Futuristic 'Smart' Yarns from Carbon Nanotubes 216
neutron_p writes "Scientists at The UTD NanoTech Institute achieved a major technological breakthrough by spinning multi-walled carbon nanotube yarns that are strong, tough and extremely flexible, and are both electrically and thermally conducting. Among other things, the futuristic yarns could result in 'smart' clothing that stores electricity, provides ballistic protection and adjusts temperature and porosity to provide greater comfort. The breakthrough, made possible by, in effect, downsizing ancient technology used for wool and cotton spinning to the nanoscale, resulted from an unusual collaboration involving nanotechnologists and experts in wool spinning."
CARBON Nanotubes (Score:1, Insightful)
Pressure tanks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not only clothing (Score:2, Insightful)
Surely you mean semi-conductors...?
explain to me how you'd make a computer out of conductors only
i'm not being facetious, i'm genuinely interested...
Evaluation of Technology (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, as can be demonstrated by many of my previous posts, I'm all for pure and applied science. However, lately, I've been thinking quite a lot on the question "what good is technology?". Yes, building a space elevator would be cool. Yes, having light bulletproof vests would be cool. But how does this science help mankind? Does it improve agriculture? Does it help provide things people need? Does it help the environment? Does it help people get along better?
I know these are questions that don't have easy answers always, and I know that if people thought about these things in a literal sense then we probably would not have a lot of the technology we currently have.
My question is more of this: what research is being done into pure sciences and technology that does work for agriculture, health, the environment, and those types of things directly. Some technology simply supports those things indirectly by providing jobs, new materials, etc.
What is lacking in a lot of science, though, and much of life in general, is a lack of focus. Even in the pure sciences, what's the goal of a particular project? Sometimes it's "to see how things work". Sometimes it's "we would like a better way to do X". There is no overarching goal for a lot of modern technology though - mostly it's just "we want a profit!" (Reminds me of the line from Star Trek: First Contact where Zefram Cochrane says he wasn't in it for science but for profit!)
I am by most measures a successful person, but I've had to ask myself: what good is it? Not from a depressed standpoint, but a "shouldn't I be doing more?" standpoint. Carbon nanotubes are great, but what do they really give us? The list goes on - what do Linux desktops give us? MP3 players (without DRM, of course!)? Wi-Fi? These are all neat things - but do we have a purpose behind our technical passions?
</soapbox>
Re:Knitting (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:CARBON Nanotubes (Score:3, Insightful)
And I guess you were trying to be funny, which you were, but sometimes sarcastic tone doesn't travel well through text. Ah, well. Gave me a chance to flaunt my high school education.
Missing the most important detail (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Finally... (Score:4, Insightful)
This spinning process seems to only apply to multi-walled nanotubes, at least according to what the submitter wrote.
In other words, not quite.
Re:Evaluation of Technology (Score:5, Insightful)
CNTs are like lasers. When the laser was invented in 1955 or so (someone correct me), it was billed as a "solution looking for a problem." No one knew what the hell to do with it. Naturally, it being the Cold War, most research money was pumped into Star Wars-style blasters...but now look at all the work done with lasers. Surgery, trace gas detection for pollution controls, CD players, DVD players, spectroscopy for materials science, the list goes on. The point is that CNT research is very early. Hell, nanotubes weren't known to exist until 1990 or so. This is one breakthrough out of about a billion or so possible with Carbon Nanotubes. Don't judge the technology based on the premise of "fancy clothing." Hell, the point of the link isn't the clothing part; it's the fact that a new fabrication method was invented that would improve production (and thus, deployment) of nanotubes by orders of magnitude. It's like finding a new way to make lasers on a broad scale instead of slowly making them by hand like in 1960. What you do with the plethora of nanotubes or lasers or what have you is up to you.
Carbon Nanofibers: The New Asbestos (Score:5, Insightful)
Generally small particles or fillaments of any material smaller than a certain size are bad for you if inhaled (i.e. Pneumoconiosis), regardless of their composition.
Additionally, if fiber fragments are short and fine enough, you essentially have little needle-like objects that can do a lot of damage directly at the cellular level.
So, not that I'm being pessimistic or anything, but in the long term I don't think it'll remain an everyday item. It might hit the open market for a while, but a few decades of cancer studies, toxicoligical studies and lawsuits would likely bring an end to that.
While my guesses are just that, there are a few discouraging signs [cwru.edu] in research to date. Watch this area; we'll see whether further results warrant concern or not.
To be clear, I think this technology should certainly be pursued, but we need to be guarded in our optimisim regarding its widespread applicability.
Re:Due to my Font (Score:1, Insightful)
Didn't Pak Protectors eat yams to reach that state? If anything is a smart yam, that would be.
Everything old is new again... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Knitting (Score:3, Insightful)