LET'S ALL DO THE TWIST

Those who may be considered to be mid-century modern in age may recall a brief dance craze in the early 1960s made popular by Chubby Checker's "The Twist." It was a rather simple gyration procedure for teenagers, but as one would age, bending the body repeatedly into a pretzel was not necessarily knee and hip friendly. Who knows, maybe the twist helped to generate the joint replacement industry of today--an ironic twist in its own right.

Science has produced countless achievements which have enhanced our lives in many ways. Consider the following recent development. In eating spaghetti, many people apparently are troubled by the long noodles. Sometimes, it is a challenge to get them into the mouth without slobbering over one's shirt, face or table. To mitigate this issue, some meal preparers seek to break the raw noodles in half prior to cooking. The shorter lengths then would become more mouth friendly. However, when long, raw spaghetti noodles are hacked in half, they tend to splinter into small fragments. Apparently, for some, the result just is not spaghetti.

Now, scientists have discovered that vibration of the long raw noodles when broken in half causes the splintering into small pieces. However, scientists also have discovered that when the long, dry noodles are first twisted before being broken in half, the resulting vibration is weakened by the twisting and does not cause further fragments.*

So, doing the twist before bending each long dry noodle in half will do the trick. And there should be no strain on the knees or hips. Thank you science.

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*Temming, "How Not To Shatter Spaghetti",
Science News, September 29, 2018, p. 5

© Daniel J. Kucera 2018