Über-Slippery Coating Gets Ketchup Flowing

An MIT grad student has reportedly solved a decades-old bane of mankind's dining existence—getting those last stubborn globs of ketchup out of the ketchup bottle. Dave Smith and a team of mechanical engineers have come up with LiquiGlide, a "super slippery," non-toxic coating that can be applied to the inside of ketchup bottles and all sorts of containers, helping various foodstuffs to just slide right out, reports Co.Exist.

This isn't just trivial consumerism; the sauce market is worth $17 billion annually, and Smith estimates his invention could help prevent 1 million tons of food from being thrown out each year. LiquiGlide came in second in this year's MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition and won the audience-choice award. Smith said the tough part was working with chemicals that were FDA-approved. "I can’t say what they are, but we’ve patented the hell out of it," he says. (More LiquiGlide stories.)