How often have you settled down for dinner at home or in a restaurant and tried to put a dollop of ketchup or mayonnaise on your burger or alongside your fries, only to find that nothing drips out. Then, when you you wallop the bottle in frustration, it suddenly squirts all over the table! The problem only exacerbates as the amount of ketchup in the bottle depletes. In fact, very few people can honestly say that they have ever succeeded it emptying the bottle down to the very last drop. Now, thanks to some Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers that day may not be far off.

Probably as frustrated as the rest of us, the team comprising of the Varanasi Research Group's finest mechanical engineers and Nanotechnologists, spent two months inventing a revolutionary coating that turns the inside of any bottle into such a slippery slope that leave aside ketchup, not even the thickest, most stubborn, homemade jelly, can cling to it!

Called LiquiGlide, it was originally intended to be used for anti-icing or anti-clogging. However, the researchers decided shift their focus to bottles, partly to make lives of millions of people worldwide a little less stressful not to mention less embarrassing, but largely because it will be help the environment in two ways.

For one, there will be no wastage of food - The experts estimate that over I million tons of food get tossed in the garbage each year simply because it remains stubbornly stuck to the bottle - And that's just their estimate for condiments. Given that there are a myriad of other foods this applies to and the fact that the MIT scientists have yet to find a bottle that LiquiGlide doesn't work on, this could result in even bigger savings.

Then there is the larger cap issue - If you have ever wondered why these bottles always seem to have such a massive cap, it is because that's the only way the current plastic bottles work effectively. Now that the issue of the sauces sticking to the side has been solved, the caps can be much smaller, reducing plastic waste by as much as 25,000 tons a year!

So what is in this magical LiquiGlide? That, is the million-dollar question, the answer to which is only known to the team that invented it. They are however quick to reassure that all the ingredients have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and are completely safe for human consumption.

The team is now talking to a few bottle manufacturers to see if they can insert LiquiGlide into your ketchup bottle and also, trying to come up with a suitable name for their company - So if you can think of any, be sure to let them know by adding your comments below.

Resources: Gizmag.com, fastcoexist.com