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Another article hiding the main information in a wall of text. Here is the relevant information for those interested: ""Enter a young inventor named Samuel Ow
by jonshariat 8y ago
Another article hiding the main information in a wall of text.
Here is the relevant information for those interested:
""Enter a young inventor named Samuel Owen, who has developed a prototype device called the OtoTech, from Otolith Labs. Worn on a headband behind the ear, it uses subtle vibrations to change the way the brain computes the fact that the body that it’s attached to is in motion. Early tests show it relieves motion sickness without the side effects of drugs, Owen said, though he admits the science is so young that it’s not clear just how.
The vibrations emanating from the OtoTech gently target two of the four fibers that carry data about body motion to the brain via a system of inner ear sensors called the vestibulocochlear nerve. “Two [of the four vestibulocochlear nerve fibers] go to the brain, two go to your reflexes,” Owen said. The trick is to affect the former and not the latter.
“The working hypothesis is that [the vibration] causes a chaotic and noninformative stimulus to go to the brain. Somewhere, probably the cerebellum, there’s a filtering mechanism that filters out noninformative sensed information. It’s the reason you don’t notice the shirt on your back right now,” he said.
In other words, while you remain consciously aware that you’re moving, the balance portion of your brain stops noticing the fact; the data has been drowned out in white noise from the device.""
- hinkley 8y agoI found that for myself and for a bunch of friends that chewing gum accomplished this. Discovered this on a fairly bumpy flight, (gum is lousy for ear pressure imbalances but I carry it anyway). After that I began experimenting on others and it usually worked for them too.
- magic_beans 8y agoChewing gum also helps to minimize crying while cutting onions.
- hinkley 8y agoSo does sharpening your knife.
- gweinberg 8y agoIt's funny, I don't remember hearing this before, but once you point it out it seems mind-bogglingly obvious.
- hinkley 8y agoThere's a kitchen skills book whose title is a nod to sharp knife = less crying relationship but I'm stumped trying to remember what it's called.
- baddox 8y agoThis is the top Google result for "sharp knife = less crying": https://www.amazon.com/Sharper-Your-Knife-Less-You/dp/0143114131 https://www.amazon.com/Sharper-Your-Knife-Less-You/dp/014311...
- 2muchcoffeeman 8y agoPretty sure this doesn’t work when you are cutting 5kg of onions
- laichzeit0 8y agoAs one usually does when preparing a meal.
- 2muchcoffeeman 8y agoI had to do this once. And think of all the apprentice chefs doing this. They must have a better way. And their way will work for 1 onion or 50!
- moate 8y agoThis is bad science. This is not a real thing. Neither does running water nearby, or lighting a candle in the kitchen. None of this affects the root cause of your problem. Onion tears are caused by 2 different chemicals held apart by the onion's cellular structure. Every time you cut an onion, the cells rupture and mix, aerosolization and making you cry when the acid gets into your eyes. A sharp knife (as mentioning in another comment) would help minimize the amount of cellular damage and therefor the gas produced. You can also wear goggles. Everything else is bunk. From-A former professional chef and person particularly sensitive to onions. (I just learned to cut onions with my eyes closed)
- scrumbledober 8y agonot EVERYTHING else is bunk. Running water nearby might not help but cutting your onions submerged in water would definitely help. Another one is just simple good ventilation. Set up a fan near you and the chemicals will be blown away instead of gradually increasing in concentration around your eyes.
- mchannon 8y agoRefrigerate your onions before cutting them. Don’t know why everything else would automatically be bunk.
- moate 8y agoSorry, that's a bit hyperbolic on my part. There's so many old wive's tales out there about how to deal with onions. People try to solve it as though the tears were magical and not caused by (relatively) simple chemical reactions. If you refrigerate your onions, you might be fine for some amount of time and you'll be lessening damage and it's going to help but not solve it at volume (cut one onion, you're fine. Cut 100, not so much).
- mattkrause 8y agoYou could take them out of the fridge in batches....
- 8y ago
- ryen 8y agoI used to wear a co-worker's motorcycle helmet when goggles weren't available.
- vivekf 8y agoSo does washing the peeled onion before cutting it.
- wpietri 8y agoI'll have to try that. My one weird trick here is a little different. Long ago I read somebody's theory (Bruce Chawin's, maybe?) that the reason so many poisons cause dizziness is that the inner ear is an extremely delicate mechanism and so is easily thrown off such that visual perception and positional sense no longer matches what the ear is saying. The theory further suggests that the brain is evolved to work that backwards: if the body is sufficiently dizzy, it has been poisoned, so it had better empty the stomach. For me the trick is to keep motion perception in sync with the inner ear. So if I'm on a boat, I'll aim my head in the direction we're heading and think of myself as moving with the boat. Same thing with cars: on a bumpy or swervy taxi ride I'll look straight ahead and think of myself as moving with the car. It sounds ridiculous, but it works well for me. Living in SF, I've had many chances to try it out.
- dbt00 8y agoThis was the home remedy for carsickness my parents used with me when I was a kid. "Look at the horizon" is how they put it. Within a couple of seconds I'd internalize the movement of the car and my gut would stabilize.
- hinkley 8y agoI was a miserable vomitous mass as a child and I still can't read in the car. The horizon tends to stop progression of symptoms but is pretty slow as a recovery method. It's pretty cold comfort for someone who feels like their guts are trying to escape. At some point in late grade school I figured out it was a better use of my time to start "working the problem" rather than hold out for some folk wisdom to save me, from car sickness to sore throats (keep your neck warm to prevent laryngitis) and everything in between. Hanging a hand out the window works much, much faster. Barring that, anything cold on the wrist will help, but it's hard to find the right spot while distressed. Air, window pane in the winter, ice, icepack (best runner up), or a can of soda.
- hinkley 8y agoSimilar theories for why memory and smell are so tied, and why certain smells make you throw up. I heard they experimented with lacing sheep carcasses with ipecac syrup in Africa to keep the lions away, and it worked. You remember - viscerally - what made you sick and you avoid eating it again.
- bobwaycott 8y ago> It’s the reason you don’t notice the shirt on your back right now... It never ceases to amuse and sometimes amaze me how statements like this immediately arrest my attention to the thing I’ve not noticed at all. Now I’m only thinking about the shirt on my back, trying to notice it, and thinking of how I haven’t felt it since I first pulled it on this morning.
- pepelotas 8y agoSame thing but the other way. Sometimes my shirts touching my belly cause me discomfort for some reason. Now I can blame my perhaps faulty cerebellum for not filtering it out.
- tqkxzugoaupvwqr 8y agoIf you liked the T-shirt trick, follow my instructions: Take a deep breath in. Breath out. You are breathing manually now. Don’t forget that at all times you are only two minutes away from asphyxiation.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]