsewhere discovered that different species of the Heliconius butterfly are crossbreeding to more quickly acquire superior wing colors. They also have a surprisingly large number of genes devoted to smell and taste.

The use of color to attract mates and fend off predators is widespread in daytime-loving butterflies, while night-flying moths are famous for having large antennae to sniff out potential mates’ pheromones. Thus, researchers predicted that because they’re such visual creatures, the butterflies would not be able to smell or taste very well.

“Instead, we learned that they have a rich repertoire of genes for olfaction [smell] and chemosensation [in this case taste],” said UCI biologist and article co-author Adriana Briscoe.

Delicate antennae contain smell receptors, she explained, and the butterflies’ tiny feet hold taste buds.

CONTINUED at Science Daily.

This is the Horizontal Shower from luxury bathroomer Dornbracht. You just lay on the stone pedestal like you’re about to be sacrificed for a plentiful harvest, then let the six water jets soak your body, flooding your ass with cleanliness and washing away any rogue buttcrumbs like paper boats in a stream. Holy shit I should start writing product descriptions.

The shower comes with a controller they call the eTool, which lets you direct the flow from the various jets, and choose between various programmed patterns kind of like a massage bath. You can also use the eTool to regulate the water temperature and intensity.

Or you could, you know, lay down in a regular shower like I do. Sure it’s not as glamorous and way more soap-scummy, but so what? IT’S CHEAP. Plus if you plug the drain with a toe and let the bath fill up your penis will float. Medical fact!

Source: Geekologie.

A pair of skulls dug up in a Florida backyard aren’t linked to an unsolved murder mystery after all — they’re ancient artifacts that could date back to as far as 1200.

When the skulls, belonging to a 10-year-old boy and an adult male, were discovered in January, investigators thought they might be dealing with a 1970s murder case, according to MyFoxOrlando.com. But archeologists say the bones show signs of being from Peru or South America, and are actually centuries-old, from between 1200 and 1400.

“The mystery is how they ended up there,” medical examiner Jan Garavaglia said, according to ABC News. “We don’t have any way of finding out.”

Garavaglia, host of “Dr. G: Medical Examiner” on the Discovery Channel, is working with archeologists from the University of Florida to learn more about the skulls’ history, according to MyFoxOrlando.com.

She says the skulls featured an “Inca bone,” linking them to the Incan culture of Peru, according to ABC News.

What’s not clear is how the skulls made it from South America to Winter Gardens, Fla. …

CONTINUED at NY Daily News.

This is an actual whiskey flavored lube from the gluttons over at Epic Meal Time. Apparently they’re convinced whiskey is a desirable smell to have smeared all over your privates. SPOILER: It’s not. Unless you’re in a relationship with another manly dude (I’m thinking a gay biker/bear type here), chances are your lover doesn’t want your junk smelling like f***ing whiskey. Piña colada, absolutely, but only because piña colada is the best smell in the world, especially for car air fresheners.

Source: Geekologie.

In news that shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s worn an eyepatch for a week straight pretending to be a pirate, doctors in Australia are now claiming a haircut that covers one of your eyes makes that eye lazy because it doesn’t do anything but stare at your stupid hair all day long.

Optometrists Association of Tasmania education director Andrew Hogan warned that amblyopia, the medical term for lazy eye, can result from obstructed vision caused by hair.

“If a young emo chap has a fringe covering one eye all the time, that eye won’t see a lot of detail,” he said. “And if it happens from a young age, that eye can become amblyotic.”

Want a cool emo haircut but not a lazy eye in ten years? Here’s what you do: punch yourself in the face as hard as you can. Don’t stop until you don’t want the haircut anymore.

Source: Geekologie.