May The Force (of Mayonnaise) Be With You!

Roland Piquepaille writes "A team of chemists at Rice University was working last year on two separate projects: trying to create strong fibers from carbon nanotubes, and testing emulsions of oil and water. And they discovered that a force known as 'negative first normal stress difference' was present in both solutions. The next step was to go to a grocery store and buy a more common emulsion, namely a jar of mayonnaise. And bingo! This force was also at work. They tell us more in this news release, "Bizarre Attractive Force Found in Mayonnaise." Unfortunately, they don't know what to do from their findings. Still, it's fun science. More details and references are available in this overview."

No wonder..

[Randolpho]

No wonder I'm addicted to Mayo! It's that hitherto unknown attractive force that compelled me to eat jar after jar.

hmmmm... mayonaise...

[Roman_(ajvvs)]

It's a shame they didn't test butter as well. I always wanted to know what would stick my sandwich slices together better: butter or mayonaise.

There's a whole bunch of other foodstuffs you can test for this phenomenon: peanut butter, egg yolks and/or whites, gravy... hmmmm.. gravy. argl-argl-argl....

Is a mixture made by mixing

[!the!bad!fish!]

"Obviously, any application where there are mixtures of oil and water -- like petroleum production, food processing and the like -- could be candidates."

I was told that oil and water don't mix. (It says so in the article.) Can you have a mixture of things that don't mix?

May be mixture doesn't mean what I think it does.

Re:Is a mixture made by mixing

[Too Much Noise]

They don't really mix, as they aren't soluble into each other. You add another substance to get an emulsion - it adsorbs on the interface and 'breaks' it, so you get droplets.

Re:Is a mixture made by mixing

[cft_128]

Emulsifiers are substances that allow fat (oil, dairy fat) and a liquid (usually water) to mix and stay mixed. For mayo, lecithin in eggs is the emulsifier. Lecithin prevents the droplets of oil from recombining by bonding with the oil and coating it; it also bonds with the water a bit too helping things. Mustard is another emulsifier, but not as good (IIRC it only bonds with the oil, not the water).

Re:Is a mixture made by mixing - What A Mixture Is

[RazorX90]

Technically, mixtures are just substances put together. Mixtures are normally divided into two categories. Heterogonous mixtures are of varying consistency (like a salad or oil and water). Homogenous mixtures are uniform throughout (like a solution of sugar water). So oil and water can mix, but they just aren't soluble with each other.

Shouldn't the heading read

[toygeek]

"Mayo the force be with you?"

Summary: Mayonnaise bulletproof vest!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah... I can't afford a real bulletproof vest made out of Kevlar, so I'm just going to smear Mayo over myself.

Yeah, like I need an excuse to do that anyway!

My Nobel

[aminorex]

My own prize-worthy contribution to human knowledge
will describe the mysterious repulsive force which
can be confirmed to emanate from the accumulation
of emulsion lipids in adipose tissue of the consumer.

I've passed on blind dates for fear of this "dark matter".

Mayo lesson...

[phreakmonkey]

I got the best advice I've ever received from a jar of Mayonnaise:

"Keep cool, but don't freeze."

Mayonnaise

[drox]

...Is there anything it can't do?

Fundamental Forces

[eingram]

So... Strong. Weak. Electromagnetic. Gravity. and um, MAYO?

What to do, what to do?!?

[SuperBanana]

Unfortunately, they don't know what to do from their findings

Yeesh, talk about not being able to see the forest for the trees. Make sandwiches, of course!

wow, this explains why it's hard to open the jar!

[wisebabo]

No really!

If you read the article the negative first normal stress difference says that sliding plates across "-- created forces that tugged the plates together. "

Well, when you twist the lid, isn't that what you're doing? (Sliding it relative to the rest of the jar?)

sig. for today
If you're conservative when you're young you have no heart... If you're conservative when you're old you have no brain (with apologies to Winston Churchill; but he didn't know Bush!)

Aerospace Applications

[some guy I know]

Does this mean that we can build the Space Elevator [www.isr.us] out of mayonnaise?

Cool...

[Doches]

...and thus the next wave of science fiction is born. From Cyberpunk to Dinnergunk.