Welcome back to Cool Stuff Ride Home on today's abbreviated holiday edition.

We take a look at the cool invention that never melts.

It's called jelly ice.

And we also cover a few events for this day in history.

I'm Regger Rizzou and that's all coming up on Cool Stuff Ride Home.

When it comes to keeping your drinks cold, no matter whether it's crushed or cubed,

ordinary ice eventually melts into a puddle. However, there is a new alternative out there

called jelly ice, and it won't melt on you. Developed by researchers Jia Han Zhu and Geng Zun

at the University of California

Davis, jelly ice is a reusable, compostable, cooling material made from gelatin, the same

ingredient that you, of course, get in your jiggly desserts. Zoo unveiled her team's

latest results at the American Chemical Society's Fall 2025 meeting, which was held between August 17th and the 21st.

The project began with a practical problem. Lu X. Davis food scientist noticed how seafood display

cases and grocery stores constantly leaked puddles of meltwater, which risk spreading pathogens and contaminating the food.

She asked Zoo and Sun whether they could design a reusable material that cooled like ice,

but didn't melt into a mess. The inspiration came from an unlikely source, frozen tofu.

As Sun explains, quote, frozen tofu keeps its water inside, but when you thaw it, it releases the water.

So we tried to solve that issue with another material.

Gelatin, end quote. Unlike tofu, gelatin proteins form hydrogels with long strands that link

together, creating tiny poresers to trap water.

In early tests, these hydro gels successfully held onto water as they shifted between liquid and solid,

avoiding liquid or structural damage.

...