SIGNS OF THE APOCALYPSE:
SOME GUY GOT HIS PHD. FOR POPPING POPCORN! :eek:
INDIANAPOLIS, April 20 - Eat your way to the bottom of almost any bag of popcorn and there they are: the rock-hard, jaw-rattling unpopped kernels.
The nuisance kernels have kept many a dentist busy, but their days could be numbered. Scientists say they now know why some popcorn kernels resist popping into puffy white globes.
It has long been known popcorn kernels must have a precise moisture level in their starchy centre - about 15 per cent - to explode. But Purdue University researchers found the key to a kernel’s explosive success lies in the composition of its hull.
Unpopped kernels, it turns out, have leaky hulls that prevent the moisture pressure build up needed for them to pop and lack the optimal hull structure that allows most kernels to explode.
They're sort of like little pressure vessels that explode when the pressure reaches a certain point,'' said Bruce Hamaker, a Purdue professor of food chemistry. But if too much moisture escapes, it loses its ability to pop and just sits there.’’
The findings may help popcorn breeders select the best varieties - or create new ones - with superior hulls that yield few, if any, unpopped kernels. But for now, there is no way to screen out potential duds before they end up in bags of popcorn.
Professor Hamaker and his associates compared the microwave popping performance of 14 popcorn varieties grown in the state of Indiana and examined the crystalline structure of the translucent hulls of both the popped kernels and the duds.
In the varieties popped, the percentage of unpopped kernels ranged from 4 per cent in premium brands to 47 per cent in the cheaper ones.
He said two popcorn manufacturers have already expressed interest in Purdue’s findings.
The research, funded by Purdue’s Whistler Center for Carbohydrate Research, which Professor Hamaker directs, has been published online and will appear in the July 11 edition of the journal BioMacromolecules.