Thai Science Min discovers way to dispose of insects in rice

[noosard]

How long to process 17million tons, and then sieve it, to remove the dead insects & their eggs ?

That 17 million tons of stored rice is unprocessed

The rice you buy and eat has been the mill to be de-husked and cleaned

[Docno]

It kills these insects and leaves their dead bodies in the rice?

If that bothers you, you better stay away from 'western foods' like chocolate, beer, and anything made of wheat. Good luck with that.

You may find this wiki entry interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Food_Defect_Action_Levels

[simon43]

For those of you who are so quick and eager to ridicule the Thais: The word "discovers" is not necessarily the same as the word "invents,"

True. So similar examples could be:

Thais discover the wheel

Thais discover electricity

Thais discover the combustion engine

etc etc

[Autonuaq]

Tested many times in the past years and there is a reason why it is still not the solution.

Probably for small bags it can be a solution.

Microwave, radio waves x-rays all the same solution the seem to have some ptrlbems that is it not used widely.

.

[simon43]

Electromagnetic waves will travel through the molecules of rice which will vibrate 1 trillion times per second

So if my simple brain does the maths, that is an operating frequency of 1,000 GHz.

That is a great achievement in nanowave technology, especially since US developers only managed to achieve amplifier operation at this frequency last year and got an entry in the Guinness Book of Records for their development work.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/darpa-amplifier-circuit-achieves-speeds-of-1-trillion-hz-enters-guinness-world-records

Perhaps I can get a development job with the Thai Science Ministry?

Simon - (MSc in Microwave Engineering from London University)

[alien365]

On a smaller scale I found out a few days ago that a stainless steel spoon in our rice box makes the insects pack their bags and leave. It was quite a sight watching them all clamber out.

[Tywais]

Electromagnetic waves will travel through the molecules of rice which will vibrate 1 trillion times per second

So if my simple brain does the maths, that is an operating frequency of 1,000 GHz.

I do have some suspicions on the numbers. Microwave, such as ovens, operate at 2.45GHz. The number in the OP is Terahertz which is not easy to generate. I work in the field and designed a high energy electron beam biological sterilization system which can either bombard with electrons or putting a converter in, with xrays.

We also do research in Terahertz imaging, which is the technology for seeing through cloths or shipping containers or seeing inside the structure of organic items. In our case, we use a high energy accelerator and hit a target to produce far infrared radiation, that is terahertz radiation. Making a system to produce high enough average power at that energy to effect organics, well not to clear on how they achieved that.

[sawadee1947]

For those of you who are so quick and eager to ridicule the Thais: The word "discovers" is not necessarily the same as the word "invents," which does not appear in the article. "Discovers" only appears in the articles headline, so if you must kill anyone, kill the messenger (i.e., the author).

It's amusing (pathetic?) how super-quick and eager many of you are to put down the Thais anytime about anything. Maybe you aren't cut out for expat life in a third-world country. It's not the same here as your home country ... don't you know.

thank you for this extra lesson Mr. Super Teacher.....Hopefully you will review also next year our quotes. And good health of course: Happy New year to you.

[simon43]

Making a system to produce high enough average power at that energy to effect organics, well not to clear on how they achieved that.

I think they achieved it by losing count of the number of zeros on their calculator when they wrote the press release...

[Srikcir]

How long to process 17million tons, and then sieve it, to remove the dead insects & their eggs ?

If you remove the dead insects and eggs, will there be any rice left?

[HerbalEd]

For those of you who are so quick and eager to ridicule the Thais: The word "discovers" is not necessarily the same as the word "invents," which does not appear in the article. "Discovers" only appears in the articles headline, so if you must kill anyone, kill the messenger (i.e., the author).

It's amusing (pathetic?) how super-quick and eager many of you are to put down the Thais anytime about anything. Maybe you aren't cut out for expat life in a third-world country. It's not the same here as your home country ... don't you know.

thank you for this extra lesson Mr. Super Teacher.....Hopefully you will review also next year our quotes. And good health of course: Happy New year to you.

Thanks for your bold comment, Mr. Super Cynical.

[mekongsailor]

Lmao that was discovered decades ago in the US it was used on meat and now steaks can be stored on shelves for years. Maybe you should send farmers to US to learn how to farm for a profit. I wonder if they discovered the world's not flat yet?

There's no way that "steaks can be stored on shelves for years." Also, insects are virtually never a problem with steaks.

Do you often make up your own "facts"?

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/mar/11/extreme-aged-steak-meat-with-mould-on-gourmet

[todlad]

HerbalEd points out the word discovers in the title. Let's also add disposal ...

Several contributors have scoffed at the dead insects etc in the rice illustrating for the umpteenth time that either they have not read the article or they are unable to understand it. What these people are brilliant at is making fools of themselves.

The contributor who tells his story about his work last year should moderate his language: clearly he was given the job based on his expertise and not on his ability to guffaw at hapless Thai people down at the bar. By the way, sir, your language skills are not so hot.

Finally, I skimmed that article referenced by another contributor and yes it related to nuts ... this article also refers to nuts. I hope you made that link too.

[NCC1701A]

In 1945 the specific heating effect of a high-power microwave beam was accidentally discovered by Percy Spencer, an American self-taught engineer from Howland, Maine. Employed by Raytheon at the time he noticed that microwaves from an active radar set he was working on started to melt a candy bar he had in his pocket. The first food deliberately cooked with Spencer's microwave was popcorn, and the second was an egg, which exploded in the face of one of the experimenters.^[7][8] To verify his finding, Spencer created a high density electromagnetic field by feeding microwave power from a magnetron into a metal box from which it had no way to escape. When food was placed in the box with the microwave energy, the temperature of the food rose rapidly.

[simon43]

Employed by Raytheon at the time he noticed that microwaves from an active radar set he was working on started to melt a candy bar he had in his pocket.

Good Heavens! I wonder how many children he was able to father after that event...

[Seastallion]

Lmao that was discovered decades ago in the US it was used on meat and now steaks can be stored on shelves for years. Maybe you should send farmers to US to learn how to farm for a profit. I wonder if they discovered the world's not flat yet?

No, you're think of irradiation. Microwave would cook the meat.

[Toknarok]

I recently took a ship to Australia and DAFF (Department of Agriculture Forrestry and Fisheries I think) as they are now known, found ants and weevles in rice and flour. They instructed me to put the rice, flour anything else found infested with insects into the freezer for 10 days as they say it completely dries out the insects and the eggs. After that it is ok to consume. Not my words, theirs, but after 10 days there was definently nothing moving in it. It didn't seem to degrade the rice and flour from what I saw. Is it the answer, I don't know but I expect there would be plenty of freezer space in Thailand to try it out.

Quite. No need for fancy gadgets. Just thrown the bag into your deep freeze.....https://www.google.co.th/?gws_rd=cr&ei=ZoPLUoPxAaXZigf2xYDIDA#q=Getting+rid+of+weevils+by+freezing.

[elgordo38]

Will the 'heat' generated effect the quality of the rice?

Will someone remember to clean the rice of killed off insects and eggs before packaging ?

When will the first government official proudly announce to have found (Thai) ways to improve the quality of some of that rice remaining from a decade or so ago?

Clean the rice of killed off insects and waste good protein? I am impressed by this and this could be Thailands first Nobel prize in the making or is it baking?

[Ceruhe]

To be fair, I think that we foreigners often come across as we want to impose our views even if we actually just mean to help. It is not easy to manage the different mentalities.

I wouldn't exactly mind getting stuff forced onto me when I can demonstrably testify myself it's (overwhelmingly) better and that (crap) that I've been doing.

This is by no means related to this specific topic or Thais per se, but in general.

Then again, if I must, or rather, I have the need to get it out....architecture here is bad. I'm not referring to a select number of houses and obviously excluding top tier buildings that indeed are great, but your daily look outside, where they just dropped a brand new road with those god annoying islands inbetween the roads and barely 2 weeks later starts crumbling already, or those freshly put up concrete wall that look like it's been standing for some 100 years strong when it too is barely a month old.

Not claiming to be a professional whatsoever in that field, but having been around a bit, this is just plain poor quality work and should be adressed "asap".

[monkey4u]

this is still 100x better than than what all us farangs have invented while in Thailand...

i must put beer down.......walk away from bar girl........and think...

nah...

Speak for yourself

I invent ways to piss my wife off without even thinking about it

Soon I will be known as the late professor A### Hole

[sambum]

I helped on a research last year about the benefits of crop rotation sponsored by Ministry of Agriculture and Office of Vocational Education as there where "no" studies done on that. It took me 1 minute to find several studies on Google, one study in Canada has been going for over 40 years now and crop rotation was even recorded in ancient Egypt but there had been no recorded studies done on crop rotation before... in Thailand...

The same goes with making silage from the banana plant and use it as pig/cattle feed, there are several studies done by FAO on the subject but now the college here is in the discussion with Ministry of Agriculture to make a study about this as there are "no" studies made... in Thailand...

And the reason for these "no studies done in Thailand before" being, as per #Post 12 by Oziex1 :-

"Unfortunately many Thais are unwilling to accept the benefits of the experience of others, we don't have all the answers but we can help if they would care to listen."

The way to get the majority of Thais to do anything new is to convince them that it was their idea in the first place!

[bazza40]

To poster #16 Strangebrew: that is gamma irradiation you are thinking about. Works with veg too. Complete biological sterilisation. Dangerous to life while ongoing but no radioactive residue. But why not just flood the silos with nitrogen gas ? Won't sterilise but will kill bugs and vermin.

I doubt the nitrogen could entirely displace oxygen present, and insects can survive on much less than humans need. Their eggs don't need oxygen.

If there's a nuclear holocaust, cockroaches will survive quite happily.

While Thai science may well have discovered or copied microwave energy for insect "disposal", the bodies are still there, as are bacteria and viruses.

However, I thought the real problem with Thai rice stockpiles is mould. Until the scientists can rectify that, there will still be unsaleable rice stockpiles.

[apetley]

This is nothing new and has been known about for decades. I remember playing around with ionic conduction in science class at college during the seventies.

[lemonjelly]

How big can a microwave oven be?

[Tywais]

How big can a microwave oven be?

For the application in the OP and similar to an application I'm developing you don't need a large device but very high power and directional. You don't take a 2-3 meter high pile of rice and hope to get any penetration with the microwave. Normal method is placing the material (rice) on a conveyor belt and use either a parabolic transmitting antennae (highly focused) and sweep the RF across it as the belt moves or you use a microwave horn that spreads the RF across the surface. Horn shown below.

[stickylies]

Any of u ever tried watching Nat Geo on Thai tv (in Thai)? I rest my case...

[biplanebluey]

It kills these insects and leaves their dead bodies in the rice?

and do not forget the EGGS

[Rorri]

I know of NO equipment, and we are talking about radio frequencies here, that operates at the mentioned frequency, even IF there was, the amount or RF energy to "clean" the rice would wipe out every radio system around, never mind satellites and alien space craft. However, this genius, of a science minister, should be informed that a trillion times a second, 1 terahertz, is the frequency of a common everyday infra red lamp, nothing new, they've used them for years to keep food warm, to heat your bathroom.

The, no so brilliant minister, should read this.

http://www.nature.com/articles/srep07383

Somehow I don't think Thailand has "discovered" anything, except to copy then declare it their own.

Please, be careful if you think about "liking" this, you know how it is here, this country does not like the truth.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I see where the OP article talks about "terminate and remove" the infesting pests...

I guess I follow how the microwave type treatment would kill the pests. But the article is strangely silent on the "remove" part.

[In the jungle]

Why is he wearing fancy dress?

Is that some sort of man love thing for the Great Leader?