The sobbing of a chef as he or she chops onions in the kitchen could be a thing of the past thanks to one Japanese company, which says it has produced a tear-free vegetable. Scientists say they have managed to disable the production of a powerful substance an onion releases as the knife slices into it, cutting down on the pungent fumes that bring tears to the eyes. House Foods Group said in a press release that they bombarded the brown bulb with irradiating ions in a process that drastically reduces the level of a certain enzyme that is key to this process. A spokesman said no decision had yet been made on whether they would market their tear-free onions. The company's researchers won the LG Nobel Prize – an award handed out to honor achievements organizers consider unintentionally funny – in 2013 for their discovery of the biochemical process behind how onions make people cry.