'MIT scientists solve age-old spaghetti mystery'

Scientists at MIT have finally figured out how to break spaghetti into just two pieces, a mystery that has puzzled researchers for decades.

The researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US found that if a stick is twisted past a certain critical degree, then slowly bent in half, it will, against all odds, break in two.

The finding may have applications beyond culinary curiosities, such as enhancing the understanding of crack formation and how to control fractures in other rod-like materials such as multifiber structures, they said.

In 2005, physicists from France pieced together a theory to describe the forces at work when spaghetti - and any long, thin rod - is bent.

They found that when a stick is bent evenly from both ends, it will break near the centre, where it is most curved.

This initial break triggers a "snap-back" effect and a bending wave, or vibration, that further fractures the stick.

Their theory seemed to solve the puzzle.

However, a question remained: Could spaghetti ever be coerced to break in two?