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A store cupboard isn't the first place you'd look for clues and secrets about the physics of DNA. 

But two researchers recently took to the kitchen in the hope of explaining the complexity of mysterious polymer physics.

By creating rings of pasta, they not only revealed how ring polymers interact, they believe they have stumbled upon a new state of matter dubbed 'topological glass'.

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Physicists from the University of Warwick created a new shape of pasta known as anelloni (pictured) that forms in rings, and resembles ring polymers found in synthetic plastics and nature. By studying the ring's behaviours, the researchers found that if molecules are long enough, they get so tangled they appear frozen

A polymer consists of molecules bonded and strung together to form long chains.

They are found in synthetic plastics, as well as in DNA and proteins, where they are known as biopolymers.

Spaghetti resembles linear polymers because it has two ends and can be separated easily, but the team's new pasta shape - known as anelloni - gets tangled up much more easily when placed in a bowl. 

Davide Michieletto and Professor Matthew Turner from the University of Warwick found that when multiple rings are placed together, known in physics as a melt, they get so intertwined they appear frozen in place. 

Trying to separate the rings is therefore difficult, and in the case of the pasta, the food becomes cold in the process. 

'The thing about ring-shaped polymers is that they're very poorly understood - in fact, they're one of the last big mysteries in polymer physics,' the researchers wrote.

The DNA of bacteria, for example, is made up of ring polymers, so understanding how the polymers interact can reveal more about their properties.

Inspired by the pasta, Mr Michieletto and Professor Turner's carried out computer simulations of ring-shaped polymers to spot this so-called freezing taking place. 

If these simulations occur in real life examples, which the researchers said there is evidence to suggest they do, then they believe they have discovered a new state of matter.

An ordinary 'glassy' material is created when a viscous liquid is cooled far enough that the molecules eventually stop moving and are frozen in place - they maintain the disordered structure of a liquid, but develop the mechanical properties of a solid.

Plastic bottles, for example, are glassy materials that are set into shape when ordinary polymers are rapidly cooled.

For the researcher's 'topological glass', made using ring-shaped polymers, the motion of the individual molecules would slow down not just with temperature but also ring length. 

Physicists design new ring-shaped pasta to explain polymers

Researchers Davide Michieletto (pictured holding a ring of anelloni) and Professor Matthew Turner from the University of Warwick found that when multiple rings are placed together, known in physics as a melt, they get so intertwined they appear frozen in place. Trying to separate the rings is therefore difficult

Mr Michieletto and Professor Turner believe this could inspire novel materials with applications that they said 'can't yet be imagined'.

'What would be nice about a topological glass is that its properties would be governed purely by topology, rather than the system-specific chemical details that often control when and how classical glasses form.

'Physicists love that kind of universal behaviour - in fact, obtaining a universal description of glass has been a central goal in condensed-matter physics for several decades,' they wrote.

The next step is for Mr Michieletto and Professor Turner to carry out more simulations to learn more about these mysterious ring-shaped polymers. 

They can see if the theory can be applied to real world, and look at possible applications. 

'Make yourself a bowl of anelloni and it's likely to have gone cold by the time you've pulled all the rings apart and struggled your way to the messy end,' they concluded.

A polymer consists of molecules bonded and strung together to form long chains.They are found in synthetic plastics, as well as in DNA and proteins, where they are known as biopolymers. The DNA of bacteria (pictured) is made of ring polymers, so understanding how they interact can reveal more about its properties

Inspired by the pasta, researcher Davide Michieletto (pictured) and his colleagues carried out computer simulations to spot this so-called freezing taking place. They believe they have discovered a new state of matter known as 'topological glass', and the next step is to study how this could be applied in the real world