7 ms·

Chemists find a way to unboil eggs

164 points by lelf 12y ago

sbate1987 12y ago
In case you accidentally boiled some eggs.. Science give us hope.
- IanCal 12y ago
  If only there was further information available that shows how important this process could be in a variety of areas including the production of cancer treatments. Why, we could even see if we can set things up so when you click on the words in the title you're taking to this "Additional Relevant Templated Information Containing Lists of Examples" or "ARTICLE" for short.
  - pixelbath 12y ago
    Interesting idea. Then if someone didn't understand that they had to click the words, you could describe this Relevant Templating From Archives, or "RTFA" for short.
csdrane 12y ago
But can he help us when we burn eggs to the bottom of the pan?
- stouset 12y ago
  Cook with more fat and/or more heat. Don't put anything into a cold pan.
  - Fargren 12y ago
    The best way I've found to make fried eggs is to put them over a thin layer of vegetable oil over a cold teflon pan, and turn the heat on medium-low.
mulletbum 12y ago
What would this do for the storage of eggs if it could be made into a easy at home process some day? For example, my brother has chickens, which he gives the eggs out to the family. However, they lay more eggs than the family needs. He doesn't want to sell these eggs, but just wants them to be available for a much longer time. Would this process allow for the eggs to be stored for a much longer amount of time?
- michael_h 12y ago
  > "It's not so much that we're interested in processing the eggs; that's just demonstrating how powerful this process is," Weiss said. "The real problem is there are lots of cases of gummy proteins that you spend way too much time scraping off your test tubes, and you want some means of recovering that material." It's not really about eggs, but reusing protein material that has folded incorrectly.
- petewailes 12y ago
  Short answer - no
- dooptroop 12y ago
  Besides, refrigerated eggs keep for months. And you instantly recognize a bad egg from the pugnant smell - if you have doubts the egg is fine and edible.
  - ars 12y ago
    Unrefrigerated eggs also keep for months it's not necessary to refrigerate eggs.
    - jmedefind 12y ago
      It is in the US. Egg's are washed which results in the membrane on the outside being removed. This allows easier access for bacteria if not refrigerated.
      - 12y ago
jjoonathan 12y ago
To clarify: chemical processes that "unboil eggs" have been around for a long time [1]. The invention here is a technique that does it faster with applications in the pharma industry. [1] http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/genbio/raven6b/graphics/raven06b/howscientiststhink/01-lab.pdf http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/genbio/raven6b/graphics/raven06b/...
- jere 12y ago
  Somewhat off topic: you know, in the comments section of almost every science article I read there is a disclaimer similar to yours. For example, I was reading about scientists lengthening telomeres and several people had to step in to say "no this has been done several times but this is slightly cheaper." I guess that's the nature of research, but it's a bizarre feeling when it seems you never hear about the origination of some technology and yet every time you read about it it's still years away from practical application.
jawns 12y ago
Reminds me of that old headline, "Percy Spencer finds a way to melt a candy bar in his pocket." Seriously, people, this discovery is not really about being able to unboil eggs. It's about a way to quickly and efficiently restore common proteins that have been misformed through heat or other processes.
- jackweirdy 12y ago
  I think I’m lacking context - what’s the non-literal meaning behind that headline?
  - atrus 12y ago
    He walked in front of a radar system with a chocolate bar in his pocket, it melted, and the microwave was born.
- wuliwong 12y ago
  Melting a candy bar in your pocket is a normal occurrence, "unboiling" an egg was previously impossible. We used to refer to the example of "un-baking" a chicken as an example of a process that was irreversible. I'd think unboiling an egg is of similar ilk.
  - bronson 12y ago
    Not until the 1940s it wasn't (search on candy bar): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Spencer#Career http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Spencer#Career OP just means the headline is talking only about the somewhat mundane event, not the much bigger implications.
    - wuliwong 12y ago
      Having a candy bar melt in your pocket is mundane. Un-boiling an egg is NOT mundane. Maybe I'm not understanding your point, obviously you aren't claiming that before the 1940's candy bars didn't melt in people pockets?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
moron4hire 12y ago
The first half of this sounds like it would make an excellent kitchen cleaner, too. My wife's bread experiments--while a freaking delicious treat--are also a freaking bear to clean up. The stretched and kneaded dough gets everywhere and refuses to budge from any slightly-porous surface it may contact.
- pavel_lishin 12y ago
  My wife made bread last night, and while I sympathize - the parchment paper we baked it on stuck to the bottom of the bread - we didn't have any other porous surfaces anywhere near the dough.
  - moron4hire 12y ago
    I'm specifically thinking of the wooden spoon used to mix the dough.
    - poulsbohemian 12y ago
      not sure of your exact circumstances but I find it important to not let anything sit in the sink. If you can get your spoons and bowls washed as soon as you are done using them, then the dough remnants won't dry out become a cleaning issue.
      - moron4hire 12y ago
        Yes, that is absolutely a factor. But apparently my wife doesn't believe in cleaning up after herself. Only after me.
konceptz 12y ago
"To re-create a clear protein known as lysozyme once an egg has been boiled, he and his colleagues add a urea substance that chews away at the whites, liquefying the solid material." Another interesting use for human waste however I'm not sure I would like to eat an egg that was treated with urea.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Urea is used as a food additive: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/16422263/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/16422263/ > Urea is generally recognized as safe by FDA for the following uses: side-seam cements for food contact; an inhibitor or stabilizer in pesticide formulations and formulations applied to animals; internal sizing for paper and paperboard and surface sizing and coating of paper and paper board that contact water-in-oil dairy emulsions, low-moisture fats and oils, moist bakery products, dry solids with surface containing no free fats or oil, and dry solids with the surface of fat or oil; and to facilitate fermentation of wine. It's a natural component of food: http://www.fda.gov/Food/IngredientsPackagingLabeling/GRAS/SCOGS/ucm261338.htm http://www.fda.gov/Food/IngredientsPackagingLabeling/GRAS/SC... It can be a synthetic compound. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urea Carbamide (another name for urea) is used in some chewing gums.
- quarterto 12y ago
  Wait until you hear about Dihydrogen Monoxide. It's a major constituent of urine, yet widely used as a food additive and even sold bottled for human consumption.
logfromblammo 12y ago
The likely application for this technology is to enable mass production of specific engineered proteins to become cheaper. When you have a method to rapidly untangle misfolded or otherwise undesirable proteins from a tangled mass of denatured protein, that enables you to use vats of monocellular organisms to create your desired end-product, crack the cell wall or cell membrane in a manner that would denature the proteins, then use the described process to un-denature and separate the proteins. Then it re-folds. Using such a process, you might be able to produce spider silk using modified yeast instead of modified goat milk--or actual spiders.
- stefantalpalaru 12y ago
  Don't get your hopes up, the procedure is patented.
  - cowsandmilk 12y ago
    And the patent will be likely be licensed for a shitload of uses... this is hardly a patent where creating a monopoly makes sense.
  - MichaelApproved 12y ago
    So? Why is it bad that the procedure is patented? That's not automatically a bad thing. People invest money and time into R&D and the patent allows them to protect the invention while they make a return on that investment. Patent trolls (organizations that patent something inane, never make the product and pray on businesses who can't afford to fight you) are the problems. I don't see an indication that these guys are trolls.
    - vegedor 12y ago
      Following your argument, they shouldn't have a problem releasing the patent once the investment in R&D is amortized. Not saying that invalidates the intended meaning, just saying.
cowsandmilk 12y ago
> make cancer treatments more affordable Cute that this article believes the price of biologics for cancer treatment is in any way related to the price of manufacture.
- ars 12y ago
  Not the price of manufacture, the cost of research is what this will reduce. And the research cost is definitely correlated with the final price.
  - cowsandmilk 12y ago
    From the article: > For example, pharmaceutical companies currently create cancer antibodies in expensive hamster ovary cells that do not often misfold proteins. The ability to quickly and cheaply re-form common proteins from yeast or E. coli bacteria could potentially streamline protein manufacturing and make cancer treatments more affordable. That is not saying research. That is quite explicitly claiming lower price of manufacture will result in cheaper cancer treatments.
    - manicdee 12y ago
      It will result in cancer treatments that are cheaper to produce. This does not mean the treatments will be more widely available, not that they will be cheaper. Remember that drugs useful for cancer treatment in the USA are already orders of magnitude more expensive than non-US products simply because they can be.

164 points by lelf 12y ago

sbate1987 12y ago

In case you accidentally boiled some eggs.. Science give us hope.

IanCal 12y ago
If only there was further information available that shows how important this process could be in a variety of areas including the production of cancer treatments. Why, we could even see if we can set things up so when you click on the words in the title you're taking to this "Additional Relevant Templated Information Containing Lists of Examples" or "ARTICLE" for short.
- pixelbath 12y ago
  Interesting idea. Then if someone didn't understand that they had to click the words, you could describe this Relevant Templating From Archives, or "RTFA" for short.

csdrane 12y ago

But can he help us when we burn eggs to the bottom of the pan?

stouset 12y ago
Cook with more fat and/or more heat. Don't put anything into a cold pan.
- Fargren 12y ago
  The best way I've found to make fried eggs is to put them over a thin layer of vegetable oil over a cold teflon pan, and turn the heat on medium-low.

mulletbum 12y ago

What would this do for the storage of eggs if it could be made into a easy at home process some day? For example, my brother has chickens, which he gives the eggs out to the family. However, they lay more eggs than the family needs. He doesn't want to sell these eggs, but just wants them to be available for a much longer time. Would this process allow for the eggs to be stored for a much longer amount of time?

michael_h 12y ago
> "It's not so much that we're interested in processing the eggs; that's just demonstrating how powerful this process is," Weiss said. "The real problem is there are lots of cases of gummy proteins that you spend way too much time scraping off your test tubes, and you want some means of recovering that material." It's not really about eggs, but reusing protein material that has folded incorrectly.
petewailes 12y ago
Short answer - no
dooptroop 12y ago
Besides, refrigerated eggs keep for months. And you instantly recognize a bad egg from the pugnant smell - if you have doubts the egg is fine and edible.
- ars 12y ago
  Unrefrigerated eggs also keep for months it's not necessary to refrigerate eggs.
  - jmedefind 12y ago
    It is in the US. Egg's are washed which results in the membrane on the outside being removed. This allows easier access for bacteria if not refrigerated.
    - 12y ago

jjoonathan 12y ago

To clarify: chemical processes that "unboil eggs" have been around for a long time [1]. The invention here is a technique that does it faster with applications in the pharma industry. [1] http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/genbio/raven6b/graphics/raven06b/howscientiststhink/01-lab.pdf http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/genbio/raven6b/graphics/raven06b/...

jere 12y ago
Somewhat off topic: you know, in the comments section of almost every science article I read there is a disclaimer similar to yours. For example, I was reading about scientists lengthening telomeres and several people had to step in to say "no this has been done several times but this is slightly cheaper." I guess that's the nature of research, but it's a bizarre feeling when it seems you never hear about the origination of some technology and yet every time you read about it it's still years away from practical application.

jawns 12y ago

Reminds me of that old headline, "Percy Spencer finds a way to melt a candy bar in his pocket." Seriously, people, this discovery is not really about being able to unboil eggs. It's about a way to quickly and efficiently restore common proteins that have been misformed through heat or other processes.

jackweirdy 12y ago
I think I’m lacking context - what’s the non-literal meaning behind that headline?
- atrus 12y ago
  He walked in front of a radar system with a chocolate bar in his pocket, it melted, and the microwave was born.
wuliwong 12y ago
Melting a candy bar in your pocket is a normal occurrence, "unboiling" an egg was previously impossible. We used to refer to the example of "un-baking" a chicken as an example of a process that was irreversible. I'd think unboiling an egg is of similar ilk.
- bronson 12y ago
  Not until the 1940s it wasn't (search on candy bar): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Spencer#Career http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Spencer#Career OP just means the headline is talking only about the somewhat mundane event, not the much bigger implications.
  - wuliwong 12y ago
    Having a candy bar melt in your pocket is mundane. Un-boiling an egg is NOT mundane. Maybe I'm not understanding your point, obviously you aren't claiming that before the 1940's candy bars didn't melt in people pockets?

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

moron4hire 12y ago

The first half of this sounds like it would make an excellent kitchen cleaner, too. My wife's bread experiments--while a freaking delicious treat--are also a freaking bear to clean up. The stretched and kneaded dough gets everywhere and refuses to budge from any slightly-porous surface it may contact.

pavel_lishin 12y ago
My wife made bread last night, and while I sympathize - the parchment paper we baked it on stuck to the bottom of the bread - we didn't have any other porous surfaces anywhere near the dough.
- moron4hire 12y ago
  I'm specifically thinking of the wooden spoon used to mix the dough.
  - poulsbohemian 12y ago
    not sure of your exact circumstances but I find it important to not let anything sit in the sink. If you can get your spoons and bowls washed as soon as you are done using them, then the dough remnants won't dry out become a cleaning issue.
    - moron4hire 12y ago
      Yes, that is absolutely a factor. But apparently my wife doesn't believe in cleaning up after herself. Only after me.

konceptz 12y ago

"To re-create a clear protein known as lysozyme once an egg has been boiled, he and his colleagues add a urea substance that chews away at the whites, liquefying the solid material." Another interesting use for human waste however I'm not sure I would like to eat an egg that was treated with urea.

DanBC 12y ago
Urea is used as a food additive: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/16422263/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/16422263/ > Urea is generally recognized as safe by FDA for the following uses: side-seam cements for food contact; an inhibitor or stabilizer in pesticide formulations and formulations applied to animals; internal sizing for paper and paperboard and surface sizing and coating of paper and paper board that contact water-in-oil dairy emulsions, low-moisture fats and oils, moist bakery products, dry solids with surface containing no free fats or oil, and dry solids with the surface of fat or oil; and to facilitate fermentation of wine. It's a natural component of food: http://www.fda.gov/Food/IngredientsPackagingLabeling/GRAS/SCOGS/ucm261338.htm http://www.fda.gov/Food/IngredientsPackagingLabeling/GRAS/SC... It can be a synthetic compound. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urea Carbamide (another name for urea) is used in some chewing gums.
quarterto 12y ago
Wait until you hear about Dihydrogen Monoxide. It's a major constituent of urine, yet widely used as a food additive and even sold bottled for human consumption.

logfromblammo 12y ago

The likely application for this technology is to enable mass production of specific engineered proteins to become cheaper. When you have a method to rapidly untangle misfolded or otherwise undesirable proteins from a tangled mass of denatured protein, that enables you to use vats of monocellular organisms to create your desired end-product, crack the cell wall or cell membrane in a manner that would denature the proteins, then use the described process to un-denature and separate the proteins. Then it re-folds. Using such a process, you might be able to produce spider silk using modified yeast instead of modified goat milk--or actual spiders.

stefantalpalaru 12y ago
Don't get your hopes up, the procedure is patented.
- cowsandmilk 12y ago
  And the patent will be likely be licensed for a shitload of uses... this is hardly a patent where creating a monopoly makes sense.
- MichaelApproved 12y ago
  So? Why is it bad that the procedure is patented? That's not automatically a bad thing. People invest money and time into R&D and the patent allows them to protect the invention while they make a return on that investment. Patent trolls (organizations that patent something inane, never make the product and pray on businesses who can't afford to fight you) are the problems. I don't see an indication that these guys are trolls.
  - vegedor 12y ago
    Following your argument, they shouldn't have a problem releasing the patent once the investment in R&D is amortized. Not saying that invalidates the intended meaning, just saying.

cowsandmilk 12y ago

> make cancer treatments more affordable Cute that this article believes the price of biologics for cancer treatment is in any way related to the price of manufacture.

ars 12y ago
Not the price of manufacture, the cost of research is what this will reduce. And the research cost is definitely correlated with the final price.
- cowsandmilk 12y ago
  From the article: > For example, pharmaceutical companies currently create cancer antibodies in expensive hamster ovary cells that do not often misfold proteins. The ability to quickly and cheaply re-form common proteins from yeast or E. coli bacteria could potentially streamline protein manufacturing and make cancer treatments more affordable. That is not saying research. That is quite explicitly claiming lower price of manufacture will result in cheaper cancer treatments.
  - manicdee 12y ago
    It will result in cancer treatments that are cheaper to produce. This does not mean the treatments will be more widely available, not that they will be cheaper. Remember that drugs useful for cancer treatment in the USA are already orders of magnitude more expensive than non-US products simply because they can be.