We may just be mobile bags of chemicals, but what separates us from other non-living things like rocks, water, and viruses?
It must surely be our thirst for truth, knowledge and meaning in life. Unfortunately you won’t find any of that in this article! What you will find is a scratch to some of the itchs of everyday life, the answer to some of the fluffy questions orbiting our brains : How do they do that ? Where did that come from ? Who invented that – or in this particular case, as we stare bleary eyed and half awake at the toothpaste oozing from the tube onto the brush : How do the Stripes get into the Toothpaste ?
The Answer
Firtsly : No, the tube isn’t filled with stripy toothpaste. Indeed, most of it is filled with plain white toothpaste
The trick to the stripes lies in the top of the tube, whose sloping neck contains coloured gel. When the tube is squeezed, the white paste flows towards the open neck of the tube and on its way pushes up against the sloping part. This causes some of the coloured gel to be squeezed into slots that run around the inside of the nozzle at the very top of the tube, directing it on to the surface of the emerging white paste – resulting in stripy toothpaste.