August 28, 2005
NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION
MIT crew churns out ice cream with sizzle (Jeffrey Krasner, Boston Globe, 8/28/05)
Like many great scientific discoveries, Teresa Baker's breakthrough in MIT's grimy Cryogenic Engineering Laboratory last October was punctuated by a memorable exclamation of victory. She raced upstairs from the first-floor lab and announced to her fellow graduate students: ''I made ice cream, come down and eat it!"The problem: Global warming. The solution: Fizzy ice cream. It's enough to restore our faith in science. Posted by David Cohen at August 28, 2005 11:44 AMBaker's work involves liquid carbon dioxide, bulky stainless steel cylinders, heat exchangers, and vanilla ice cream mix, and it may change the way ice cream is made in the $20 billion-a-year industry. For consumers, the novel device could popularize a new type of frozen dessert that combines the chill of ice cream with the explosive fizz of soda pop.
Well, it's been a generation since Pop Rocks candy hit the market, so I guess it's about time for a follow-up novelty food.
Posted by: John at August 28, 2005 1:23 PMMaybe it won't stop global warming, but it will be something to eat on a hot winter's day.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://brothersjuddblog.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at August 28, 2005 3:24 PM
"John G. Brisson, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, [...] estimates that the carbon dioxide method could cut the energy used to make frozen desserts by as much as 40 percent."
at August 29, 2005 2:39 AM
A couple of guys working in the same lab as me at Ohio State tried to invent something like this. They used Coca-Cola and liquid nitrogen, though. The professor, being much experienced, never asked where all the brown stains came from.