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Sea Sponges Master Nano-technology
Mick Ohrberg writes "It has been discovered that sea sponges utilizes a biomolecular mechanism to direct nanofabrication of silica to create microscopic glass fibers. It's a protein that acts as a catalyst for the formation of glass from the biomineral. What's it all lead to? Hopefully a way to achieve nanostructural fabrication at low temperatures, instead of in vacuum and at high temperatures as with current technologies."
"It's truly amazing what solutions there are in nature. It's a shame that we can't live less destructive and more ecologically balanced societies."
On the bright side, when things get perilous, we (as a species) step up to the challenge. The fact that people dedicate their lives to undoing that damage means that something went right somewhere.
Wnat to help fix it? Encourage people you know to watch Discovery Channel. It's a lot easier to think about the enviorment when you respect the creatures that inhabit the sensitive areas of the planet. Need help getting them to watch it? Tell them to watch Myth Busters. It's an addictive show if you like watching stuff get built and then explode. (Bonus points if you frequent snopes.com too.)
"Derp de derp."
On the bright side, when things get perilous, we (as a species) step up to the challenge. The fact that people dedicate their lives to undoing that damage means that something went right somewhere.
Or do we? Environmental damage is impossible to quantify. There is no challenge to be met other than to try our best to live in a sustainable world. Current trends point to a severe overburdening of resources. If we do wish to rise to the challenge we're going to have to do it soon. That or face a catastrophe.
It's funny how doomsday predictions like that released by the world wildlife fund (and corroborated and endorsed by a large number of scientific organizations) a few years ago are often denounced without any empirical basis. I see a trend of always searching for a middle ground when sometimes an opposition is simply imagined in order to create said middle ground. Kind of a dialectic of wishful thinking.
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Thanks for calling me on that. The problem really is that timescales are hard to measure. The problem is that the market is not perfect. The oil companies are extending their life through washington lobbies and other techniques that employ their hegemonic position. Problems arise when a transition cannot, for whatever reason, be made fast enough. Civilizations come and go; let's not pretend that we're an exception.
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Wow, that is in fact an interesting set of links ... I'm gonna blow karma just to say thanks!
... you know, sea shells and whatnot (forgive me if gastropod is not the right term).
I've always wondered whether or not we can industrialize the process of calcification that most gastropods go through
Wouldn't it be cool if we could coax these critters to build -massive- shells, or at least work out the processes they go through to turn the minerals and such from sea-water into hard, light, resilient shell materials?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Most people don't realize the coolness of biominerals. Although engineers can make materials with better specific properties, we are still hard pressed to be able to match their combined properties. (eg: building materials with the strength/weight ratio of wood)
Nature tends to work with really lousy starting materials which ultimately limits the total performance of those materials. Nontheless, the performance that evolved biomaterials manage to eek out of those materials is quite impressive. For example - the calcium carbonate (chalk) mother of pearl of abalone shell has a total material toughness that is in the same range as nanostructured boron carbide. If we could nano/microstructure our materials after biominerals, a 10-20 fold increase in the materials properties of those materials would not be impossible to believe.
Another good example is tooth enamel. Most people think that tooth enamel is some sort of featureless white material. If you actually look at enamel under magnification, after a quick acid etch to bring out the features, it looks like burlap. It's actually a 3-D woven calcium hydroxyapatite fiber matrix composed of millions of interwoven ceramic fibers that are woven in all three dimensions in a specific fashion that prevents crack propagation. Each fiber is also composed of hundreds of tiny ceramic nanofibers - each being about 40x60 nm single crystals. There are some researchers that believe these nanocrystallites can be over 1mm in length despite their thinness.
The arrangement of the weaving of the larger fibers is uniquely tailored per tooth to maximize the overall strength of the tooth. For example, your incisors and molars and even different portions of those teeth have different weaving paterns that serve to maximize the strength of the tooth with respect to the type of chewing action that it normally sees.