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Scientists Discover Way To Unboil An Egg

Scientists have found a way to unboil an egg. Photo: Getty.
Scientists have found a way to unboil an egg. Photo: Getty.

You can have your eggs any number of ways – scrambled, poached, baked, hard-boiled or soft-boiled.

But unboiled? That’s unheard of.

Not anymore. Scientists have found a way to unboil an egg.

That’s right – once an egg has been cooked, it can be returned to its original runny state by using urea, a chemical found in urine.

GALLERY: New Ways To Eat Eggs.
GALLERY: New Ways To Eat Eggs.

The discovery was made by researchers from the University of Western Australia and the University of California Irvine.

The scientists boiled eggs for 20 minutes, until they were well and truly cooked, and then added urea.

The urea breaks down the egg’s proteins and liquefies it again. A machine is then used to re-assemble the broken pieces.

However, it’s not known whether the egg is edible after being 'unboiled'.

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“Yes, we have invented a way to unboil a hen egg,” Professor Gregory Weiss, a biochemist at UC Irvine, said.

“In our paper, we describe a device for pulling apart tangled proteins and allowing them to refold.”

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The scientist say the finding could be used for culinary purposes, like in the manufacture of cheese, where proteins are necessary.

By streamlining the manufacture of proteins, it could also benefit the health industry by reducing the cost of cancer treatments, scientists say.

The research was published in the journal ChemBioChem.