Scientists Determine New Way To Untangle Proteins By Unboiling an Egg

An anonymous reader sends word of this biotech breakthrough. "Univ. of California, Irvine (UC Irvine) and Australian chemists have figured out how to unboil egg whites—an innovation that could dramatically reduce costs for cancer treatments, food production and other segments of the $160 billion global biotechnology industry, according to findings published in ChemBioChem. 'Yes, we have invented a way to unboil a hen egg,' said Gregory Weiss, UCI professor of chemistry and molecular biology & biochemistry. 'In our paper, we describe a device for pulling apart tangled proteins and allowing them to refold. We start with egg whites boiled for 20 min at 90 C and return a key protein in the egg to working order.'"

Comments

Hard-cooked eggs shouldn't be in boiling water

[raymorris]

Hard-cooked and soft-cooked eggs should be cooked in water just below boiling. Quoting the best selling cookbook in history, Betty Crocker's Cookbook:

2. Heat to boiling in saucepan; REMOVE FROM HEAT. Cover and let stand 18 minutes. Immediately cool briefly in cold water to prevent further cooking. Tap egg to crack shell; roll egg between hands to loosen shell, then peel.

(emphasis mine)

If you keep the water boiling, you get that nasty green film and the albumen becomes rubbery.

Re:Boiled at 90C?

[sherr]

Freezing / boiling point of pure water at sea level. It's a fine way to define a measurement scale, but there are several arbitrary decisions in there. Why water? Why not salt water at ocean-average saltiness? Why sea level? Arbitrary. Convenient perhaps if you're working with scientific applications where 1 atmosphere or pressure is a commonly defined unit, but still arbitrary. Fahrenheit is also arbitrary. It's also perhaps more convenient when dealing with air temperatures. 100 = "It's really hot out there", 0 = "It's really cold out there".

Re:Boiled at 90C?

[Trailer Trash]

0 is the freezing point and 100 is the boiling point at normal pressure. How is that arbitrary?

LOL. Let me help you:

1. the freezing point (arbitrary but easily observable state)
2. of pure water with no dissolved substances (arbitrary but common chemical compound)
3. at sea level (arbitrary but easily located place)
4. at normal atmospheric pressure
5. on earth (arbitrary but very convenient location)
6. is 0 degrees (arbitrary value which kind of makes sense until you realize that you can still get colder)
7. and the boiling point of water at sea level on earth at normal atmospheric pressure (previous comments still apply)
8. is 100 degrees (arbitrary number chosen for convenience of the units - "10" would be too course grained and "1000" would be too fine grained)

So, yes, the celsius scale is arbitrary, the Fahrenheit only slightly more so. At least the celsius scale can be kind of reproduced in a pinch if you're at sea level and normal pressure and you have water and the ability to freeze and heat it. But, then, if you have all that you can reproduce the Fahrenheit scale, too.

For an idea of a less arbitrary scale look at the Kelvin scale. On it, "0" is the absolute lowest temperature where matter has absolutely no heat content. Of course the scale is the same as celsius so it still ends up being arbitrary in scale, which *any* temperature scale will be. But "0" being "absolute 0" is what sets it apart.