Materia’s excellent materials newsletter for May just hit my inbox (I’m not in any position to complain about the timing since I’ve been a delinquent blogger since April) and I learned about an intriguing material being produced in Dong Guan, China: PU Gel.  It’s mostly used for sporting goods such as shoes, but it can also be used for bags, power tools and electronics cases, and on clothing.  The manufacturer, Taiwan Kurim Enterprises, was founded in 1987 and has been molding PU gel and printing silicon ever since. The company …

Sometimes when you’re really mad and you’re an adult, you just want to throw something on the ground and smash it to smithereens in order to vent your frustration with “the system”.  In fact, in the United States each year 300 million tires are thrown on the ground by adults of both genders.  Some of these tires are then buried under other trash and discarded objects in landfills, and some of them are sheepishly picked up again and burned for fuel in cement kilns.  For a long time, throwing tires on the ground …

Remember when you could invite people to your house to build a fort, and nobody thought it was unusual?  You’d be all, “hey, wanna build a fort?” and Linny and the rest of the gang would be all, “sure, but you should know we’ve already built three sweet fortifications this morning and we’re walking to the candy store for pixi stix first.”  These days if I called up some friends and asked them if they wanted to build a fort in the living room they’d think I was crazy.  Well, my friends would probably …

As Kermit the Frog has said time and again, it’s not easy being green.  You don’t have to tell that to scientists working with LED’s (Light Emitting Diodes); producing red light is a cinch, blue light has been with us for around 15 years thanks to some clever researchers from Japan, but green light is as hard to get right as a celebrity marriage and people have been struggling with the problem for the past ten years (Scanlon).  Red, blue, and green light combine to make white light.  So if you don’t have a green, you’re …

I’ve been thinking about bubbles today.  I’ve been thinking how they are friendly and approachable, associated with sunny days in the park, foam parties, and protective packaging for new glassware.  Soap bubbles are fleeting – one minute they’re launching themselves off the end of a little pink plastic wand, the next they’re floating through the air, and then … they pop.  Bubblewrap doesn’t last long either because it is so tempting to sit around compulsively popping all the air pouches.  Bubbles do stick around when you trap them in something like plastic or glass – which brings me to …

I’ve extolled the merits of insulation in previous posts, but never in my life have I been more excited to report on a technicolor technological breakthrough that will alter the course of human existence: it’s called Fuskittle Insulation, and it’s a massive game-changer.
The amazing insulating properties of Skittles were largely unknown until Marjorie Pilsner, an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, accidentally spilled a bag of the sugary, pebble-shaped candy on a hotplate she was using to heat split-pea soup in the wee hours of the morning on February 10, 2010.  “I bought the …

“There’s always that one [material] that will always have your heart
You’ll never see it coming cause you’re blinded from the start
Know that you’re that one for me, it’s clear for everyone to see
Ooh baby aw…
You’ll always be my boo” – My Boo by Usher feat. Alicia Keys
How can you not fall madly in love with bamboo?  It’s tall, ridiculously strong, and you can bring it home to your mother.  The source of bamboo’s heady blend of charisma and reliability is “its growth system, which generates a root system that produces 30% more oxygen and sequesters 35% …

Those of us who are clumsy already know that given enough time and enough force everything breaks: glass shatters, paper tears, vases get knocked off tables, ribs snap in half.  What has been surprisingly tough to figure out is exactly how things will break when they haven’t been broken yet – to determine the forces that will describe the path of a crack and how it occurs.  It’s possible that you haven’t given much thought about how useful it would be to predict precisely how something is going to break, crack, shatter, or otherwise fail spectacularly, …

Thomas Edison was working on a patent for the electric light bulb in the late 1870’s, and I think it’s safe to assume that he was a lit-tle too busy to think about the development of glowing textiles.  Lucky for those of us living in 2010, Japan’s Tsuya Textile Co. and Fukui Engineering Center have marshalled their respective resources to address the appalling lack of light-emitting fabric that has long plagued mankind.
 
Image courtesy core77
Delight Cloth consists of superthin fiber optic strands woven into a tapestry.  But while Delight Cloth emits light with aplomb, it …

I read a statistic somewhere* that said that the biomass of all the ants on earth weighs more than the biomass of all the human beings on earth.  I don’t know if that is true, but if it is that would mean there are a LOT of ants out there.  I mean, if your average run-of-the-mill ant weighs 3 milligrams, and the average human (accounting for the “epidemic of obesity” in certain countries that shall remain nameless) weighs in at about 150 pounds or so, and there are billions of human beings on the planet … …

One of the really nice thing about living and working in the United States is that individuals have the right to buy in bulk.  If you need six pounds of Country Time Lemonade mix, then you can go buy a six-pound canister.  If you want 48 pairs of identical tube socks, then you can purchase them in a neatly shrink-wrapped package.  Need a gallon of Vidal Sassoon shampoo or 60 grapefruit?  No problem. 

Image courtesy Inhabitat.com
None of this bulky goodness would be possible without a humble, often overlooked construction: the wood pallet.  The …

Ever since I saw the movie Office Space, I can’t hear the word “flare” or any of its homophones without thinking of Jennifer Anniston’s waitress uniform and the “pieces of flair” they wanted her to attach to her suspenders.  Maybe I’m thinking too hard about this, but it seems to me that the idea behind wearing the flair (various buttons and patches with funny messages on them – if you haven’t seen this movie please stop reading immediately and rent it) was that it was a chance for people to express some individuality …

I’m not sure why this product is called “Bio Glass” because to me using the prefix “bio-“ should signify that the material is somehow alive.  But perhaps I’m being needlessly particular about my prefixes (and you know, it wouldn’t be the first time).  After all, slabs of Bio Glass do look like they’re made out of compressed jellyfish. 

Image credit coveringsetc.com
So now, I’m sure you’re wondering, exactly what Bio Glass is when it’s at home?  It’s a solid surfacing for counter tops, walls, floors, and other applications.  Bio Glass is “made from 100% recycled glass, heated and …

Silicon solar cells are popping up in lots of places these days – they’re powering traffic lights and security cameras, they’re clinging in neatly ordered arrays to rooftops, and they’ve even been spotted in all their sparkly blue splendor on the occasional backpack (where they are used to power mp3 players, fancy calculators, and cell phones). 

Image credit www.devicedaily.com
Here’s how solar cells work at the most basic level:  photons (units of light) hit the surface of the cells and the light energy is quickly absorbed by the semiconductor material.  The incoming energy knocks electrons loose from the silicon, and when that …

I know most people have been living in caves for the past couple of months like brown bears hibernating over the winter, and nobody has been interested in much other than sleeping and eating the occasional beetle.  That’s fine – and completely normal – but spring is coming and before you know it, everyone will be compelled to emerge to gather salmon and frolic among the blossoming flowers.  In fact you might consider coming out of the cave a little early this year because this February something has already started to bloom:  fuel cells.
After eight …

This morning when you got up and went to perform routine maintenance on your mohawk, did you reach for hair mousse?  Did you later play in the surf at the shore, feeling tiny bubbles of sea foam bursting around your ankles?  Have you ever encountered a rabid dog frothing at the mouth?  Have you used a synthetic sponge or eaten bread?  I’m asking all these questions because if you answered yes to any of them then you’re already pretty familiar with the general concept foam and it won’t be as taxing for me …

I love the name of this product:  Bendywood.  It sounds like someone Gumby would have befriended, or a trendy new subdivision on the outskirts of Las Vegas.  It’s also an accurate name because Bendywood is wood that you can bend by hand.

Image courtesy imagethief.com
Here’s how it works:  blanks of hardwood – beech, ash, oak, or maple – are steamed to soften the cell walls.  (Woodworkers are now scratching their heads and wondering how this is different from any other operation in which you’d steam wood to bend it, but take it easy …