Things are heavy right now, man. People are fighting wars, Wall Street is occupied, a large percentage of the workforce can’t find jobs, airport security procedures intensify in complexity by the minute, the rainforest is shrinking as I type … and that’s just the tip of the rapidly melting iceberg. So if you’re already feeling like Atlas with the weight of the world on your shoulders, you’ll be glad to find out that scientists recently invented a material so lightweight it makes styrofoam seem as heavy as a lead ingot.
In …

 
Even thinking about glass fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP) makes me itchy. The reason for this is that the glass strands involved with this material are so fine (by which I mean that they are extremely thin and tiny, rather than that they are really really ridiculously good looking) that they get caught in your skin and clothes and become profoundly irritating, after the manner of a wood splinter or Brett Favre.

Image courtesy taiwan.xpshou.com
At the Actuated Matter Workshop in Zurich, we were introduced to a particular configuration of GFRP developed by …

If you’ve been to Disney World or were alive in the 1960’s, you’re likely well aware of the work of Buckminster Fuller, a designer, architect, engineer, globalist, and mathematician who (among a wide variety of other activities) developed geodesic spheres, structures whose geometry engendered great strength without much mass.  I made it down to the World of Disney in college, and while riding the escalator up into Epcot I remember thinking the building was radical, but that was because of the geometry – not because of 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% …