You can’t unscramble an egg. But you can unboil it.

Scientists have figured out a way to do something that seems impossible: unboil an egg. But strange as it may sound, the feat doesn’t defy basic laws of science.

When you boil an egg, the proteins unfold and refold into a more tangled, disordered form. But in a new study, a group of researchers found a way to pull apart the proteins in cooked egg whites, and allow them to refold into their original shape all this by using a VORTEX FLUIDIC DEVICE.

Physicists often use cooking eggs as a metaphor to explain the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the degree of disorder, or entropy, in a system of the universe will always increase. For example, once you scramble an egg, it’s basically impossible to separate the yolk from the egg white again, because it would be going from a less ordered state to a more ordered one.

The study wasn’t intended to figure out just how to unboil eggs.  These aren’t precious commodities. If you accidentally boil one, just grab another. Rather, the eggs were used as a proxy for a much more serious endeavor: making cancer research more time and cost efficient.

HOW DOES PROFESSOR RASTON’S VORTEX FLUIDIC DEVICE WORK?

The machine harnesses mechanical energy (spinning) to undo the work of thermal energy (cooking).

When an egg is boiled, proteins in the egg white begin to unravel then re-fold in a tight, tangled structure that gives the boiled egg its white, rubbery look.

The machine works by unfolding the proteins in egg whites back to their natural state.

Heat breaks up the bonds of proteins, which settle back into a more tightly bound mass.

Professor Raston’s idea is to spin those bound proteins so fast that they fly apart again — but this time, without heat, they snap back to their original shapes.

He said the device allowed more tightly controlled chemical processes to be performed, saving researchers time and reducing their materials wastage.

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