If you’re a chocolate-loving science nerd, Cambridge University wants to hire you
Hershey’s is working with 3D Systems to make a machine that prints chocolate.
Good news for science nerds and chocolate lovers: the University of Cambridge in Britain wants to hire a doctoral student to study the science of chocolate, according to a new job posting.
Yes, you read that correctly. One of the most highly-esteemed universities in the UK wants to PAY someone to spend three and a half years studying one of the most delicious substances on the planet.
This is the life recipe you've been dreaming of and it's got four ingredients. Chocolate. Science. Money. Cambridge.
The purpose of the project is to find a way to keep chocolate from melting by studying the “fundamentals of heat-stable chocolate.”
“The project will investigate the factors which allow chocolate, which has a melting point close to that of the human body, to remain solid and retain qualities sought by consumers when it is stored and sold in warm climates,” the advertisement said.
Wait, nobody's figured this out yet?
Right? It does seem kind of nuts that 167 years after British company Fry’s produced the first chocolate bar, scientists still haven’t figured out a good way to stop chocolate from melting, except by keeping it in the fridge. Japanese designer Akihiro Mizuuchi can turn it into LEGO blocks and Hershey’s is working on a 3D chocolate printer, but we can’t stop a slab of Cadbury Dairy Milk from turning soft and gooey on a supermarket shelf in Thailand.
Well, scientists are finally on it. Finally.
Chocohalics are probably already submitting their applications and picturing a work space that looks something like this.
But given that the position will be based in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, and the applicant is expected to have experience in “experimental investigations” and a degree in "physics, chemistry, materials science or engineering,” your work space is going to look more like this.
And while the ad doesn't say that eating vast amounts of chocolate is part of the job — it doesn't say that it's NOT part of the job, either.
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