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Thread: Japan figures out how to make water solid - more impressive than it sounds.

  1. 05-01-2010, 09:19 PM #1
    CitizenCain
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    Default Japan figures out how to make water solid - more impressive than it sounds.

    http://inhabitat.com/2010/04/30/japa...-out-of-water/



    The material shown in the picture above is just ice, right? Look again. Elastic water, a new substance invented by researchers at Tokyo University, is a jelly-like substance made up of 95% water along with two grams of clay and a small amount of organic materials. As is, the all-natural substance is perfect for medical procedures, because it’s made of water, poses no harm to people and is perfect for mending tissue. And, if the research team can increase the density of this exciting new substance, it could be used in place of our current oil based plastics for a host of other things.

    According to the researchers, the substance can be used to stick tissues together (human tissues, not Kleenex) and to produce clean plastic materials. It also has a high mechanical strength and self mends when damaged.

    Imagine if everything now made out of plastic from oil was instead made out of plastic from water. Though water shortage issues could become a problem if we went hog wild, we could surely reduce a lot of toxins in our environment. Bravo to the “elastic water” team – though it may be just a gel right now it could be a superb and wide reaching solution in the future.

    + Japan Science and Technology Agency

    Via Akihabara News
    Kinda cool, and folks are already saying "no more petrol plastics," but I kinda of have to wonder how useful a plastic that [presumably] dissolves in the rain will *actually* turn out to be.
    Last edited by CitizenCain; 05-01-2010 at 09:58 PM. Reason: titel tpyo
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  2. 05-01-2010, 09:57 PM #2
    Knux897
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    It just looks fun to touch
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  3. 05-02-2010, 02:06 AM #3
    Nessus
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    Aww, and here I hoped they had found something new on the phase diagram

    Water's a really weird substance!
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  4. 05-02-2010, 02:39 AM #4
    Being
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    Gelatin has been around for a long time.
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  5. 05-02-2010, 02:43 AM #5
    EmperorNorton
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    Coming soon: New and improved Fleshlights!
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  6. 05-02-2010, 05:31 AM #6
    Wraith
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    The title had me hoping for ice-nine. Oh well.
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  7. 05-02-2010, 05:00 PM #7
    Dreadnaught
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    Quote Originally Posted by EmperorNorton View Post
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    I wish I had not done a Google search to figure out what those are.

    This is cool, but if it can be dissolved...how is it a good replacement for most plastics?
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  8. 05-02-2010, 08:50 PM #8
    gentry
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  9. 05-03-2010, 12:43 PM #9
    RandBlade
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    Would it really melt in the rain? Kind of useless if it does, though didn't get that as a problem from the article.

    Would be funny if the water-plasic did become standard. "

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  10. 05-03-2010, 04:15 PM #10
    CitizenCain
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    Quote Originally Posted by RandBlade View Post
    Would it really melt in the rain? Kind of useless if it does, though didn't get that as a problem from the article.
    Well, the medical applications - if they can use it to mend tissue, that's generally because it's somewhat water soluble, so it slowly gets dissolved by the bloodstream. And these new high tech nano materials do tend to be really particular about proportions, too. (At 95% water you have a super cool plastic thing, at 96% water, you have a glass of polluted water - that sort of thing.)
    "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

    "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

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  11. 05-03-2010, 06:48 PM #11
    EyeKhan
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    Quote Originally Posted by CitizenCain View Post
    [url]


    Kinda cool, and folks are already saying "no more petrol plastics," but I kinda of have to wonder how useful a plastic that [presumably] dissolves in the rain will *actually* turn out to be.
    Kinda? Jesus Krisht Cain are you a fucking idiot? Tjhats REELYYY coo.l Shit. SHE ITT.
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  12. 05-03-2010, 08:11 PM #12
    ar81
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    I can imagine breast implants made of... water?
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  13. 05-03-2010, 10:01 PM #13
    CitizenCain
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    Quote Originally Posted by EyeKhan View Post
    Kinda? Jesus Krisht Cain are you a fucking idiot? Tjhats REELYYY coo.l Shit. SHE ITT.
    Well, it would be (will be?) super cool when they figure out how to make it so that this stuff doesn't dissolve in water. Until then, the cool factor is kinda mitigated by the fact that your "made of 95% water" house will wash away in the first downpour of spring.
    "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

    "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

    -- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
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  14. 05-04-2010, 02:09 PM #14
    wiggin
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    Oh, come on, every hydrogel on the planet is at least 90% water, and no one calls it 'solid water'. I haven't read the original paper to see if it's a genuinely exciting material, but puh-leeze. Hydrogels are very cool and very interesting, but hardly new. I make them every day, and am designing some cool ones for medical applications in the knee.

    Never, EVER believe something you read in a popular science piece of 'journalism'.
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  15. 05-04-2010, 02:43 PM #15
    Being
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    Jell-o with a dash of clay.
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  16. 05-04-2010, 05:38 PM #16
    ']['ear
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    I'm with Wiggin (though I've never made one heh). I thought these weren't novel? Maybe they just increased the percentage?

    I also agree that the representation of science in mainstream journalism is frequently dicey.
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  17. 05-04-2010, 05:57 PM #17
    Illusions
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    Quote Originally Posted by ']['ear View Post
    I also agree that the representation of science in mainstream journalism is frequently dicey.
    Title: SCIENTISTS THEORIZE EARTH MAY BE DESTROYED BY SOLAR ACTIVITY!
    Article: Millions of years from now...

    Title: SCIENTISTS THEORIZE APPLES MAY CAUSE CANCER!
    Article: The theory, put forward by crackpot scientist Bismark von Applehaten, is nothing to worry about, claim other scientists.
    . . .
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  18. 05-04-2010, 05:58 PM #18
    wiggin
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    I just read the original paper (which, by the way, was in January - not so recent news, eh?). While the material design was clever, it was not particularly amazing or unique. I have a side project running right now to make a far more relevant hydrogel from a biological perspective. I would have doubts about how cells would like this kind of hydrogel, given that the crosslinking is so nonspecific and uses guanidinium functionalities.

    Bottom line is that it's a nice article demonstrating a few cool phenomena, but hardly some earth-shattering discovery. They made a noncovalently associating hydrogel with dendrimers and some broken up clay. Whoopdedoo.
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  19. 05-04-2010, 06:07 PM #19
    CitizenCain
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    Quote Originally Posted by Illusions View Post
    Title: SCIENTISTS THEORIZE EARTH MAY BE DESTROYED BY SOLAR ACTIVITY!
    Article: Millions of years from now...

    Title: SCIENTISTS THEORIZE APPLES MAY CAUSE CANCER!
    Article: The theory, put forward by crackpot scientist Bismark von Applehaten, is nothing to worry about, claim other scientists.
    I think you mean:



    Anyway, it was new *to me*, and I thought it was moderately cool, so I shared it. That's all - I'm not saying this a huge breakthrough or the solution to all our problems, just... cool and kind of intriguing.
    "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

    "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

    -- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
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  20. 05-04-2010, 06:19 PM #20
    ']['ear
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    What's this Wiggin? You're saying that cells don't like guanidinium?
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  21. 05-04-2010, 06:31 PM #21
    GGT
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    wiggin is a biomedical engineer? Cool!

    Say, while you're working on this knee gel thingie.....shoot for the moon and make an implant that projects heat through the skin like a glo-stick. Then runners can have internal blinker lights while running in the dark, the more you run the better they light up!

    Or arthritics can just look at their knee skin color to see if they need ice or heat. One day maybe we can all have an implant that glows in the dark, no batteries needed. Like a human solar cell.

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  22. 05-04-2010, 08:42 PM #22
    wiggin
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    Uhm.
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  23. 05-04-2010, 10:11 PM #23
    GGT
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    T'was a little of my twisted bionic woman humor. No funny bone in knees, huh.
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  24. 05-04-2010, 10:37 PM #24
    Spawnie
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    Not in Wiggins anyway. It was made of guanidinium and was rejected by the rest of his body...


    "Son," he said without preamble, "never trust a man who doesn't drink, because he's probably a self-righteous sort, a man who thinks he knows right from wrong all the time. Some of them are good men, but in the name of goodness, they cause most of the suffering in the world. They're the judges, the meddlers. And, son, never trust a man who drinks but refuses to get drunk. They're usually afraid of something deep down inside, either that they're a coward or a fool or mean and violent. You can't trust a man who's afraid of himself. But sometimes, son, you can trust a man who occasionally kneels before a toilet. The chances are that he is learning something about humility and his natural human foolishness, about how to survive himself. It's damned hard for a man to take himself too seriously when he's heaving his guts into a dirty toilet bowl.
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  25. 05-04-2010, 11:16 PM #25
    wiggin
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    Silly, guanidinium is a chaotropic agent, not an immunogenic one.
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  26. 05-04-2010, 11:59 PM #26
    ']['ear
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    Works great in my minipreps....

    What do you expect? I'm just a gene jock, not one of you engineering types.
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  27. 05-05-2010, 04:29 AM #27
    wiggin
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    Minipreps? Pathetic. Real scientists use Gigapreps.

    (I'm not kidding. Biomaterials guys need orders of magnitude more material than any of you pathetic biologists. I make hundreds of milligrams of purified peptides for my experiments, and DNA delivery guys regularly use large fractions of mgs of DNA at a time. Bah!)
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