The world’s first “Pastarimeter” — lefty pasta and righty pasta

“Our experience of explaining polarimetry to the general public is that they frequently ask how molecules rotate light, which is difficult to explain using non-technical language. Therefore we were keen to find an analogous large scale system which mimicked the polarimeter and used everyday left- and right-handed objects.” – explain Claire Saxon, Scott Brindley, Nic […]

Evaluation of environmental impacts: The case of pasta

Think, if you will, of the pasta. This study demonstrates one way to begin doing that: “Evaluation of environmental impacts in the catering sector: The case of pasta,” Alessandra Fusi, Riccardo Guidetti, Adisa Azapagic, Journal of Cleaner Production, epub 2015. (Thanks to Tom Gill for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Università degli Studi […]

Pasta’s place in the history of superconductivity

Physics now owes a debt to pasta in research about superconductivity. This study explains: “Designed 3D architectures of high-temperature superconductors,” David C. Green,  Martin R. Lees and Simon R. Hall, Chemical Communications, epub January 31, 2013, with some supplementary data. (Thanks to investigator Pascal Dominez for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Bristol […]

Three Steps Toward Banana Pasta

Discoveries and inventions sometimes happen (at least apparently, in retrospect) step by step. Such seems to be true of the coming of banana pasta. First: “Unripe banana flour as an ingredient to increase the undigestible carbohydrates of pasta,” Maribel Ovando-Martineza, Sonia Sáyago-Ayerdib, Edith Agama-Acevedoa, Isabel Goñib, Luis A. Bello-Pérez, Food Chemistry, Volume 113, Issue 1, […]