New Technique for Creating Nanotube Sheets

Quetzalcoatl writes "A team of researchers has come up with a way to make strong, stable sheets of multiwall nanotubes at a rate of seven meters per minute. These sheets already display a number of remarkable qualities that lend them to many different applications, including artificial muscles, transparent antennas, video displays and solar cells."

Comments

nanotubes?

[qurk]

You mean this is a strong, thin, substance? Why couldn't we put a layer of this on the space shuttle to be pulled off after in orbit, to protect the hundreds of tiles that enable her to reenter the atmosphere. Why can't we put a bunch of two by fours between the shuttle and the external tank holding a screen of these to make sure that foam falling off doesn't hit the shuttle.... Why can't we just wrap the external tank in this to make sure foam doesn't fall off and hit the shuttle. I got shut down suggesting such a thing to prevent foam hitting the shuttle, with the article...I ask again....why not? We spend sooo much money on the shuttle anyways, why is this such a bad idea to implement? I want the 3 remaining shuttles and all their crews to come back home as much as anyone!!! At least till we implement a 21st century vehicle!!!

Suggestion for the editors

[WindBourne]

Time to put tags on stories and search that in addition to links (there have been numerous dupes with same links). If the tags are on, then pull up all the past stories starting with the most recent. This is not a hard thing to do.

Made in USA

[BIGBOOGA]

Great that this innovation is made in USA. Although we have our problems, we are still capable of making ground-breaking discoveries.

I don't understand potential applications, but if the physicists/material-sci people are saying it is great, I guess it is really great.

Somehow, though, I fear it will get commercialized first in Japan, and then rapidly the Chinese will be making money off the stuff.

Re:And Sarah Mclachlan sings!

[S3D]

And it's a dupe!

I'm wondering why slashdot have so high amount of dupes. It seems the editors are spending so much time reading submissions, that they have no time to read slashdot itself. The solution could be a two tier system: After any first-tier editor accepted submission second tier editor (who is bound to read slashdot) checking it for dupes, obviuos error, dead links etc.

Re:New Technique for Creating Nanotube Sheets

[bmo]

"Instead of whining about it being a dupe. Just don't read the article. What a concept"

But you don't know it's a dupe until you RTFA, and by then it's far too late. It's like when Laurie Anderson says about what you do in the morning when you eat your cereal, and you're just staring at the box reading...reading and eating, and then you discover that what you've been eating what you're reading.

And then it really _is_ too late.

Here's a concept: stop wasting my time with your concepts.

--
BMO

Dear ScuttleMonkey!

[Inoshiro]

I appreciate your effort to oust CmdrTaco as the #1 dupe poster, but this simple first-step is but a small part of a journey. CmdrTaco has done this for far longer than you.

He has also duped himself more than once, something you'll have to master before dethroning him.

The future might not want us neither...

[Wargames]

I saw this and it made me reminisce about Bill Joy's essay http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html
"Why The Future Doesn't Need Us." This is the kind of tech that makes me think the future might not only not need us but might want to tidily get us out of the way while it's at it.

This is cool stuff but every instance of this stuff should be registered like a lethal weapon and accounted for and contained in class-4 biocontainment before we figure out how we can learn how to safely get rid of this stuff after we are done with it.

In the article, they concerned themselves with the problems of degraded nano particulate floating around and causing problems. Sure, nano dust could cause people to have more asthma or worse, but on the macro scale the potential for problems are apparant too...

One of the things that concerns me is huge almost invisible ribbons or sails of this stuff floating around in our oceans or in our atmosphere trapping and killing fish, whales, birds, and 747's.

Have you walked along the coast of an ocean beach lately? You cannot walk for 2 meters near the high tide line on just about any beech (u.s. mainland) without finding near-indistructable plastic fishing nets or some other human waste. We make our bed we sleep in it.