Fake Snow from Potato Starch

Posted by Hemos on Monday December 23, 2002 @12:59AM from the can-you-deep-fry-it dept.

Makarand writes "According to this article on Nature.com German chemists have created a new biodegradable type of fake snow from potato starch for the film industry. Most artificial snow types are plastic and it is impossible to pick up all the snow flakes scattered on film sets. The new snow presents no such problems. A good soaking is all that is needed to dissolve these biodegradable snow flakes. The process involves using starch from corn, potatoes or seaweed and puffing it up to make a spongy foam resembling snow."

1 of 47 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Fake Potato by Tin+Weasil · 2002-12-23 02:47 · Score: 3, Insightful

Interesting.

It sounds like it would take a LOT of potatos to blanket a complete scene in this kind of fake snow.

I wonder if anyone has considered using all of these potatos for any other purposes... like maybe feeding hungry people?

Seriously, I think that everyone would be better served if they would just develop a better method for collecting all of the old plastic fake snow after it had been used. That way it could be recycled as fake snow for the next motion picture.