Just stand a little back from the onion when you're cutting it. The fumes rise straight up so as long as you're not standing directly over it you're fine!

...will love it. Sub of the Day- GM Onion Ranch.

That bitter pungent foretaste is what makes an onion what it is. Onions aren't all sweetness and light, they're like women: bitter and acrid and sharp and tangy.

And they make you cry.

A fine publication indeed. Carry on

This is mostly comment bait, right? happy to help. love the phrase 'prototype onion'.

"We anticipate that the health and flavour profiles will actually be enhanced by what we've done."

- This reminds me of a scary-go-round comic: "Electromagnetism is a benign force. I am 85% sure it would make the robot's brain EXTRA nice"

Precede.

... HMRC data security policies?

...just wear contact lenses

Some people like to cut onions under water, but I personally find it leeches out too much of the flavour. It's also a bugger to fry a soggy onion.

A trick my flatmate showed me: roll up your sleeves (or wear short sleeves) and wet both wrists under the cold tap. Because your hands are right next to the onion, the water on your hands dissolves most of the fumes.

Warning: this reduces the sting by about 75%. However, your eyes still sting somewhat and you may be tempted to wipe them against your wrists. This should be avoided at all costs, as your wrists are now very acidic, and you'll be in as much discomfort as if you hadn't used the wet-wrist trick in the first place!

1876, Bell patents first electrical sound transfer system ...to provide the humanity a way to advertice magazines directly to our homes.

1884, Nipkow patents first electro mechanical image-transfer system ...to provide humanity the Big Brother and other utterly tasteless reality-TV shows.

1969, ARPANET goes online ...to provide humanity a nuclear attack resistant way to watch porn.

And now they have mastered the genome ...to prevent onions tearing us up.

What's next? Space rockets to haul us closer to sun to get that perfect tan?

Just store them in the fridge. When you need one, take it out and cut it up straight away, dont leave it to warm up first.. result no tears!

or failing that.. you can put a wet wooden spoon in your mouth which attracts the fumes before they reach your eyes... impresses the ladies that one ;)

Is this what scientists are doing with their time nowadays? I can't imagine how this was suggested, but I suppose it went something like this...

Scientist 1: Hey guys, I had the craziest dream about onions last night. I woke up sweating but not crying like I normal do and I thought, why don't we produce an onion that doesn't make us cry?

Scientist 2: Shouldn't we carry on with the cancer research? We've nearly cracked that whole tumor thing.

Scientist 3: Yeah, he's right, curing diseases should be our priority.

Scientist 1: No no, you don't understand, I woke up without tears - remember how we talked about the crying problems we have? Could you imagine what it would do for our street cred if we woke up without salt crust on our cheeks?

Scientist 2: Yeah you're right, get to the shop and get a bag of these beauties. This is gunna be awsome!

Scientist 3: Hi 5, guys!

Scientist 2: Group hug!

So, rather than finding a cure for cancer, aids, or anything else usefull, we have scientists looking into how to stop onions from making you cry.... wow *claps hands*

It all ways bugs me when poeple think curing cancer is most important. why prolong life just for the sake of it? Much better to invent ways for better quality of life. I'd rather live an interesting , comfortable life for 50 years than live to 100 not enjoying things.

although onions crying is not even on my list of things that bug me enough to care. Just put some goggles on

Forget about onions! I want someone to engineer a woman who won't make me cry.

I like the penguin, cause penguins don't make anyone cry.

Diving mask and snorkel. Has *nobody* seen the movie Diva?

As far as my understanding goes, boffins should be doing research anywhere and everywhere, as you never know what discoveries are going to effect other fields. No one complains that Gregor Mendel was wasting his time fiddling with peas when he should have been busy curing human diseases...

Try saying that to a 9 year old girl with little time to live. She'd be glad to know that you lived a better quality of life with modified onions. Perhaps you'd make her, and her friends and family, cry instead. So what you actually achieved was an onion you cut that didn't affect your delicate eyes, but affected a host of other peoples.

'Much better to invent ways for better quality of life.'

Quite, Jon. Living for only 10 years and watching other children playing from a window while you're strapped to an oxygen tank must be just spiffy. Perhaps your onions don't seem so special now.

Ben

The proper way to cut onions while avoiding any discomfort to yourself is to get your wife to do all the cooking, as any fule no.

She uses a similar technique to avoid the stresses induced by working in IT.

Sorry Ben etc these scientists weren't for the "New Zealand-based research institute Crop and Food. Capitalism and all that – they need a job to pay for the old goods and services. They found an available job working for Crop and Food. Their job is to research crops - you know a job. I’m sorry you are upset they haven’t devoted themselves to doing cancer research on some sort of freelance basis.

Crop and Food maybe doesn’t research cancer (or maybe it does, maybe one dept using funds gained from this sort of research does, I have no idea). Maybe these scientists want to be curing cancer but aren't qualified, can't get work in a company working in that area, can’t get funding from a government agency to do it themselves.

Do you think all scientists should only be researching cancer? Pretty sure the world doesn’t work like that. Most scientists being paid by corporations etc

Scientist is pretty much just a job!

Is everyone here researching a cure for a cancer at the moment?

No? I am shocked! Everyone go the lab in your basement and prepare to save humanity.

"Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" presaged and predicted these onions - but had the vegetable (or are onions fruit) wrong.

BG because he cries all the way to bank.

"Is everyone here researching a cure for a cancer at the moment?

No? I am shocked! Everyone go the lab in your basement and prepare to save humanity."

Well said. Perfect.

... the secret it to leave the hairy bit at the bottom on until the end - it is the source of most of the irritant juices, and it is handy to hold on to, too.

Peel the brown leves back and pull them off; if you are chopping the onion (rather than just slicing into rings) make the longways cuts incomplete, finishing before the root end, then make the transverse (ringwise) cuts.

Stop slicing before you get to the hairy bit...

...tempted as I am to make some glib (and, were it not for the extremist feminists around, funny) comment about cooking being a woman's job I realise that this will, as it has so many times in the past, get the entire thread censored irrespective of the logic or information contained elsewhere therein... [see - I was listening]... so instead I will tell a truth... I like cooking, I love onions (raw, chopped, cooking and cooked) and yes, I breathe through my mouth if the onion variety in question INDUCES (good point Karl and well made) excessive tear duct emissions.

There - I said it. I still don't get the "pelvic floor exercises" reference though - maybe I don't get out enough... got any photos?