Your toothpaste and salad dressing have more in common than you might think, and NASA has spent more than two decades studying why. Ever since 2001, NASA has been sending its experiments to the International Space Station to investigate the properties of colloids, a wide range of mixtures including everything from shampoo to vinaigrette, because gravity makes them difficult to study properly. According to NASA Science, Procter & Gamble received three patents based on the ISS experiments. The partnership between NASA and P&G is unusual but scientifically useful.
What is a colloid, and why does gravity ruin the experiment
