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Introducing Magnet-Responsive Memory Foam
Roland Piquepaille writes "The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has recently reported that two research teams have developed a new porous foam of an alloy that changes shape when exposed to a magnetic field. The NSF states that this new material is able to remember its original shape after it's been deformed by a physical or magnetic force. This polycrystalline nickel-manganese-gallium alloy is potentially cheaper and lighter than other materials currently used in devices ranging from sonar to precision valves. It also could be used to design biomedical pumps without moving parts and even for space applications and automobiles."
Well, such pumps do exist - you can pump liquid metals by passing a current through them, and applying a magnetic field at 90 degrees to the current as per high school physics - but I doubt they'll be pumping molten sodium through people any time soon. You could build a diaphragm pump with this approach, presumably using a two-phase magnetic circuit to very the length of the magnetic actuator, and this would probably be a lot better than passing airlines into people to operate conventional diaphragm pumps, as is done at present. But the pump has at least two moving parts, i.e. the actuator and the diaphragm.
I suspect the author meant "no rotating parts".
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-1000
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
To mention that production of any theorized applications will take 5-10 years. Yeesh, the editors usually remember to add that bit of useless info when they add the useless list of possible uses!
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
This would be cool for bumpers (I think some of the colonies call them fenders). You could park your car, shunt the other card out of the way and then apply your magnetic field and say "Nar it wasn't me, mate. Look, my car is OK. Must have been some other bloke".
I can see the commercials now...
Introducing the Magnetic Memory Foam Mattress, molds to your body with adjustable magnetic fields.
a seemingly unstoppable cyborg assassin who has been sent back from the year 2029
Just on track, I believe.
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
biomedical pumps without moving partsThat should read "without rubbing parts". And even with that increased language precision, we still don't know the answer to the important question, which is whether this willow allow pumps "without fatiguing parts". (I suspect this will not be possible without biological-like microscopic self-healing.)
Computer : PAL code number two confirmed. Awaiting PAL code number three.
Snake : Okay, there goes PAL code number two. Next comes PAL number three... warm the key.
(Snake Inputs the third PAL code.)
Computer : PAL code number three confirmed. PAL code entry complete. Detonation code activated.
Snake : No! Why!
Computer : Ready for launch...
two research teams have developed a new porous foam of an alloy that changes shape when exposed to a magnetic field.
That's nothing. I have stacks and stacks of disks with INFORMATION that changes shape when exposed to a magnetic field.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Self wringing scrubbing sponges here we come!
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Yeah, heaven knows the US would be a better place if we all knew how to build motors. Then the Democrats would rule forever!
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
... liquid medal.
if clothing can be "magneto-morphed" into medieval weaponry? For example, a pair of trousers and some dental floss could be transformed into a longbow (firing socks as arrows).
I'd be almost equally happy if future politicians got a really good grounding in history, instead of being told that it is irrelevant.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
He's puts in a lot more effort than Dvorak but it's still annoying when a tech journalist gets things wildly wrong.
...A giant fluffy USB-memory Pillow that can store my dreams!
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
MIB
*notices banner ad for fleshlight*
I may just have an idea here...
"rolandagain"
Please don't use "umm" or "err" or "erm".
His firehose submission did link to his blog. That must have been "lost" at some stage...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
maybe it's hi new year resolution not be be an annoying bellend.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
Sure. And we could use it in nuclear fusion reactors, flying cars, and holographic memory, and possibly even in Duke Nukem Forever ...
First cars get seatbelts to make wrecks safer,
then airbags to make getting in a wreck fun,
now cars get memory foam so you wreck, you didnt total your car, you just ahve to press the reset button, watch the car restruct itself from the ashes. we call this model Phoenix. this reconstuctive property became necessary upon giving it flying capabilities. we had to remove the flux capacitor to fit it all in though.
The everlasting love doll!
Unfortunately even National Geographic is far from being impartial and is heavily skewed in favor of pandering to patriotic or other themes. This is nothing new either: they were doing this during WW2 too.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I'd like to see some version of these electromagnetic "shape memory" materials in a cheap transparent form that can coat touchscreens. If they could be switched from smooth to a raised bump quickly, with very little power, and at high rez (about the size of a display pixel), they'd make for great feedback devices for "GUIs". Raised edges of GUI widgets, even vibrating areas indicating active buttons and their state. That would compensate quite a lot for how our fingers obscure the GUIs while we're operating them. And maybe even eliminate most of the need to actually even look at the GUI for most familiar interfaces.
If this MRMF stuff can work in a thin enough coating, maybe it could be transparent. Or just some other transparent stuff that isn't as fancy, but just jumps on command without blocking the light.
--
make install -not war
Quite irrelevantly and incidentally, this is my beef with current theoretical physics. It's substituting a defective theological argument (an infinite regress of universe constructors) with an argument that goes against Ockham's Razor (an infinity of parallel universes.) In a recent popular article on the subject I saw a suggestion that we can't see the additional dimensions because we are made of particles that are bound to only 4 of them. I am not a physicist, obviously, just a would be theologian who retrained as an engineer, but I'm beginning to suspect that String Theory is a religion, and should not be taught as science in schools.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."