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Every last drop
一滴不剩
How to get all the toothpaste out of the tube
怎樣把牙膏擠干凈？
A GNARLED TOOTHPASTE tube, squeezed and twisted out of shape in a vain attempt to extract its remaining contents, haunts many a bathroom. But not, perhaps, for much longer. Colgate-Palmolive, an American consumer-goods giant, has taken up an invention by a pair of experts in super-slippery surfaces to produce toothpaste tubes that promise to deliver every last scrap of their contents.
浴室里皺巴巴的牙膏是很多人揮之不去的難題，就算擠到扭曲變形也無法把里面所有剩下的牙膏都擠出來。不過，這一問題可能很快將不復存在。美國消費品巨頭高露潔棕欖利用兩位研究超級光滑表面的專家的發明生產出了一種牙膏管，這種牙膏管承諾將能擠出牙膏內的所有牙膏。
In 2012 Kripa Varanasi, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Dave Smith, his PhD student, set up a company called LiquiGlide to commercialise their work on making liquids flow more easily through pipes and out of containers. What caught many people's imaginations at the time was a demonstration of how this could be used to empty a ketchup bottle without shaking it vigorously.
麻省理工學院教授克里帕·瓦拉納西和他的博士生戴夫·史密斯研究如何使液體更容易通過管道流出容器，2012年他們成立了一家名為LiquiGlide的公司將他們的研究成果商業化。當時他們的演示激起了很多人的興趣，使用他們的技術無需用力搖晃就能把瓶子里的番茄醬倒空。
So far, ketchup-makers have not embraced the idea. But the health and beauty industry, where products tend to be pricier than ketchup, is interested. Mibelle Group, a Swiss producer of health-care and beauty products, employs the technology to lessen the amount of material left stuck to the insides of pipes and vessels in its factories when it is time for a clean-up. LiquiGlide's deal with Colgate is, though, the firm's first big break into a consumer business.
到目前為止，番茄醬制造商還沒有接受這一創意。但保健和美容行業對此很感興趣，因為這些行業的產品往往比番茄醬還要貴。瑞士保健和美容產品生產商Mibelle集團采用了這種技術，在工廠進行清理時減少殘留在管道和容器內部的物質。不過，LiquiGlide與高露潔的交易是該公司進軍消費業務的第一次重大突破。
The new toothpaste, called Elixir, comes in three varieties: a formula for whitening teeth, one for gum and enamel care and a "detox" version which, it is claimed, removes impurities from the mouth. All are packaged in plastic tubes that can be emptied with ease. Elixir has gone on sale in Europe, though no decision has yet been made about whether it will be sold elsewhere.
這款名為Elixir的新款牙膏有三種類型：一種是美白牙齒，一種是牙齦和牙釉質護理方，還有一種據說可以對口腔雜質進行“排毒”。它們所用的包裝都是可以輕松擠干凈的塑料管。Elixir已在歐洲上市，但尚未決定是否在其他地方進行銷售。
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