SOUNDS like a great idea :)

Another excellent example of Scottish inventiveness.

I'm sorry, and I DO apologise in advance, (Humbly!) but does it no' look like they rented the suits just fur the photie?

C'mon the carrots!

At last - a good news story that will surely please everyone. No comments from the Rights for Roots brigade will be tolerated on this thread.

Hey! I'm all in favour of carrots!!! When I was on my uncle's farm in the Borders, when I were a wee lad, he used to get me up at 6 in the morning to go out and pick the carrots off the trees. It was the best time of my life.

Go carrots go!!!

I can hardly wait to see what they do with a Brussel sprout (well, you really can't eat them can you?).
Well done lads.

Next thing you know Elmer Fudd will be bragging about his new 10 carot fishing rod.
More importantly has Bugs Bunny been told about this novel use of his staple ?
Eh, what's up, Scots ???

Can't wait to get my 22 carrot ear rings

This sounds like a wind up ? I thought we usually left those until April 1 ?

#5 You puir wee thing. The carrots didna help you or your old uncle's eyesight. It wisna carrots you were pulling off trees

'Scottish oil now worthless thanks to Scottish carrot invention!' About 90% of me believes this story but I have to admit checking the date to make sure it wasn't April 1st. 'Carrots kill SNP hopes of independence'.

Great for all night angling contests...

Could they not have used the green bits, and left us with some food?

Amazing! A new substance for making fishing rods that help you see in the dark!
Great for night fishing!

#15 Rulesbutnorulers. Wait for it . Desire for profit induces genetically modified carrot , better for the product but ye cannae eat it.

Are these fishing rods going to be a little on the short side, orange and....erm....carrot shaped?

Outstanding development! Well done lads!

Just think the "carrot and stick" will now be known as the "carrot and carrot". Awesome!

Can't see the Battleship thing catching on - a bit of a give away to the enemy being bright orange!

Seriously this is very interesting and good luck to them.

so we can expect a hike in the price of carrots shortly

Does this mean that we will now have a battleship that is luminous at night?? or can see in the dark fishing rods? "here fishy fishy, come get the carrot!! Get behind me carrod!!

#5. I beg to differ. It certainly was carrots. My uncle was one of the few farmers to grow Spinotti's Carrots, which were a hybrid breed that grew in a very leafy tree with broad yellowy-green spear-tipped leaves. The tree itself grows to around 15 feet and 'sprouts' its foliagesuddenly, much like a Willow tree. The carrots are orange with a few yellow-green spots and the taste is better than ordinary carrots. They grow in groves indigenously near to the edges of rain-forests in Brazil. The Portuguese were the first to export them to Europe!

I meant that last for #10.

They will also soon become very rich, employ thousands, live in huge houses and drive 4x4's. Then everyone will hate them!

Funny that!!

#25. If this stuff works as well as they hope, they are going to make Bill Gates look like a pauper - assuming the patents are in order.

Dr David Hepworth and Dr Eric Whale
Congratulations. That takes care of the carrot. Now how about the stick?

No. 19
You sound very bad. Two carrots??? That will not make the horse move an inch. Try this. Keep two carrots in your pocket and tell the horse or the donkey to move. You think it will move. What we need is the something that can replace the carrots now that the carrots will be used for secret weapons.
Remember the Coke has the formula in the safe vault in the Swiss bank. Where is this carroty formals kept would please me. Just curious. I hope there are no preservatives?

Scotland has once more demonstrated how inventive and cunning we are.
If you make a tractor out of this Curran, then the horses can get their own back by eating it when it is retired :>)
Don't lay your fishing rod down or the rabbits will have it!
We don't need new nuclear missiles we can just threaten evryone with carrots!

All we have to do is hand it to London and they will sell it to USA for millions,
Its funny Glasgow started the Charity runners in its Marathon in the 80s And When it was about to overtake NYC & London as the worlds largest ,The BBC pull plug on cameras,Must get ant big ideas about ourselves eh!

did you know that scottie in star trek is a scotsman coz the man who wrote it said for the programme to be believable they needed a scottish engineer. well this just proves how right he was.

# 10 and #23/24
I suspect we have a mixture of April 1st and the Spaghetti growing season here. Whether the story has any credence or not for the future is another matter.

Brings to mind the good ship 'Lollipop' . . .

#33. Are you inferring that I may be posting with a humorous intent, Phil241196? Perish the thought! Do your research.

By the way, it was fun watching the rabbits, leap out of their burrows and make a mad dash along the ground and attemt to run up the carrot trees. My uncle said a few managed to get on to the lower branches, but they mostly waited for any windfallen carrots. That was the time to shoot them for the delicious rabbit meat puddings my aunty used to make.

Better Patent this fast or Microsoft will claim its their technology adding "Microsoft Carrots" with a serial number and require a "patch" to be installed every few days ;)

The problem is, if a battleship is made of carrots can hey still go to hot climates and would the skipper allow pet rabbits on board :))?

Where will you be able to buy it? Extra hot carrot curran please.

Is the guy on the right with the flashy suit really that tall?????

1st April in February??

Good point Scunnin. Microsoft would drive this new technology into the ground. With this carrot development Gates would want to have his cake and eat it. If they don't patent it right they'll be hopping mad and there should be a warren out for their arrest.

Does this mean Trident can be made out of carrots?

Fishing rods; car parts, warships? Trust mere males not to think of the obvious!

And what would that be Petronella? Surely not the "d" word? Why would a man think about making such a device for the hedonistic pleasures of non contributing females where, like us guys, your hand is as useful as our own in that department?

Carrot exploration is for the benefit of mankind, not the selfish here and now satisfaction of self important wimmin.

Absulutely Alex Young Laird of Drumchapel! And it would be carrot cake at that!

The window cleaning industry is in the process of using adapted 70ft poles for washing windows and this will revolutionise and help control the spiralling costs of imported carbon fibre. Well done.

Perhaps The Scotsman could make economic audits/reports out of carrots; I still don't think anyone would swallow them though.

And when you want a snack, just chew on the rod. When I first read this story, I thougth is was a premature Aprils fools' jest. This very sceptical.

Scaramouche. Have a look in the web yourself, as I did before I wrote. AGive me the site and I'll try to be serious

"Waht's up Doc?" Bugs B.

Scaramouche. You and your Uncle haven't got carrot heads by any chance? Just a wee thought

maybe well get houses made of carrots at only 10p per kilo i could afford one.I can see it now orange carrot bricks and orange carrot roof tiles mmmmm.

Could I hae peas instead?

A carrot and stick all in one. Very handy. They do look like they nipped out to Moss Bros for the suits but that suggests they are lucky enough not to have to wear one every day. Good luck to you lads. You should soon be rolling in it.

February 9 20
07-02-09
The carrot nano technology is rebirth of the Vegetable Matriarchal Goddess and is a direct offering from a pre modern-religio / pre-scientific era and in direct violation of global patriarchal authority.
Hard sciences must prevail. We must re-think very carefully before mankind returns to its nativistic nature goddess and her ancestral supplications
Science and its dominance in every thread of life’s roots and is profoundly to be admired, and the work of these two find gentlemen must be noted with ‘green’ laurels of accomplishment. We as a society, may I suggest, must refer this matter to our International Court of Scientific Earth harmonics and obtain its imprimatur aligned with all great teachings of the wisdom schools from Arabia to Asia. Let us go forth with ‘carrot power’ in a fashion that is truly respectful of the rights of all earth consciousness and least we be reminded of the Great light of Mary Shelley and its return form the earth force that has yet to be reckoned imaginatively and as well in terms our latest advanced nano-bio-chemical-physics appropriations. Let’s us pray for rationalism in science and respect for who we really are as a global society. I will never eat another carrot until this matter is fully digested!
JoeJohn

Any danger from over farming to produce the amount of carrots you'd need to produce a fleet of battleships . . . bit like King James IV cutting down all his trees . . . ?

Makes me proud to be of Scottish heritage, not to mention the Fact I am an avid fly fisherman. I am just wondering the if first Fly Rod model will be named "The Bugs Bunny" and if the color will be "What a Maroon !"

I have looked at everyone's comment,and I know
most of you think this is some kind of a joke,
But come on give juice !! where it due,just think
of this Viva Espaina, HERE we go off on holiday
down the runway in a GIANT CARROT.
All joking aside,I'm sure a lot of work has gone into
this.
Well done lads

#33 - When is the spaghetti growing season? I've been going nuts trying to find freshly harvested spaghetti to no avail, they just keep trying to sell me this hard dried out cr*p...

Does this mean that you can now be arrested as you walk out of the greengrocers for being in posession of a potentially lethal battleship?

*53,Of course ye can hae peas Bill,jist order a pea green boat tae go wi yer big carrot battleship.

So, 32, Did you forget that James Doohan aka Scotty, was Canadian born, of Irish parents, in Vancouver BC, March 1920.? Sadly we'll not hear the voice of a master again.

*62,It was never a Scottish accent any way,think him and Sheena Easton conjoured it up between them.Anyway thats nothing to do with the price of carrots.

Makes you proud to be British. Let us hope we do not lose the rights to foreigners.

The Scots make history again!! Very exciting for us who actually care about helping mother earth heal.

A whole new line of Golf Clubs!! Too cool!
I love you Scotland, always have, always will.....

Well i've laughed at all the carrot jokes but joking aside if applications can be made out of this then the fibre glass/carbon fibre era is OVER.

Mon fur the sustainable resource, the futures bright the futures CARROT. ORANGE take note

Two English inventers in Scotland. Good for the Union!

I never ever liked carrots really, they deserve to be fishing rods!

Wow. This is a really cool development!

I can't WAIT until they make car parts out of it. Just think, at the races, the announcer will say something like, "Gentlemen! START YOUR CARROTS!"

What sounds like a parrot?

A carrot!

Multi talented things those carrots

"first there was light"...the right direction is being
found!!!

"first there was light" .... a step in the right direction!!!

What happens if the carrot battleship springs a leek?

If the carrot battleship springs a leek surely its the endives!

Hoy,*67,where in the article does it say"English inventors"?Read it again,think you,ll find it says "Scottish scientists"!

Bill Dunblane,

Hehe, I think the suits were airbrushed over their tie dyed shits, shorts and jesus sandals, after all, it is THE SCOTSMAN they are printed in

We will we have swimming rabbits to combat carrot warships. The next step for terrorists will be to breed rabbits.

Maisie,what are "tie dyed shits"?,some new breed of American carrot?

When and where do we place orders for fly rods?

Never mind these damned fishing poles. Battleships! That's more like it - we can use those to crush our enemies, drive them before us, etc.

78, Caledonia! I am now acutely aware you are vastly younger than me by far!

Not knowing what a tie dyed shirt is can get you corroted in some countries you know!

CARROTED lol

Maisie,If i am "vastlly younger" than you,you must be at least a centegenarian(is there such a word?).So congrats for managing to go through life without burning the"carrot"at both ends.

No doubt we will soon be able to fuel our carrot-created vehicles with "carrot-o-hol"!

caledonia, I confess I missed my mispelling of 'shirt' in my original post and I didnt pick up on it till now, I am rather slow and vegative I am afraid. I burned my carrot at both ends years ago, am now on my third turnip.

I dont believe that Miasie,i,m sure your still a wee spring onion

I have bean a wee sibie in my time but lettuce not dwell on that!

tie dyed shits...crap from the 60's!

GASP, the 60's? Is that when they atarted cos they were still going strong in early 80's?

May tie dyed shirts rest in peas lol

Is this the Scottish version of "stone soup?" It seems like you have to add a lot of high tech this 'n that (all top secret of course) resins and the likes before you get your space age material. Is the carrot really necessary? Would a "red herring" serve the same purpose?

Is this the Scottish version of "stone soup?" It seems like you have to add a lot of high tech this 'n that (all top secret of course) resins and the likes before you get your space age material. Is the carrot really necessary? Wouldn't a "red herring" serve the same purpose?

i suppose this continues the long line of vegetables in public life.
A cabbage for PM and a veritable produce shelf for ministers.

Yes a hearty well done for scottish scientists !! It is a truly amazing discovery and is a sign of what can be done by our little nation if we put our mind to it ...

-- now just watch the 'Scittish' exec and our MSP clowns screw it up so much it will end up doing no good to anyone in this country via any avenue ... and the scientists who discovered the compound will move because it's not worth paying G. Broon tax bill which he slaps on the succesful ... errmm make that moderately earning a crust and above ..

And if you dont catch a big fishies, you could always pan fry the fishing rod and not go hungry.

My bad

PS:- we'll be lucky if we can get another battleships made of carrots out of this government and the budget they give to our starved armed forces .. just heard they've cancelled the new aircraft carier project - despite the fact we now only have 16 major warships ... our guard has never been so low.

And if you dont catch any big fishies, you could always pan fry the fishing rod and not go hungry.

I think Granpa Broon had already invented this one way back in the 70s

My bad

Para Handy look, you can build a brand new Vital Spark for you and Shuggie

100 CARROTS!

Well 100 Carrits then!

#41 Would that be carrot cake???

Glad to see they're using the Gaelic name for carrot - curran!

#103 Very clever! Snapea, even!

Bill about carrots (this may have originated in Dunblane:
There was a guy drinking in a bar, when a the woman next to him saw him take a piece of tomato out of his ear. After a while he poked in again and took out a pea. She ignored this but then he fished about again and removed chunks of carrot but still continued oblivious to the world. She’d had enough and exclaimed, "Are you sick or something?" "No but the last guy who there next to me was," came the reply.

3. Bill, Dunblane
“…..look like they rented the suits just fur the photie?”
They look how I’ve always imagine KGB agents to dress.
Like the other forum you’re all to far ahead of me and as summer has arrived late here but with a vengeance it’s too hot to sit near naked at a computer - I’ll have to sit naked in the garden and supervise the rose ‘dead-heading’ and be deafened by the cicadas. Hope you all have some good debates.

My name is Curran and I resent having my family name associated with a carrot product. The Irish Gaelic name for carrot is "cairead" or "gruag rua" so why not use one of those names. Curran in Irish Gaelic is O'Corrain and refers to a spear but doesn't seem to bear any relationship to carrot products. It's also a widely used family name in Ireland. America and Canada and probably in Scotland and England as well. #102 wrote that curran is Gaelic for carrot but since I only have Irish Gaelic dictionaries I am unable to verify that.

These guys were a round three winner of the Smart:Scotland award. Don't know the size of their award, but it could have been up to 50,000 pounds. Here is the brief on their submission:

CelluComp Ltd, Burntisland, Fife
Nano-biocomposites
CelluComp will use their SMART Award to investigate the technical and commercial feasibility of using a new biocomposite material for the manufacture of shaped composite tubular components for applications in the sports equipment market. In addition to being derived from sustainable sources, the biocomposite material promises to offer a superior combination of both stiffness and very high toughness, unlike other products currently available.

#4
No rights for a root. Thats a bit hard on the lads.

#6
Insulting Brussell Sprouts. Looks like a defamation case requiring a QC, Legal Aid and a trip to the court in the Hague.

The wife is currently rotary hoeing every spare inch of garden and planting carrots, were going to be RICH

96 If you're worried about Scotland's diminished capacity to defend itself and its dwindling naval hardware, we have a number of really great submarines we can let you have cheap. Finest Scottish workmanship - we just have to pinpoint their exact location on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The UK Government never mentioned what vegetable they were made out of at time of the sale - Could have been sea cucumbers.

The method and process is spelled out in the patent
WO2006056737
View it at
http://gb.espacenet.com
Click number search and enter this number.

What will they trhink of next? I suppose that if you have nae luck catching fish wi' the carrot rod, it could be chopped up and biled intae soup in yer billie can.

#111
Didn't know Canada ever had submarines.
Probably nothing wrong with them, just the drivers confused between up and down.

Hey guys, I fell 'outa mah chair laffing at yor' comments. You all have wonderfully 'sick' humour for my poor healthy mind. You guys are great! Well, I suppose bunnies won't be laughing at this.

Did someone mention brussel sprouts?http://www.eyegas.com/xmas05/

Whaurs the carrots?

105 - Robbie - I WAS the guy the guy sitting next to him! ;)

110 - Wiz - probably lost on most non-Aussies, but an adaptation of the old Koala joke. Eats, shoots,....... Appreciated! :D

This HAS to be the best AND worst string on this site for a long time. Good thing is, it brought us ALL together. There IS still hope!

The last line of the article:" .......parsnips, swedes and turnips". SWEDES?
Pray, what are Swedes besides Swedish people?
Will someone please explain to this confused Yank?

What about the rabbits?

What about peas? To 121 swedes are sweet potatoes thats how we know them. It is great that something can come from carrots but really, I swear is it already April 1st. I feel this story just seems well out there. Where can I get one of those rods. I could use one in the Eastern Serrias this summer, it might help my night fishing ha ha.

#109 I can believe the superior combo of stiffness and very high toughndess for I have tried to eat some carrots past the expiration date. Wonder how long the expiration date will be on these new carrot-made items. Perhaps they will not outlast the time needed to be used for outer space items. When will
these carrots rot or not?

Saw a TV program about sex education. A young man was shown how to put on a condom, the instructor was using a carrot.
On his wedding night he produced a carrot, put the condom on it then got on the job.
I will not divulge his nationality but it was filmed south of Berwick.

Notice the photo has been taken by 'Complmentary' - is this because no-one wants to take the carrot for it?

For those with time on their hands. Cut up a carrot and carve out a small fish-shaped piece about an inch-and-a-half long. Place the carrot-fish in your coat pocket and wait for an appropriate moment, ie a bar with an aquarium.
When the right "moment" presents itself, palm the carrot in your hand. (Be near the fish bowl in the bar)
Then, roll up the sleeve, plunge the hand into the gold fish bowl, pull out the "fish" by the tail, hold it up and wiggle it, pop it into your mouth and partake of the "meal", dab the corners of your mouth with a napkin,
collect any winning s and then get thrown out on yer ear.
Warnings some onlookers may gag at this performance and make sure its not a tank of piranha that have been fed some goldfish that are just waiting to be eaten!

*108 Sorry if you feel your name is being insulted but it is the curran,t topic of conversation.Knew a bloke once called "Willie Shit",he to was fed up with the ribings and inuendoes so he changed his name by deed poll to Tommy Shit."

A guy walks into a doctors office with a carrot in his ear and a piece of celery up his nose. The doctor told him he wasn't eating right.
Goodnight

WOW! The bunny rabbitts will be rich and corner
the market on carrots,but will the big ears and
fluffy tail critters open a shipyard and build new
carrot tech submarines and battleships? Or are
they smarter then humans and know that no
navy in the world still has active duty battleships?
So who would like to inves in our brand new
carrot aircraft carrier line instead?

#127

Likewise the guy called Penis van Lesbian

changed his name to

Dick van Dyke

and look where it got him

Seriously. to break the humorous threads.
Don't be fooled into drinking all the juice when the fibre is extracted.
I used to do the Haemoglobins for the Red Cross blood bank and one night a girl came in with very yellow skin and it was covered in rectangular scales. When asked what the problem was she said she went on a Carrot Juice diet and poisoned her liver with the Beta Carotene which is a precursor to Vitamin A and is fat soluble. She then used to come in every 3 months and without looking up I could pick her even just by looking at her hands.

Could this be an alternative to plastics manufactured from an fossil oil fuel ? Carrots grown for the process could act as a carbon sink...... how environmentally friendly is the whole process and is the end product bio-degradable?
I read that hemp also has good strong fibres for rope and cloth process. It also grows well without chemical fertilizers.

I thought only bananas had these strong nano fibres.

carrots, swede and brussel sprouts,
what can you make out of meat? nowt.

i'm a true vegetarian and i was wondering if these inventors could make me a replacement cow made from carrots. they've made lamb burgers that are vegetarian and prawn coctail crisps with no prawns, so surly this could be the next step for us who want to mimic all the cow eaters in a caring fashion; to show you can eat cows without killing anything.

p.s. you could even add rubber bones so we could have vegie ribs.

Congrats to the scientists / inventors, and thanks to all you posters for making my morning bright. Y'all're churning 'em out nicely!

That's a turnip for the book...

#75 Although it doesn't say it, Dr David hepworth was a lecturer at the university of Bath and much of the research was conducted there, I've been told he's English, but I don't know if it's true.

Of course, how dare anyone suggest this anything but a wholly Scottish invention.

It's not as if foreign companies would set up in Fife as Scottish enterprise is prepared to throw any amount of money at high tech companies these days just to encourage growth.

It's not like, for example, Dundee's full of American and Scandanavian Biotech firms bcause of the grants and tax breaks...oh wait, yes it is.

#121
In answer to your question:
"Rutabaga" (from dialectal Swedish rotabagge) is the American term, while "swede" is the term used in much of England, Wales, and Australia. Its common name in Sweden is "Kålrot" (Cabbage root). In Norway it is also called "Kålrot", or "Kålrabi". It is also known as the "Swedish turnip" or "yellow turnip". To the Scots, the Irish, and the English it is called "turnip", or in Scotland, "neep"—the vegetable known elsewhere as a turnip being called a "swede" or a "white turnip" in Scotland. In North-East England they are also colloquially called "snadgies". In the US, rutabagas may also be called "yellow turnips." In Atlantic Canada, white turnips are relatively unknown, with rutabagas being known simply as turnips.
Scots also use the term "tumshie heid," when being direspectful, usualy to the present incumbents of our wonderfull new Parliament. "Tumshie," slang for turnip. And "heid," slang for head. Although given the standard of debate in that place, we are probaly being direspectful to Tumshie's.
So really we have already gone down this route by turning Tumshie's into Politician's. :>)

#137.
Where did you dig that one up?

And then there was the farm hand who died, there was a big turn up for his funeral....

"Comm'ng for to carry you home. Swing low SWEET
CARRIOT, comm'ng for to carry you home."