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Ocean Sponge May Be Best for Fiber Optics
TheViffer writes "ABC News is reporting that scientists say they've identified an ocean sponge, living in the darkness of the deep sea, that grows thin glass fibers capable of transmitting light better than industrial fiber optic cables used for telecommunication. 'You can actually tie a knot in these natural biological fibers and they will not break - it's really quite amazing,' said Joanna Aizenberg, who led the research at Bell Laboratories."
In a not-totally-unrelated incident, my first compsci teacher once (I saw it, this isn't a myth) splice a coaxial cable to a random other cable for one of the secretaries. Fun year :(
My favourite quote from him, ever: "ultraviolet sound waves"
Oh yeah, and I'm assuming the point here is to figure out how to make the same material as opposed to harvesting sponges and using each individual fiber seperately.
I'd worry more about SCO claiming copyrights on spunges.
We all know $DEITY stole the idea of spunges from SCO!
Hate me!
As the sea is overfished, fishermen resort to more drastic measures, such as bottom trawling, in order to make a catch. Unfortunately, bottom trawling scrapes lots of interesting beasties off the seafloor. These creatures have the potential for providing novel medications and who knows what kind of cool tech. Even if you ignore the environmental impact (and many do when there is a dollar on the line), it is short-sighted since the potential profits from discovery are so large. Think about how much money a new drug can make...
I realize that the people doing the fishing are not the biotech researchers, and I know that if I even suggested some sort of regulation I would flamed right crispy.
I don't have a solution that would make everyone happy, but I do think there is a big problem.