10 Futuristic Materials Lifeboat Foundation Safeguarding Humanity Skip to content Switch to White Special Report 10 Futuristic Materials by Lifeboat Foundation Scientific Advisory Board member Michael Anissimov. 1. Aerogel protecting crayons from a blowtorch. This tiny block of transparent aerogel is supporting a brick weighing 2.5 kg. Aerogel holds 15 entries in the Guinness Book of Records, more than any other material. Carbon nanotubes are long chains of carbon held together by the strongest bond in all chemistry, the sacred sp2 bond, even stronger than the sp3 bonds that hold together diamond. “Metamaterial” refers to any material that gains its properties from structure rather than composition. We’re starting to lay down thick layers of diamond in CVD machines, hinting towards a future of bulk diamond machinery. Diamonds may be strong, but aggregated diamond nanorods (what I call amorphous fullerene) are stronger. Transparent alumina is three times stronger than steel and transparent. inShare28 Materials
SQUIGGLE motors - miniature piezoelectric micro motors Patented piezoelectric motor with small size, high force and speed The heart of New Scale's M3 smart module platform is the SQUIGGLE motor, a revolutionary piezo micro motor with incredibly small size and big performance. This patented ultrasonic motor creates high force (or torque) and high speed with only a few parts – compare to complex electromagnetic gearhead motors with hundreds of parts. This simple, robust piezo motor is scalable to much smaller sizes than electromagnetic motors, without significant loss of power efficiency, and operates on 3.3 V. Features Precise: nanometer resolutionFast: variable speed to 10 mm/sec (linear) or 12,000 rpm (rotary)Strong: models with up to 5 Newton force (linear) or more than 3 mN-m (rotary)Tiny: as small as 1.8 x 1.8 x 6 mmQuiet and smoothNon-magnetic, vacuum and cryogenic options possible Operating principle Piezoelectric actuators change shape when electrically excited. Linear SQUIGGLE micro motors Rotary SQUIGGLE micro motors M3 smart modules
Epoxy Gel Coat Gelcoats are special resins that are designed to form the first surface of a composite mould or part. Gelcoats are generally applied as a thickness of 0.3-0.7mm and are specially formulated to provide the part or mould surface with properties such as resistance to UV (ultraviolet) degradation, hydrolysis or osmosis (where water is absorbed into a composite over considerable time). Gelcoats also include thixotropic additives to make them thicker and more able to stick to inclined surfaces of moulds. Epoxy gelcoats are based on epoxide resin and polyamine hardener (just like epoxy resin) and should be used when making parts using epoxy resin , if a gelcoat surface is required. Gelcoats are applied to a mould surface and allowed to cure to a certain point before the first layer of laminate is applied. Tooling Gel Coats Tooling gel coats are specially designed to provide a highly polish-able and durable surface to epoxy based moulds.
Do we live in a computer simulation? UW researchers say idea can be tested News releases | Research | Science December 10, 2012 A decade ago, a British philosopher put forth the notion that the universe we live in might in fact be a computer simulation run by our descendants. The concept that current humanity could possibly be living in a computer simulation comes from a 2003 paper published in Philosophical Quarterly by Nick Bostrom, a philosophy professor at the University of Oxford. The human species is likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage.Any posthuman civilization is very unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of its evolutionary history.We are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. He also held that “the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation.” Eventually, more powerful simulations will be able to model on the scale of a molecule, then a cell and even a human being.
Don Harper Mills: 1994's Most Bizarre Suicide This story can be found in many places on the Web, usually without attribution, and claims that it is true. But the story of its origin, and how to spot it must be an UL, can be found at Deconstructing Ronald Opus At the 1994 annual awards dinner given by the American Association for Forensic Sciences, AAFS President Don Harper Mills astounded his audience in San Diego with the legal complications of a bizarre death. On March 23 the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a gunshot wound of the head caused by a shotgun. Ordinarily a person who starts into motion the events with a suicide intent ultimately commits suicide even though the mechanism might be not what he intended. Further investigation led to the discovery that the room on the 9th floor from whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. When one intends to kill subject A, but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B.
Les nouvelles technologies façonnent un marché du travail à deux vitesses Alors que la France est dans une phase de croissance molle ou quasi-nulle, deux visions économiques s’affrontent. Pour l’une, celle du gouvernement français notamment, le retour de la compétitivité ramènera la croissance, qui ramènera le plus important: l’emploi. Christopher Mims, qui publie un article sur Quartz, serait sans doute en désaccord avec ce schéma. Car c’est oublier que les gains de productivité conquis par l’homme grâce à la machine ont eu un effet pervers: le remplacement du travail manuel humain par des machines. Or selon Christopher Mims, les travailleurs des services pourraient connaître le même sort que celui des ouvriers de l’industrie: être remplacés par des automates, en l'occurrence des logiciels. Les travailleurs routiniers de l’économie tertiaire («routine cognitive jobs») risquent d’être les grands perdants de la transformation. Car pour les travailleurs les plus compétents et les plus diplômés, ces changements technologiques sont au contraire une aubaine.
Nanotech Electrical Motor Is Made From A Single Molecule Researchers at Tufts University have put together a “molecular motor” that is only about a nanometer across. It’s not the first single-molecule motor ever made, but this one, unlike others, can be activated singly by the minute tip of a scanning electron microscope. They’re working with Guinness to get certified as the smallest motor in the world. This incredibly small machine — and although it really is just a molecule (and not a big one at that), it is a machine — was created by simply stacking a butyl methyl sulphide molecule onto a substrate of copper. The conformation of the molecule ends up sticking the sulphur “downwards”, where it acts as a sort of pivot, with the carbon atoms sticking out on either end. Add a little bit of charge and it starts to spin. What can they do with this? To anyone who has studied microbiology, this might seem rather underwhelming.
A bright idea to help bike riders be seen and not harmed Designer Wouter Walmink:"One of the things we wanted to do was to make a helmet that was more exciting to look at". WOUTER Walmink never considered wearing a bicycle helmet until he moved to Melbourne a year ago. But after pedalling through the city's hectic streets, the Dutch designer realised he was going to need a helmet - so he set about making a better one. The result is the LumaHelm, a flashing headpiece with 104 multicoloured LED lights that illuminate like indicators when a cyclist tilts the head left or right. ''One of the things we wanted to do was make a helmet that was more exciting to look at,'' the 28-year-old says. Advertisement The LumaHelm is based on a standard helmet fitted with lights powered by AA batteries and a sensor that measures movement of the cyclist's head. An Arduino microcontroller placed in the cyclist's pocket translates those movements into light patterns. Mr Walmink says his invention could improve cyclist safety. henrietta.cook@theage.com.au