2021年经济学人 如何把牙膏挤得一滴不剩?(1)（在线收听）

Every last drop

一滴不剩

How to get all the toothpaste out of the tube

如何把牙膏挤干净？

A GNARLED TOOTHPASTE tube, squeezed and twisted out of shape in a vain attempt to extract its remaining contents, haunts many a bathroom.

浴室里皱巴巴的牙膏是很多人挥之不去的难题，就算挤到扭曲变形也无法把里面所有剩下的牙膏都挤出来。

But not, perhaps, for much longer.

不过，这一问题可能很快将不复存在。

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.

美国消费品巨头高露洁棕榄利用两位研究超级光滑表面的专家的发明生产出了一种牙膏管，这种牙膏管承诺将能挤出牙膏内的所有牙膏。

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.

麻省理工学院教授克里帕·瓦拉纳西和他的博士生戴夫·史密斯研究如何使液体更容易通过管道流出容器，2012年他们成立了一家名为LiquiGlide的公司将他们的研究成果商业化。

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.

当时他们的演示激起了很多人的兴趣，使用他们的技术无需用力摇晃就能把瓶子里的番茄酱倒空。

So far, ketchup-makers have not embraced the idea.

到目前为止，番茄酱制造商还没有接受这一创意。

But the health and beauty industry, where products tend to be pricier than ketchup, is interested.

但保健和美容行业对此很感兴趣，因为这些行业的产品往往比番茄酱还要贵。

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.

瑞士保健和美容产品生产商Mibelle集团采用了这种技术，在工厂进行清理时减少残留在管道和容器内部的物质。

LiquiGlide's deal with Colgate is, though, the firm's first big break into a consumer business.

不过，LiquiGlide与高露洁的交易是该公司进军消费业务的第一次重大突破。

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.

这款名为Elixir的新款牙膏有三种类型：一种是美白牙齿，一种是牙龈和牙釉质护理方，还有一种据说可以对口腔杂质进行“排毒”。

All are packaged in plastic tubes that can be emptied with ease.

它们所用的包装都是可以轻松挤干净的塑料管。

Elixir has gone on sale in Europe, though no decision has yet been made about whether it will be sold elsewhere.

Elixir已在欧洲上市，但尚未决定是否在其他地方进行销售。