Tokyo Scientists Create Mobile Slime 111
Sockatume writes "Shingo Maeda and colleagues at Waseda University have created a polymer gel that walks under its own chemical power. The team exploited the oscillating Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction to create periodic changes in the size of the polymer, and built a tensed structure that would amplify those small movements into a horrifically potent gait. The current version only walks across a notched surface, but the team are working on a terrible new form that will cross smooth surfaces like a snail. The team say they intend to apply it in the self-assembly of small structures. Suddenly, I can't stop screaming."
Suddenly SLIME RAPE! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Suddenly SLIME RAPE! (Score:5, Funny)
Mobile slime?
Politicians with cars.
Mobile Slime? (Re:Suddenly SLIME RAPE!) (Score:2)
Someone should redo the giant robots genre, but instead of kids piloting giant robots, they are implanted as the nucleii of giant combat amoebas.
Gundam Mobile Slime?
Actually, Evangelion was kinda off in that direction, anyhow!
everyone needs... (Score:1)
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everyone needs a gelatinous cube
That walks?
Re:everyone needs... (Score:4, Funny)
How else is it supposed to keep your dungeon clean?
Re:everyone needs... (Score:4, Funny)
How else is it supposed to keep your dungeon clean?
You Fourth Edition guys.....
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Meme-aholic. (Score:3, Funny)
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You must be a Weight-Watchers employee
-1 mean
Re:Meme-aholic. (Score:5, Funny)
I for one welcome our oscillating polymer overlords.
Are all of you people that write this joke former SNL writers trying to sharpen your skills?
Re:Meme-aholic. (Score:5, Funny)
The secret is out. And I for one welcome our new ex-SNL writing skill-sharpening overlords.
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And I for one welcome our overlord welcoming overlords...
Re:Meme-aholic. (Score:5, Funny)
Are all of you people that write this joke former SNL writers trying to sharpen your skills?
And the sad part is that they apparently save their good material for /.
Re:Big Deal (Score:5, Funny)
Liar.
You're a slashdotter. The slashdotter relationship function is a binary function.
Either you have no hope of getting a piece, which makes you a liar, or you're married, which also makes you a liar.
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Re:Big Deal (Score:5, Informative)
Obviously, those stereotypes don't always apply (actually, they usally *aren't* applicable, but since there is a tinge of truth to them, they remain good sources for humor). And while 'get a piece' may be offensive to some, that's part of what makes it a useful phrase in crafting humor.
Now that I've needed to explain this in great detail, while a simple *whoosh* may or may not have been sufficient... let me just say this:
Jokesmithing is serious business. I are serious jokester.
Re:Big Deal (Score:5, Funny)
Jokesmithing is serious business. I are serious jokester.
So I presume you practice Slight of Wit?
No, I understand him. Really I do. I studied humour seriously for many years. It's so hard to get people to understand the seriousness of this study. Yes.
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So I presume you practice Slight of Wit?
His wit is very slight indeed.
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No, I understand him. Really I do. I studied humour seriously for many years. It's so hard to get people to understand the seriousness of this study. Yes.
"When I first said I was going to be a comedian, they laughed at me."
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Statistically, thought, we actually get more than even the 'playa playa' single guys. I always find it amusing when a single friend of mine (with pretensions of being Mr Smooth Moves) is bragging about how he got with this hot chick on the weekend and they got it on three times. I'm just waiting for him to ask 'when I last got s
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New here much?
[counts the digits]
Yes. Yes you are.
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gentlemen (Score:5, Funny)
We must improve our salt-shaker technology.
migrating slime (Score:4, Funny)
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Law Suit Immient (Score:2)
In related new, Wizards of Coast [wizards.com] filed suit against the scientist for violating their Intellectual Property. They are seeking damages in excess of 100 million dollars.
This is WotC (Score:5, Funny)
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What's the current dollargold piece conversion rate?
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And another innocent poster has his "< - >" eaten.
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The Player's Handbook states that 50 gold pieces weigh a pound. Given that this is a medieval-style economy, its worth should be completely dependent on how much gold is in it. Now, a gp can't be pure gold (because pure gold is far too soft to make circulating coins out of). Estimating how pure it is is complicated by the fact that the PHB doesn't tell us the volume of the thing (it states the diameter but not the thickness). Historically, gold coins h
Welcome (Score:1, Offtopic)
I, for one, welcome our new polymer gel overloads.
Pornographic Applications? (Score:5, Funny)
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You could make some freaky cool condoms with this, both for the visual pattern and the oscillations.
Re:Pornographic Applications? Apply to Real (Score:1)
Doll... might make for gender-neutral, good aural or gap-filler (feeler?) effects.
or, use it for caseload reduction for trauma/ER rooms. Imagine slime ordered to deal with a sucking chest wound. Of course, a soldier might die of heart attack at the sight of slime crawing to the rib cage. Might also make for good sci-fi special visual effects.
Any geeks/nerds out there with horny-ass little (redundant?) chihuahuas? Maybe they could wrap their little bony/bowed ass legs around rag-sized slime. After insliminat
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Great...till it crawls inside you...not a pleasant thought.
Opinions differ. :)
Slime (Score:3, Funny)
Reminds me of the movie The Green Slime [imdb.com] I saw when I was way too young to be watching late-night TV.
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Worse.
"The Blob", starring a very young Steve McQueen.
This is going to affect... (Score:3, Funny)
... my answer to the "how much longer do you expect to live" poll question.
With that thing on the loose, not much longer, I fear....
And the guys from Mythbusters... (Score:3, Interesting)
...not to mention every other Hollywood SFX house are drooling all the way down their shirts.
Make it Stop (Score:1)
If this is a closed system inside the polymer, how does it stop?
My physics knowledge says that this can not perpetuate indefinitely.
My chemistry knowledge says that is this chemical reaction is oscillating now, it will be oscillating forever.
My head hurts!
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Re:Make it Stop - not forever, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belousov%E2%80%93Zhabotinsky_reaction [wikipedia.org]
...These reactions are far from equilibrium and remain so for a significant length of time...
...An essential aspect of the BZ reaction is its so called "excitability" â" under the influence of stimuli, patterns develop in what would otherwise be a perfectly quiescent medium. Some clock reactions... can be excited into self-organising activity through the influence of light...
Well, looks like the power-transmission problem is solved - just shine a flashlight on the thing.
...The discovery of the phenomenon is credited to Boris Belousov. He noted... that in a mix of potassium bromate, cerium(IV) sulfate, propanedioic acid and citric acid in dilute sulfuric acid...
Hang on a second. That's not exactly a common mix. Was this guy trying out for the "Most Random Acid Cocktail" award?
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Hang on a second. That's not exactly a common mix. Was this guy trying out for the "Most Random Acid Cocktail" award?
Actually he was working on a formula for the next new male sexual enhancement drug, but instead he accidentally created another alternative to sexual intercourse with a male for women....oh irony....
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Apparently what was going on was that Belousov was trying to generate an inorganic analog to the Krebs cycle at the time he discovered his oscillating reaction. Instead of using enzymes, he was using oxidizing agents like potassium bromate and cerium(IV)sulfate to try to interconvert a series of carboxylic acids.
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Grey Goo! (Score:2)
Grey Goo! [wikipedia.org] Nuff said.
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Grey goo is self-replicating right? I suppose if you have a whole city made out of "ruthenium bipyridine ions" this might be disconcerting, but the article says nothing about self-replication or eating anything. Which makes this significantly less scary than your average amoeba.
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Which makes this significantly less scary than your average amoeba.
You say that like amoebas aren't scary. Have you ever traveled in a 3rd world country?
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I only meant that amoebas are less scary than world-eating nanobots (AKA grey goo). Doesn't mean I think they're harmless.
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All I have to say is (Score:5, Funny)
Aaaachooooooo!
Metal Slimes? (Score:2)
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Thanks Burt Bacharach (Score:2)
Just when you think you can get the tune out of your head...
Beware of the blob,
it creeps
and leaps
and glides
and slides across the floor
right through
the door
and all around the wall
a splotch,
a blotch
be careful of the blob
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It's log, it's log,
It's big, it's heavy, it's wood!
It's log, it;s log, it's better than bad, it's good!
What rolls down stairs and over the chairs and into your neighbor's dog?
It fits on your back, It's good for a snack, Everyone knows it's log!
How do you like me now, Mr-I'm-gonna-get-a-bad-song-stuck-in-your-head?
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Well played sir. Very well played indeed. ... from BLAMO
Salt or UV light? (Score:2)
Nuke it from orbit... (Score:2)
As usual - it is the only way to be sure.
Ob: overlords (Score:1, Redundant)
And thus (Score:2)
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doth Azathoth reenter the baryonic matter universe
I think it already has. There's a certain murloc - like quality to the RIAA, I strongly suspect infiltration.
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That's what she... (Score:1)
Hair gel? (Score:5, Funny)
This could revolutionize the hair gel industry. Think of it... oscillating, dynamically waving hair!
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A Boy and His Blob (Score:1)
When Eggs Go Bad (Score:1)
OK, I admit it was a rotten pun, but just look at it...
Imagine (Score:2)
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these...
Maybe it would be just like one of the critters in the saga...
Soon... (Score:2)
I don't think you know just how close you were with that pun.
From TFA:
The BZ reaction is one of a class of chemical systems in which the concentration of one or more compounds periodically increases and decreases.
As well as producing stunning patterns, it can even be used to perform calculations using a dish containing the pulsing patterns as a chemical brain.
That's nothing... (Score:1)
Ooh, pretty patterns (Score:2)
+1 Entertaining
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI2Y7wzhjVA [youtube.com]
jokes (Score:1)
Moving slime. (Score:3, Funny)
They could even make a movie out of it! Or a sequel!
Mobile Slime video (Score:2)
View it here [youtube.com].
Square Enix merch? (Score:2)
looks like SquareEnix finally has a real life Slime [slimeshrine.com] for sale. Japanese Gamers will eat this up. Now only color it blue, red and grey and put giant smiley faces on them...
It's the end of the world! (Score:2)
Osculate (Score:1)
Perpetual Motion (Score:1)
How long can it keep going? If it doesn't stop then wouldn't it be a form of or degree of Perpetual Motion?
If so, this way of harnessing that reaction could eventually lead to power generation that could charge batteries.
Of course, there could be some reason why this couldn't be done, but I wouldn't assume that, I'd want to know for sure...
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Of course, there could be some reason why this couldn't be done, but I wouldn't assume that, I'd want to know for sure...
There is a reason. It's called the second law of thermodynamics. Whenever the words "perpetual motion" pop into your head, remember to presume the second law, then (if you must) try to break it. The burden of proof is on the perpetual motion, always.
More specifically, the reaction [wikipedia.org] this thing is based on has been known for quite some time. It's nifty, but if there were some kind of wackyness in the energies of the reaction we'd've heard about it by now.
Get a Life, Japan (Score:1)
Thank Cthulhu for... (Score:2)
...instant Shoggoths!
NO KILL I (Score:1)
Who you gonna call? (Score:3, Funny)
Usfulness (Score:1)
For example it probably cools when moving so it could be used for conditioning or to spin some kind of electric generator...
No matter what is the efficiency if we use a lot ot these it could be really neat!
Dinsey Flubber (Score:1)