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Scientists Develop Graphene Aerogel
The Worlds Lightest Material
Last year, German scientists created aerographite, which at 0.2 milligrams per cubic
centimeter was dubbed the worlds lightest material. However they have now been eclipsed
by a team from Chinas Zhejiang University that has created Graphene Aerogel a spongelike solid material made from freeze-dried carbon and graphene oxide that weighs just .16
milligrams per cubic centimeter. Thats just twice the density of hydrogen.
http://gajitz.com/meta/science/new-materials/
Strong as Steel: Scientists Unveil New Unbreakable Glass
The scientists published their findings in Nature and aim to commercialize their
work in the next five years, bringing it to tablets, computers, smartphones, cars
and buildings. It is still thin, like and see-through like typical glass, just far
more robust. Alumina is the critical ingredient mixed with silicon dioxide, this
strengthening agent had to be added in a new way to keep it from crystallizing
before the glass could form (which normally happens upon contact with the
container of the glass).
Developed by the MITs Tangible Media Group, this remarkable clothing uses
microorganisms to sense perspiration and heat, changing shape to let your body
breath on demand. As a bonus, the bacteria employed are fueled by breaking
down proteins your body expels while sweating.
Bacillus Subtilis natto bacteria react to atmospheric moisture, expanding and
contracting in response to humidity and heat. A specially printed biofilm is
overlaid on a spandex suit as shown in the video above.
the special cells sense changes on the body, curling up and thus allowing more
airflow when things heat up. MIT is now printing billions of these and testing
various applications. In the era where biology is the new interface, we are
imagining a world where actuators and sensors can be grown rather than
manufactured,
As 3D printing grows ever more popular and people use at-home devices like 3D
printing pens and mini-fabricators, were going to encounter a pretty serious
plastic problem. Plastics already place a heavy toll on the environment, but the
plastic filament used to fabricate stuff at home is rarely recycled. Now, in
comes Wound Up, a 3D printing filament made of recycled coffee grounds.
The product from 3Dom is actually a coffee-filled wire filament. Its not
completely free of plastic, but its plastic content is significantly lower than
comparable filaments. Wound Up can be used in any printer that accepts PLA,
and it creates objects with a very unique look.
Things printed using Wound Up look almost like theyre carved from wood. Their
rich, deep color is reminiscent of a dark wood while the natural coffee material
gives them a natural-looking grain. The inventors say the products created with
Wound Up are just as sturdy as their plastic counterparts. One of their example
projects is a drinking cup made of coffee grounds.
Even the spool that holds the Wound Up filament is eco-friendly. The Eco-Spool
is made of plant sugars and will decompose much quicker than traditional
plastic spools. This type of recycled and eco-friendly material could be a real
game-changer when it comes to the environmental impact of 3D printing, which
is something we should all be concerned about as the practice edges closer and
closer to being a routine in-home thing.
With a few notable exceptions, just about all 3D printing up to this point has
been done with plastic as a base material. A collaboration between MITs
Mediated Matter Group, MITs Department of Mechanical Engineering and MITs
Glass Lab has led to a pretty exciting advancement: 3D printing with molten
glass. The group calls their process G3DP. It involves an upper cartridge acting
as a kiln at up to 1900 degrees Fahrenheit. The lower chamber anneals the
molten glass, allowing it to cool slowly, letting the newly-printed structure
harden. The team figured out that by precisely adjusting the orientation and
thickness of the optically transparent glass, they can closely control the light
transmission, reflection, and refraction qualities of the finished objects.
That may sound a little like mumbo-jumbo, and the video only seems to focus
on the (admittedly very impressive) artistic value of the G3DP method. But in
simpler terms, it means that this method might help us make higher-quality,
less-expensive fiber optics in the near future. It could even be used as a simpler
method of making eyeglass lenses and the decorative possibilities are still a
pretty big part of the G3DP methods appeal, of course. Just imagine these
gorgeous bespoke light fixtures all throughout your house!
The machine layers up its creating, developing thick lines rich with seeds and
nutrients that in turn grow into living prints. It can construct anything you want,
from custom patterns to the shapes of faces as well as letters forming words or
art to make green murals. And this is just the prototype: consider the
possibilities of deploying mobile machines across landscapes, able to print out
large-scale designs around buildings or in nature.
Dino Pet gets its name and its shape from the dinoflagellates that inhabit its
plastic shell. The tiny plankton live in salt water and require minimal care to
thrive and bring you a sweet little light show at night.
During the day, your Dino Pet should be set in indirect light. At night, give it a
little shake to stimulate the plankton and make them glow. Every now and then,
you dump some liquid nutrients into the dinos belly to keep the plankton fed.
The amount of light your Dino Pet puts off depends on how well you care for it.
If you pay attention to it and give it lots of love, it will put on a show for you
every night after a little shake.
The toy/pet/biological lamp from BioPop was developed after the company
began a quest for a sustainable bio-light. They found dinoflagellates, designed
an adorable vessel for them, and made a completely lovable living lamp thats
available in the US for $59.95.
When you spend money on a nice new phone, one of the first things you do (if
youre smart) is get a case to protect it. Yale professor Jan Schroers, a
specialist in materials science and mechanical engineering, is seeing to it that
the next generation of smartphone cases is super tough and durable. Schroers
works with Bulk Metallic Glasses, or BMGs. These ultra-strong but lightweight
alloys are created by cooling molten metal incredibly quickly so that the typical
crystalline structure of solid metal cant form. BMGs, also known as amorphous
metals, have an atomic structure that is closer to that of glass, but they are far
sturdier.
BMGs have been around since at least 1960, but until now researchers have had
trouble figuring out just how to shape them for consumer use. Professor
Schroers has developed a technique for forming them that involves shaping the
alloys while they are in their supercooled liquid state. He uses this method,
called thermoplastic forming, to create sheets of BMGs. Once the alloys are in
sheet form, they can be shaped by a blow-molding process similar to that used
to mold plastics.
Schroers has his eye on the consumer electronics market for the technology, to
which Yale owns the rights. He has licensed those rights to create a line of ultradurable, lightweight phone cases. They will be scratch-resistant and roughly 50
times harder than plastic. One of the main benefits of using BMGs is that
buttons can be built right into the cases, opening up the possibility to make the
http://industrial-innov.lbl.gov/II-materials.html
New Materials
Researchers throughout Berkeley Lab are developing new materials for use in
the broadest imaginable range of industrial applications, as well as everyday
applications from building materials to biomedicine. A new and growing area
of research at Berkeley Lab focuses on nanotechnology.
Aerogels