Official News page 4

REAL LIFE NEWS: THE BEER STEINS THAT DIESEL SHOULD USE

by Hazed

When you buy beer at Chez Diesel, the waitdroids serve you your Diesel's Old Peculiar in ordinary beer glasses. But what they should be using are "steins of science" - beet steins crafted from lab equipment that is normally used to keep liquid nitrogen cool.

The super-cool (in both senses of the word) steins are the brainchild of scientist Phil Broughton, a radiation safety specialist at the University of California, Berkeley. His invention will keep beer beautifully cold for days, he says. He's now turned his discovery into a business and is selling the high-tech mugs for as much as £375 each, mostly to people in academic and research institutions.

The steins are made out of Dewar flasks. These are pieces of laboratory equipment invented more than a century ago by James Dewar, a Scottish chemist and physicist. He was the first person to produce liquid hydrogen, and his flask was needed to keep it cold enough to stay liquid. It's like a super-Thermos flask.

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