Australian Scientist awarded Ig Nobel Prize for “Unboiling” and Egg
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A Scientist from an Australian college has been granted the Ig Nobel Prize, the satire of the Nobel Prize, for demonstrating on how to “unboil an egg”. The Ig Nobel is an annual event held at the Harvard University awarding scientists out of appreciation for exploratory accomplishments that "make people laugh, then make them think".
Colin Raston from Flinders University has created the 'Vortex Fluidic Device,' a contraption that can untangle proteins leading to his "Eureka" moment when he a shoved a boiled chicken egg into the machine and it returned uncooked,
"When you boil an egg, the egg white goes white because there's a protein in there," he said.
"It's like a bit of spaghetti coiled up, but if it's not coiled up properly, it'll start to stick to all these other ... proteins, so it forms a gel.
It's not what we started out to do, but we developed technology that can do it. It's big-picture stuff.
Professor Colin Raston, Flinders University
"So if you can actually get some form of energy back in to refold the bit of spaghetti so it's actually in the correct state, then you've unboiled an egg."
Professor Raston said the device allowed more tightly controlled chemical processes to be performed, saving researcher’s time and reducing their materials wastage.
This approach could be a distinct advantage for the targeted delivery of chemotherapy medications for cancer therapy. Raston said that it was living the dream, adding that all scientists want to do something that was significant, but this had the wow factor.
He said that it was not what they set out to do, but rather a way of explaining the science at work and helping the wider world understand the significance of unboiling an egg.
Raston was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize at the ceremony presented by Nobel Laureates before a huge audience.
Professor Raston said he was humbled to travel to Harvard University to collect the award.
"It's nice to be recognised, though I have to say that a lot of people were involved in this particular discovery about unboiling an egg," Professor Raston said.
A Scientist from an Australian college has been granted the Ig Nobel Prize, the satire of the Nobel Prize, for demonstrating on how to “unboil an egg”. The Ig Nobel is an annual event held at the Harvard University awarding scientists out of appreciation for exploratory accomplishments that "make people laugh, then make them think".
Colin Raston from Flinders University has created the 'Vortex Fluidic Device,' a contraption that can untangle proteins leading to his "Eureka" moment when he a shoved a boiled chicken egg into the machine and it returned uncooked,
"When you boil an egg, the egg white goes white because there's a protein in there," he said.
"It's like a bit of spaghetti coiled up, but if it's not coiled up properly, it'll start to stick to all these other ... proteins, so it forms a gel.
It's not what we started out to do, but we developed technology that can do it. It's big-picture stuff.
Professor Colin Raston, Flinders University
"So if you can actually get some form of energy back in to refold the bit of spaghetti so it's actually in the correct state, then you've unboiled an egg."
Professor Raston said the device allowed more tightly controlled chemical processes to be performed, saving researcher’s time and reducing their materials wastage.
This approach could be a distinct advantage for the targeted delivery of chemotherapy medications for cancer therapy. Raston said that it was living the dream, adding that all scientists want to do something that was significant, but this had the wow factor.
He said that it was not what they set out to do, but rather a way of explaining the science at work and helping the wider world understand the significance of unboiling an egg.
Raston was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize at the ceremony presented by Nobel Laureates before a huge audience.
Professor Raston said he was humbled to travel to Harvard University to collect the award.
"It's nice to be recognised, though I have to say that a lot of people were involved in this particular discovery about unboiling an egg," Professor Raston said.
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