Scientists Can Now Unboil an Egg in a Matter of Minutes
Oh, you wanted those eggs over easy, not over hard? Just send them back to the kitchen for a quick re-liquefying. Okay, that idea is a little extreme, but scientists are proving that altering the state of an egg may be less one-directional than we think.
Chemists from the University of California, Irvine, have teamed with Australian researchers to create a process that can “unboil” egg whites—essentially turning the solid back into a liquid—in just a matter of minutes.
It is a two-step process. First, scientists added a urea substance, which liquefied the white. And to answer your questions: Yes, urea is found in urine, and no, scientists are not peeing in the eggs. Urea is very easy to create artificially. After adding the urea, scientists placed the eggs in a vortex fluid device, which puts stress on the proteins in the egg white to untangle them and return them to their original state.
Since most of us don’t keep a vortex fluid device in our kitchens, the process isn’t really applicable for home cooking. And at this point you wouldn’t want to anyway, since the re-liquefied eggs haven’t been cleared to eat.
But if you really, really want to be able to unboil eggs at home, you could always fire up a vortex fluid device Indiegogo campaign. If we raise, like, $1.3 million, I’m sure we could make it happen.
[h/t LA Times]