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You do realize that is a ridiculously low threshold. They were in the midst of the environmentalism mania. No science was too little then.

Whatever mania there was had subsided by the time the nations of the world adopted the Montreal Protocol, which had plenty of input from Dupont and other chemical industry giants. Here's Dupont's position paper on the treaty. Among the more interesting things contained in the document:

In March 1988, the Ozone Trends Panel Report issued the first scientifically-backed global consensus linking CFCs to observed depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer. Within 10 days of the announcement, DuPont committed to cease CFC production for use through an orderly transition to alternatives, putting DuPont ahead of the then current timetable requiring only a 50% reduction in 10 years.

In January 1991, DuPont was the first company to launch a family of refrigerant alternatives that met performance, safety and environmental criteria. These new refrigerants could be used in existing as well as new equipment, thus minimizing the transition cost to thousands of businesses and consumers around the world

So in addition to the international scientific community and policy makers of nations across the globe, even the industry targeted with regulation recognizes the threat CFCs pose to the planet. But I guess they're all wrong, and you're the one who's right. Silly of me to believe them and not you, especially since you've provided so much information in support of your claims. Oh wait, the sole support of your claims is "because I say so".

If there is a high rate of non-anthropogenic ozone creation and destruction then that greatly weakens the effect of CFCs.

So you think the rate of natural ozone creation/depletion changes the destructive effect of CFCs on ozone. Is that a joke? Where do you get this stuff?

That you can spew such nonsense while maintaining a straight face is SO ADORABLE!

This 3D printing allows us to precisely place and orient the components of the composites. At this point it can't be called composite materials but should be called composite structures , may be with some adjectives like micro or precision to distinguish them from plain old structures made with fiberglass. Even this is not really new. Circuit boards and IC Chips are theoretically custom made precision structures using a process similar to 3D printing.

To take full advantage of these precision built composite structures, we need similar breakthroughs in analysis methods. We would like to take some expensive material, place very small quantities of it strategically in a matrix of inexpensive materials and get very good thermal, strength or vibration characteristics.

Companies like Ansys, Ansoft, Nastran, SDRC (does it still exist?) should do well in the coming years, you need their design/analysis tools to design structures that could take advantage of this emerging technology.

Kevlar tactical vests, being essentially a ballistic, polymer weave, have a shelf life of only about 3-5 years or so before they lose their power to slow and stop bullets.

No they don't.

They are GIVEN a shelf life of 3-5 years based on lab tests interpreted in such a way that the continuous chain of procurement of such vests by the police and the military is maintained AND so the producers of said vests could cover their asses in court in case it's needed.
"See, your honor, evidence shows that the officer Smith exposed his vest to higher temperature and UV light than what is written on the label. Ergo, it is his fault that high velocity round our client's vest wasn't ever designed for, not to say that it isn't the greatest vest out there, wasn't stopped by the said vest which is still a perfectly safe vest if you buy it brand new every 3-5 years."

Back in reality, you'd need to either soak it in strong acid or expose it to direct UV for hundreds of hours for the fibers to lose a significant part of their tensile strength i.e. bullet stopping abilities.
450 hours of direct UV will degrade 4500 denier kevlar to ~65% and 1500 denier kevlar to ~35%.
900 hours will knock it further to ~48% and ~23%, respectfully.

Even then, that only means that the TOP LAYER is degraded. Kevlar is not transparent. It degrades because it absorbs UV light.
And that's IF it was worn on top of other clothes, without any kind of a liner or protective or decorative impregnation.
I.e. If police were running around in banana-yellow ponchos for protection from bullets.

It's in the specs and real-life tests by people who are re-selling USED police kevlar vests confirm it.

It's plastic. The stuff that will take millions of years to degrade out of the ecosystem.

When GM came along, different colors had been developed to meet the demand.

It goes even deeper than that. The paint was developed by Dupont, which then used GM as a market for it.

I can't think of any plastics that are strong enough to be of any use in making a firearm

I'm not a firearm person, but you would be surprised what modern plastics can withstand.

a very common industrial one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyoxymethylene

and for the extremes: http://www2.dupont.com/Plastics/en_US/Products/Zytel_HTN/htn92/series.html
cute info graph: http://www2.dupont.com/Plastics/en_US/assets/images/Product/PLS_Stress_Retention_230C521x365.jpg

while i'm sure it's not a durable as carbon steel, my bet is that it could be usable for more than single shot, and if you could print your on replacement parts it might be very feasible for initial prototyping.

I can't think of any plastics that are strong enough to be of any use in making a firearm

I'm not a firearm person, but you would be surprised what modern plastics can withstand.

a very common industrial one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyoxymethylene

and for the extremes: http://www2.dupont.com/Plastics/en_US/Products/Zytel_HTN/htn92/series.html
cute info graph: http://www2.dupont.com/Plastics/en_US/assets/images/Product/PLS_Stress_Retention_230C521x365.jpg

while i'm sure it's not a durable as carbon steel, my bet is that it could be usable for more than single shot, and if you could print your on replacement parts it might be very feasible for initial prototyping.

In my clusterfart rage I missed the obvious connection to Spirit and Opportunity. When you're designing for the harsh frontier guidance and reality are widely divergent.

Does long term neutron absorption make metals stronger or weaker? Just yesterday I read this:

From http://www2.dupont.com/Kevlar/en_US/.../KEVLAR_Technical_Guide.pdf

Electron radiation is not harmful to KEVLAR. In fact, filaments of KEVLAR 49 exposed to 200 megarads show a very slight increase in tenacity and modulus ...

I would have put the real link in, but copy link location in a Google results page to a PDF document captures the Google link as decked out in crotchless panties, and their supplemental visual rendition is redacted with the three dot fig leaf in the middle. Into every Eden an asshole must grow. I thought I had a Firefox extensions to nuke the link scramble, but it must have broken over some upgrade cycle, and my aging bone marrow is too coagulated to hunt this down.

SMD resistors are pretty small, and if they were embedded it would free up more surface area for larger components and reduce overall size.

It's quite common to have embedded SMD capacitors inside of multi-layer PC boards. This is done to improve the transmission line characteristics of long traces.

FYI, White is the most popular color for car in Japan

Yes, but silver is a close second in japan and the world-wide favorite...

http://www2.dupont.com/Automotive/en_US/news_events/article20101207.html

If you look at the picture more closely, there are probably a similar number of silver colored cars floating there too...

I have no idea.

So, Obama's appointments in 2009 allowed Monsanto to hide this information from 2001 to the present?

Where's the link about the time machine?

I have no idea.

Crikey RTFA.

It's about physical counterfeiting. It's why guys like DuPont Authentication Services

http://www2.dupont.com/Authentication/en_US/

offer various authentication technologies like 3D holograms for media protection.

You don't fix Rolls Royces or Hubble Telescopes with duct tape!

Quite right. You actually fix Hubble Telescopes with kapton tape. It's not nearly as tough as duct tape, but it also doesn't turn brittle in extreme cold or sublimate its adhesive in a vacuum, and it's a great electrical insulator. The crew of the ISS recently made some unplanned repairs during a spacewalk to one of its solar arrays using tools they jury-rigged with Kapton tape and available utensils.

You can bet the crew of Atlantis will have a couple rolls of Kapton tape along when they go to service the Hubble. They will have some duct tape, too, but it turns out there actually are situations where the grey tape doesn't quite cut it.

Freon was banned in the 1980s, so I guess we do have to blame that Democrat Ronald Reagan for that. http://heritage.dupont.com/touchpoints/tp_1930-3/depth.shtml

Interesting that the 97 Escort went up only 120 lbs while its "overall length grew by nearly 4 inches, [the] chassis was stiffened by 25%" and larger 2.0L engine was used. http://www.escortfocus.com/html/history.html
How reliable is your number that on board diagnostics adds 350 lbs in electronics? How much of that do you think manufacturers would willingly remove if they could (ie. would customers like having to pull a choke lever before starting a car on cold days and having the smelliest car on the street because you'd ban oxygen sensors )?

How about a bit of fishline?

Ever put a match on fishline? - it burns..:

From the Kapton manufacturers website:

DuPont has set a high standard in the polyimide film markets with its durability and performance in extreme temperature environments.

Well, that's what we get for letting hysteria and politics shout down environmental science. And many of the more strident environmental groups have no one but themselves to blame - they embraced the politics and hysteria because (in the short term) it furthered their agendas. Politicians and the corporations (including big agriculture) that bribe^H^H^H^H^H contribute heavily to their campaigns are far from stupid, however, and will twist things to their advantage. The corporations make money and "be green", and the politicians can sucker voters by "being green" and both laugh all the way to the bank. My favorite one was how DuPont got all green over Freon - because they owned the patents on non-CFC-based refrigerants that would replace it. Nice of "t3h world is going to end!!!1!!" crowd to get the government to force everyone to replace their patent-expired Freon with something much more profitable, never mind that this raised the cost of refrigeration and decreased the quality of food supplies in poorer countries.

In the long run, the most outspoken members cause the rest of the environmentalist community lose credibility (because the world doesn't end), and the politicians will just look for the next sucker cause to exploit. Too bad for the environment.

BioEthanol is rather silly when compared with BioButanol.
BioButanol works almost perfectly in existing cars and pump infrastructure.

And it performs much better too, offering comprable mileage to gasoline.
Rather than Ethanol which offers about 30% less mileage.

Overall it shares all of it's benefits, and almost none of it's weaknesses.

http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Butanol
http://butanol.com//images/Bubbles%20with%20gas.JP G

So far DuPont and BP are big backers of the tech.
http://www2.dupont.com/Biofuels/en_US/FAQ.html

a newly created Pentagon unit has a mandate to fight 'inaccurate' news stories

I guess Jon Stewart had better start wearing a new wardrobe when he does his show!

Assuming there is some inherent benefit to going to the moon/mars/wherever, is it really necessary to send *HUMANS*? Could we not fund 10x as many unmanned missions and learn probably close to 10x as much?

Corn produces about 350 gallons ethanol per acre. Sugar cane produces about 650 gallons per acre. Better still, down in Florida growers can get 2-4 seasons of sugar crane crop PER YEAR. As a result of this natural advantage, I have total faith that the state of Florida can produce 8 times as much fuel than a comparable chunk of the midwest (in terms of acres farmed).

There are two things keeping ethanol pricey: 1) ethanol is competing with other sugar products to purchase this raw crop; demand +, price +. 2) Florida lacks the ethanol manufacturing capacity required to turn this sugar cane into ethanol; the same thing happened after Katria when our refineries were taken off line and gasoline prices surged.

As I already explained, the capacity issue is due to turn around in Florida come 2008. As for the highly competitive nature of sugar cane, this is good news for farmers, but it makes ethanol nervous. This is why many great minds are currently hard at work genetically engineering crops that will produce more ethanol without competing with other crops designed for human consumption. For example: DuPont and BP are both working together on BioButanol as we speak.

Imagine a PC from 1985 being used to run a 1995 version of Photoshop. Absurd, of course. This is how we will view current American biodiesel production a decade from now: immature, but with great untapped potential.

Maybe more companies will copy the Corvette & Grand Prix and add a Heads Up Display (HUD) so you don't have to take your eyes off the road

Here's a picture of the Corvette's HUD

It's basically a Kevlar reinforced wetsuit with a hardened rubber overlay, some metal gauntlets, and presumably some chest plates and greaves (plate boots) as well. All science fiction aside, Kevlar genuinely does seem to be pretty amazing stuff, and if its properties are close to what Du Pont's site claims, then as the HSW article says, the Batsuit is essentially a specialised version of the Kevlar hazard suit which DuPont already sell...and hence, not implausible at all. The only element of it that really makes it seem fantastic is the cowl, and that probably only because of how it looks. Batman himself of course was going primarily for the intimidation factor with the cowl, but defensively speaking a more conventional Kevlar reinforced plate helm with noseguard would probably make more sense. If you look at some of the earlier or more rough concept sketches of several of these characters, the suits were less aesthetically appealing but made a lot more sense from a defensive point of view...As they tried to make the design more appealing aesthetically, it got less realistically useful. Spandex might *look* better, but it ain't bullet proof.

Also, while pricey, the material doesn't appear to be astronomically expensive. A full torso vest which a sales site claims to protect against rifle bullets is selling here for $400 US - Which as I said while not dirt cheap, still isn't Bruce Wayne only. Based on the prices I'm seeing, I'd guess you could have a basic (and functional) batsuit clone for probably $4000-$5000 US...although mind you, that's only in terms of the bullet proof element. Unless you've got a friendly neighbourhood blacksmith, the gauntlets could be harder to come by. A retractable hang-gliding setup built into the suit would probably also be very difficult to implement...but it might not be impossible...particularly if you were going to try and go wings only and forego the handlebar...of course, steering then becomes more or less impossible as well.

Anywayz, from what I'm reading here, it would be genuinely possible to create a basic but functional Batsuit semi-clone for under $10K US, if you were so inclined. I say a semi-clone because it wouldn't be identical visually, but it would make a lot more sense functionally. You wouldn't be flying with it, but it *would* give you limited ballistic protection, as well as a fairly impressive degree of chemical and thermal protection as well, not to mention protection from punches and bladed weapons with the gauntlets/helm/chest plates.

In terms of the heat/weight element that Bale is quoted complaining about, I'd attribute that primarily to the rubber, which to my mind only makes sense as part of the suit from a mainly visual point of view anyway. The armour elements would be heavy of course, but the entire point of the wetsuit is for temperature regulation, and from what I'm reading Kevlar (which I'm guessing they didn't actually use in the suit, since in a film of course it'd be primarily visual) is also supposed to be fairly light. If they'd gone for a more plausible and even less visual design, Bale might have been more comfortable than he was.

So make a thick shell. And if they go for shelter in a solar storm anyway, you don't need all that much protection, do you?

Have you tried ripping or tearing Nomex or Kevlar lately? Neither has to be very thick before tearing it takes a bit of force.

While surfing I also found this: Tyvek which I'd never heard about, but apparently is quite thin and is used in hazardous biological environments.
A rip or tear could be just as fatal in such an environment, but thousands of professionals wear this stuff every day, so I guess the danger must be slight..

So make a thick shell. And if they go for shelter in a solar storm anyway, you don't need all that much protection, do you?

Have you tried ripping or tearing Nomex or Kevlar lately? Neither has to be very thick before tearing it takes a bit of force.

While surfing I also found this: Tyvek which I'd never heard about, but apparently is quite thin and is used in hazardous biological environments.
A rip or tear could be just as fatal in such an environment, but thousands of professionals wear this stuff every day, so I guess the danger must be slight..

So make a thick shell. And if they go for shelter in a solar storm anyway, you don't need all that much protection, do you?

Have you tried ripping or tearing Nomex or Kevlar lately? Neither has to be very thick before tearing it takes a bit of force.

While surfing I also found this: Tyvek which I'd never heard about, but apparently is quite thin and is used in hazardous biological environments.
A rip or tear could be just as fatal in such an environment, but thousands of professionals wear this stuff every day, so I guess the danger must be slight..

Kapton is a polyamide film duPont product that's been around for some 30 years . . .

I wonder if its the same metalized film used in some automobile window heat shields (or might that be metalized biaxially oriented nylon film)?

You don't need to spend a lot of extra money for CoolMax socks. I've bought inexpensive 2-packs from Target and Ross.

The large businesses/corporations of Japan have considerable influence in their government, moving beyond petty lobbying towards very strong and well-set puppet strings.

Fortunately, American companies don't influence our government.

Reliability: the hydraulic system was every prone to produce leaks and it wasn't even remotely bullet proof. A single foot soldier could take it out with an old WW I gun.

Did they have kevlar back then?

whatever ...

That's 'delrin'. Would assume it was a typo but you did it twice.

Probably not a serious problem. If you look at the dupont site http://www.dupont.com/displays/oled/ these appear to be "Polymer OLEDs" or LEDs made with basically a type of plastic. So think organic (carbon based) as in the plastic that makes your keyboard instead of organic as in a banana peel.

Ah well, Tang is cooler than Teflon anyway.

Actually, the WHOLE movie is on Mylar(r). Mylar(r) is DuPont's registered trademark for a polyester film. poop here on mylar being polyester film, and poop here on its use in photographic/movie/audio tape/film

Actually, the WHOLE movie is on Mylar(r). Mylar(r) is DuPont's registered trademark for a polyester film. poop here on mylar being polyester film, and poop here on its use in photographic/movie/audio tape/film

Velcro was invented in the 1940's by a Swiss inventor. Not NASA.

Teflon was invented in the 1930's by Dupont. Not NASA.

NASA has a page which lists real spinoffs from Apollo, not urban legends.

The article is pretty sparse about what OLED is... Dupont has a pretty cool page about their displays with some info that reminds me of my science text book back in high school.

this is, by the way, exactly how we have teflon today

Sorry, but no. Try DuPont's history of Teflon page. 1938 was waaay before space travel was practical. That said, there are plenty of other advancements that have come out of the space program (like Tang!), so next time pick one of those rather than something that has no relation at all.

I have heard many arguments that the US adopting the Kyoto protocol for the reduction of greenhouse gasses is too expensive, unsafe, or inconvienent. For example, BP has already met the conditions of Kyoto in 4 years and in fact is now saving money because of it. DuPont has made even better progress, reducing their contribution of greenhouse gasses by 50%!

Cutting greenhouse gasses is not necessarily that difficult. For example, last year I added more insulation to my home. I saw a 25% reduction in natural gas because of this, and with various other improvements I have made over the last few years I am sure my home consumes far less energy than it did in 1991. The net result of these improvements to my house is that I spend less money on heating and lighting and in only a few years all of the changes will more than pay for themselves. Not only that, but with the added insulation my house is more comfortable.

Everyone seems to think that increasing the milage of cars is the most important step. While it is important and I believe easily doable with todays technology, many other areas are even easier.

How many of your homes have old furnaces and sub-standard insulation?

Perhapse if we had to pay the true cost of energy things would change. Here in California where we are stuck with outragiously high electricity costs (my bill is over $0.20/kwh) and very high gas prices, many people have taken advantage of methods to reduce energy usage. The state has helped as well by offering rebates. For example, it is now not unusual to buy a 100 watt equivelent compact flourescent light bulb for less than $1.

One doesn't have to be a rabid environmentalist to see the benefits from reducing greenhouse gasses. It also makes sense in the pocket book.

I think that the reason Nintendo goes after these people is because with a trademark or copyright, you have to enforce your trademark/copyright or else you face some sort of danger of losing the right to defend it.

This is only true of trademarks, not copyrights. Trademarks are completely different from copyrights -- the purpose of a trademark is to associate products with manufacturers.

If a trademark is abandoned, someone else can adopt and use that trademark. This is why trademarks must be defended. If other people start using your trademark, and you don't defend your trademark by suing them, then you can lose your trademark completely. Examples of lost trademarks are "Linoleum," "Escalator," and "Nylon." This is why companies like Xerox fire off letters when people refer to photocopiers generically as "xerox machines." They have to, or they can lose their trademarks. Companies also have to be very careful about how they use their trademarks, or they can lose them. For instance, here is an interesting page on the DuPont web site about proper use of their "Tactel" trademark. that summarizes the general rules of using trademarks.

On the other hand, copyright holders are free to allow or disallow the copying of their works, and this has no effect on the validity of the copyright, or their ability to enforce it in the future. For example, rock bands like The Grateful Dead and Phish explicitly permit the non-commercial copying of concert performances by their fans. They would not do this if doing so would result in the loss of their copyrights on either the songs or the performances.

This would be much more useful with a headsup display.

when my dad got out of college and was hired by dupont, where he continues to work today, his first project was to replace the entire electrical accessory system in a car with fiber optics. turn signals, headlights and things of that sort.

i guess the idea turned out to be not as useful as thought because he was moved to management soon thereafter (isn't that the story with all engineers?) and has been there since and i have yet to see a fiber optic car.

Not sure what any of that has to do with Apollo since velcro was developed by a Swiss engineer during the 1950s and Mylar was invented by Dupont in 1952.

Why does everyone feel the need to falsely attribute various inventions as space program spinoffs?

Teflon was invented in 1938, well before anything that could even remotely be considered modern space research.

Don't get me wrong, space research is good, and it produces a valuable product: knowledge.

False attributions to the space program don't help with their budget problems, though. I'm not blaming you, however, NASA themselves is quite guilty of exaggeration.

Rynite, by Dupont.

GE Has created a few Super-Performing resinse that I've read about before, but can't get access into their site without registering...God I hate that!

Well, I'm not finding many right now, but I know that I've seen quite a few different plastics that have proven to be tremendous performers; but for 10,000 years, I can't say. But I'm almost sure it wouldn't be too difficult to find some closed cell, non-corrosive polymer, or maybe a polymer/metal blend, or a coating over concrete/stone...Hey, you know what, there may be niche for a business here? Either way, now that I think about it, a Good quality Stone or blend of some kind, dipped into an amorphous resin such as acrylic, might do very well in the aging process; but it'd require one hell of a creep test!

Dupont even has an Article about spider's silk

See Gear Views;

In three layer garments the outer shell, GoreTex layer and a fine net lining are all laminated together.

Thus, assuming you have the heavier duty "three layer" version, and it's still breaking down, that seems to me to not be the fault of the GoreTex layer, and not something that replacing GoreTex with something else would solve.

Perhaps they should be using Kevlar or Nomex (well, that's more for fire resistance!) for the outer shell; the point is that it is not likely GoreTex's fault that your clothing breaks down, and replacing it with something "better" without looking at the outer shell isn't going to gain you anything.

See Gear Views;

In three layer garments the outer shell, GoreTex layer and a fine net lining are all laminated together.

Thus, assuming you have the heavier duty "three layer" version, and it's still breaking down, that seems to me to not be the fault of the GoreTex layer, and not something that replacing GoreTex with something else would solve.

Perhaps they should be using Kevlar or Nomex (well, that's more for fire resistance!) for the outer shell; the point is that it is not likely GoreTex's fault that your clothing breaks down, and replacing it with something "better" without looking at the outer shell isn't going to gain you anything.

... haven't found any for Linux. The GIMP opens and resaves and from what I can tell so does ImageMagik

Remember kids, use that preview button.

And finally, space exploration caused NASA to start calling up chemical companies, looking for a durable, slippery, lightweight and high-temperature plastic. Dupont stepped up to the challenge and invented Teflon.

And to that I say," bullshit ". Teflon was "invented" accidentally in 1938 by a DuPont chemist doing research work on refrigerants. While NASA makes heavy use of Teflon, they had nothing to do with its invention.