Scientists Have Created A New Pasta Shape To Explain Polymer Physics

Physicists from the University of Warwick have created a new, ring-shaped pasta to explain "one of the last big mysteries in polymer physics," revealed in Physics World this month.

The new pasta is a ring-shaped creation called "anelloni" (annello is Italian for "ring"), and was made with just two eggs and 200 grams of flour by physicists Davide Michieletto and Matthew S Turner.

When cooked and thrown into a bowl, the pasta loops get tangled together, much like ring-shaped polymers do.

The researchers themselves identify ring-shaped polymers as "very poorly understood," so we won't get involved with the details — we're only here for the food.

Watch the video below, taken at the headquarters of Physics World, to see the physicists tackle a bowl of anelloni, which behave a little differently than any other bowl of pasta and are much harder to extract individually.

"[W]hen it comes to eating pasta, the Italians were right all along – you're better off sticking to spaghetti, which you can eat nice and quickly," the team concludes. "Make yourself a bowl of anelloni and it's likely to have gone cold by the time you've pulled all the rings apart and struggled your way to the messy end."