A reader writes: "My friend Lisa is an extremely capable handy woman, amateur engineer, professional prop maker ... You name it. Here's a great feedback comment she left on a hardware store's Facebook page ...
Food fiddle takes the tears out of cooking
Japanese company House Foods Group is about to launch the world's first tear-free onions, named "smile balls", to the market. In 2002, House Foods Group scientists published a paper in which they suggested that tear-inducing enzymes in onions could be weakened while retaining their full flavour and nutritional value. Their research won an Ig Nobel Prize - an award for unintentionally amusing science achievements - but went no further. Onions produce the chemical irritant known as syn-propanethial-S-oxide. It stimulates the eyes' lachrymal glands so they release tears. The Japanese company managed to suppress the production of syn-propanethial-S-oxide by bombarding onion bulbs with irradiating ions, which made the vegetables less pungent, releasing almost no tear-inducing compounds when chopped or eaten raw. They are also said to have a sweet taste reminiscent of apples or nashi pears.
School Daze
1. "In the 1980s, my sister and her 7th Form classmates iced some blocks of wood to sell for their fundraising cake stall," writes Jo Huggins. "I still wonder what the people thought when they got home and tried to cut a slice!"
