There are very few people who don’t love chocolate! But have you ever thought about the reason behind the universal feelings of enjoyment while biting into a chocolate piece? In a nutshell, which component makes chocolate enjoyable? The sweetness or the bitterness? Or maybe it’s the crunch. Or all of the above? Food scientists have pondered upon the question and are now close to creating the perfect piece of chocolate, using innovative technology.

The Futuristic Chocolate

Recently, a team of scientists at the University of Amsterdam attempted to use geometry and physics to accurately answer the above-mentioned questions and to create a chocolate that’s even more enjoyable. The result of their research so far is a unique, 3D-printed. spiral-shaped chocolate candy, which doesn’t resemble anything we can see on the supermarket shelves, but may just change the future of chocolate as well as food!

The Research Project

This specific research is part of a broader field of study including edible meta-materials and these 3D chocolates are the first step in creating metafoods. The research is led by Corentin Coulais, a physicist working with non-food meta-materials, materials with non-natural properties and structures, at the University. With the experience of working in the fields like prosthetics and robotics, Coulais and his team turned their focus to chocolate after making a partnership with renowned foods and consumer goods company Unilever.

The Study’s Finding

The spiral-shaped chocolates came with different patterns, ranging from simple S-shapes to intricate labyrinth-like structures. The pieces were given for testing (and tasting) to a panel of lucky chocolate lovers, to find out the most preferred shapes and the reason behind the choices. According to Coulais, the more elaborate and intricate shapes, with more cracks in them, were more enjoyable to the testers. He further elaborated that the crunching of food in mouths gave people pleasure, and that’s why the more brittle and ready-to-shatter chocolates are preferred universally.

The iPad app Notability has long been a favorite for those who prefer digital handwritten notes over rushed typing. Bringing amazing news, the app has most recently been made free to download! So now, anybody can download the app for free and use it. Some additional costs will require if only any user wants to unlock the app’s full range of features.

The App

The fan-favorite app Notability has been used for taking handwritten notes on an iPad screen, preferably with an Apple pencil. It includes amazing features like an array of paper formats, vast collections of brush stroke styles, and an audio recording. This killer audio recording feature is highly useful for interviews and lectures where listening and writing are simultaneous. Through this feature, the recordings and written notes get synchronized. The user can tap on the end portion of the note and hear the audio from that exact moment further on. The app is also available for Macs and iPhones, where it mostly helps in reviewing and correcting existing notes.

The Change

The app was on market for the last 11 years at an up-front price of $9. Currently, Notability’s developer Ginger Labs has upgraded the model, making the app free to download. Though, unlocking all the features will cost an additional subscription charge of $15 per year. For now, the yearly subscription is only $12 for a limited period. The users who won’t opt for a full subscription will have some restrictions in using the app. There will be limited numbers of times they will be able to edit a note, and limited numbers of brushes to save as favorites. Also, after the free time ends, the non-paying users will no longer be syncing their notes automatically to iCloud or any other online storage services. This next-gen model of Notability aims to include more users without the hassle of an initial prepaid subscription.