"If you put salty water on onion skin the cells will shrink, if you put too much water on it the cells will swell, " he says.

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And these are thrilling times for science - skin after skin of the onion of what we thought we knew is constantly being stripped away, revealing deeper hidden skins.

BBC: How sci-fi moves with the times

From time to time, George brought in giant vegetables that he grew in a greenhouse, including an onion he cultivated which was almost as big as a basketball, its skin like parcel paper.

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