It's about time someone figured this out. Jeez.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=624&e=1&u=/ap/popcorn_s_secret
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Experts Solve Mystery of Unpopped Popcorn
- Thread starter craigdawg
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While it's interesting to find out why that happens, I still don't want them to geneticaly modify my corn just so I'm spared the un popped popcorn at the bottom of my bowl/bag... How about getting rid of cancer, world hunger, and a whole list of other things first! 
Raid said:
If by "world" you mean "the .003% of businessmen that run the world", this probably is a solution for their hunger...
Purdue is known an agriculture school. It is their job to figure that stuff out.
Maybe they can feed the world all the previously unpopped popcorn. Maybe we just should never research anything ever again so we can get rid of cancer and hunger.
Ah I see you're plan now Rainman! You'll feed them unmodified popcorn and hope they choke on it! No? Hmm, K call that a plan 'C', right after pretzels.rainman::|:| said:
Well I didn't say that now; all I'm saying is there are several thousand things I'd like to see worked on rather than ensuring all my popcorn kernels are popped. I am currently happy with my level of unpopped popcorn.Kmacripple said:
Ah yes, another good use of research dollars....
But if they can make it so all the popcorn in a bag pops, does that mean the manufacturers will put less popcorn in the bag? I could see where they'd want to get a 99.9% popped bag - but its still a little silly and obviously its a very slow news day...
D
But if they can make it so all the popcorn in a bag pops, does that mean the manufacturers will put less popcorn in the bag? I could see where they'd want to get a 99.9% popped bag - but its still a little silly and obviously its a very slow news day...
D
Mr. Anderson said:
I doubt it. Counting corn into a bag is a difficult manufacturing problem. X volume or X weight are the easiest.
Its not that bad a use of research dollars. If I ran a company that made pop corn I would consider plopping down 100k or so to improve yields 20%
Raid said:How about getting rid of cancer, world hunger, and a whole list of other things first!
Because that stuff is harder...
Kmacripple said:Purdue is known an agriculture school. It is their job to figure that stuff out.
Maybe they can feed the world all the previously unpopped popcorn. Maybe we just should never research anything ever again so we can get rid of cancer and hunger.
There is research being done in many different areas. Research is being done into cancer and world hunger, but these are just such complex problems. Progress is very slow, results are on an individuals basis
Something like this is easier to solve, gives positive results to business.
mcadam said:
I appreciate the sarcasm, but this research is much less meaningless than it might seem at first sight.
it's funded by the purdue/industry Purdue's Whistler Center for Carbohydrate Research and it makes sense they'do research that would eliminate million$ in waste/lost revenues.
besides, to understand how things work can often have application in unpredictable fields (ie: popcorn used for packaging)
Raid said:How about getting rid of cancer, world hunger, and a whole list of other things first!
Popcorn is actually the solution to both. If all our resources were put towards making popcorn it could solve the hunger problem, and I promise you that if you ate nothing but popcorn morning, noon, and night, you wouldn't die of cancer!
Raid said:
but you already ARE eating highly selected breeds of "popping" corn.
As a matter of fact (with the partial exception of some fish and some venison) pretty much ANY food eaten in quantity by ANYBODY in the world is "genetically modified" and has been so for tens, hundreds or thousands of years, depending on the specific food in question.
wdlove said:
So are you saying this was done by the stupider brainiacs?
Perhaps they aspire to move on to human problems and this is just a stepping stone. (yes, that was a bad attempt at humor. Sorry).
I know that hindsight is 20/20, but this seems rather obvious in retrospect. Still, it's nice to have proven the exact cause.
And I'm just fine with the current ratio of popped to unpopped kernels. Let's not start genenging corn to produce a strain where every single kernel pops.
And I'm just fine with the current ratio of popped to unpopped kernels. Let's not start genenging corn to produce a strain where every single kernel pops.
The point is that if premium brands already have an excellent popped/unpopped kernel ratio, there's no need to tinker with the corn any further. (I'm a bit of a neoluddite when it comes to screwing around with nature.) The Orville Reddenbacher microwave popcorn I usually consume often comes through with ZERO unpopped kernels, so they must be doing something right.
Subliminal Messages???
I have always wondered if manufactuers push stories on the press as a form of subliminal advertisement.. After reading this thread I just had to go pop me a bag of corn..
I have always wondered if manufactuers push stories on the press as a form of subliminal advertisement.. After reading this thread I just had to go pop me a bag of corn..
Yeah we'd die of malnutrition!stoid said:Popcorn is actually the solution to both. If all our resources were put towards making popcorn it could solve the hunger problem, and I promise you that if you ate nothing but popcorn morning, noon, and night, you wouldn't die of cancer!
Well in most of the cases you speak of, your talking about selective breeding or cross breeding (which has problems of it's own)...messing around with genetic code just to make popcorn pop seems a might excessive to me!Don't panic said: