Science French Rubber
posted by February 20 at 15:48 PM
onHoly shit! The French have invented a rubber that can repair itself.
The as-yet-unnamed material - a form of artificial rubber - is made from vegetable oil and a component of urine.The substance, described in the journal Nature, produces surfaces when cut that retain a strong chemical attraction to each other.
Pieces of the material join together again as if never parted without the need for glue or a special treatment.
This remarkable property comes from careful engineering of the molecules in the material.
The French researchers are already making kilogramme quantities in their Paris laboratories and say the process is almost completely green, and could be completely so with a few adjustments.
And…
François Tournilhac, who runs Dr Leibler’s laboratories, demonstrated the healing to me.Using a razor blade he severed a thin strand of the yellowish material (the colour of corn oil), showed me the clean square faces, and then pressed them together.
Almost immediately, the grip was strong enough for him to hold the sample just at one end.
Within an hour the bonds had rebuilt themselves so thoroughly that it was possible to stretch the strand to twice its length without any sign of weakness where the cut had been made.
Those who have read William Gibson’s Idoru know what’s now in my head. This technology is much like the technology that rebuilds Tokyo after the great earthquake in the novel’s near future.
Comments
Wow! I especially like the green aspect.
They SAY it is green...until we discover in 30 years it releases toxins into the air that cause our lungs to turn to black mushy tar.
They should make condoms out of this.
Ooooh! Kinky!
Vegetable oil and urine? I discovered this myself a few nights ago.
But what if it repairs itself after it breaks?
The Future Is Now!
Plausible deniability, Will......
This story reminds me of the recent study that found that DNA strands can recognize and seek out similar molecular structure over distance, to help swap genes and recombine:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080124103151.htm
My reaction was pretty similar to Charles'. Holy shit!
I thought that it was nano-mites that were used to rebuild tokyo in that book. Call me picky, but microscopic little autonomous construction robots are a far cry from rubber and piss in my book.
I was thinking more of "Gravity's Rainbow"'s Imipolex-G, myself.
I thought the post WAS about self-repairing condoms at first, what with Mudede's frequent Europeanisms.
Clearly the superior usage for this rubber is self-repairing bicycle tyres.
Condoms are for pussies.
Since it's as yet unnamed, can I suggest calling it "rupbber". That's rubber with "p" in it.
according to Chas it is 'a rubber' they've invented, not 'rubber' so happy happy joy joy for all those shooting live ammo!!
Yeah I think that's why I thought condoms... "a" rubber
Million dollar question is whether or not it dries out. Here in Arizona, cars would last forever if not for gaskets, cracking dashes and rubber seals since there's no rust.
Man, do you remember the days when stuff would, like, break? Seriously, things would crack, split, chip, sometimes even SHATTER. And that was it, you couldn't use that thing anymore. You'd have to go out and buy a new one. That's some crazy ass shit, man. Musta sucked living in the dark ages like that.
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