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Researchers Develop Self-Cleaning Clothes
Ponca City, We Love You writes "Researchers at Monash University, in Australia, have found a process to coat natural fibers such as wool, silk, and hemp that will automatically remove food, grime, and even red-wine stains by coating their fibers with titanium dioxide nanocrystals, which break down food and dirt in sunlight. Titanium dioxide is a strong photocatalyst and in the presence of ultraviolet light and water vapor, it forms hydroxyl radicals, which oxidize, or decompose, organic matter. "These nanocrystals cannot decompose wool and are harmless to skin," says organic chemist and nanomaterials researcher Walid Daoud. Titanium dioxide can also destroy pathogens such as bacteria in the presence of sunlight by breaking down the cell walls of the microorganisms making self-cleaning fabrics especially useful in hospitals and other medical settings."
Sunlight?
This is some new kind of LED, right?
"...natural fibers such as wool, silk, and hemp..." So what if I'm sitting real close to someone who is wearing spandex or nylon or some other artificial fabric? Does it eat through those?
Obviously this would be the perfect clothing for many slashbots. However its requirement of sunlight to activate the self-cleaning enzymes makes it impractical for those basement dwellers among you.
Can they modify the fabric to react to the glow of a CRT?
I guess we'll be seeing many more geeks walking around in their underwear.
...man wakes up to find a pile of goo wearing his wife's very clean titanium dioxide pajamas...
I guess the old "Spill something on her dress and act concerned by patting her chest with a napkin" plan just flew out the window. Now I gotta use other plans to act innocent while copping a feel.
I guess I could try the "Make a sudden stop at a light right before it turns red and stick my arm out to make sure she doesn't fly forward" plan.
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/19/1246231
Let us pool in money and buy one for our beloved RMS ! ;)
so that's how the clothes in that movie stayed so clean despite the surrounding filth...
there's proof positive this will work.
check it out in the time musheen!
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Sure, they say that Titanium Dioxide, that uber dangerous chemical also found in white paint, is safe to wear now, but, what about 20 years ago? Back in my day, scientists said that lead was safe for gasoline, and that was wrong. Then they said that the pill was safe, until fish started popping up without sex organs? They used to have this four food groups and said I needed to eat a lot of peanut butter and cheese, and I did, and now I need a new thing to get my cholesterol back down, and I can only eat food that even dogs wouldn't eat. Back in my day, doctors used to dole out speed like it was going out of style and advocate a smoke to calm your nerves. Now they've taken all of that away, all the good stuff, and instead, I've got clothes that I won't have to wash. I know those are going to kill me too.
Nope, I'll just stick to washing clothes with water and a bit of soap!
This is my sig.
-- "At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1" -- PC Magazine, Nov. 1994
Researchers ... have found a process to coat natural fibers ... by coating their fibers...
That's some darn good journalism right there. Uh-huh.
If the clothing made from this fabric was smart enough, it would eventually figure out that the best way to get rid of the 'dirt' problem is to eliminate the one, who is wearing the clothing in question. While the researchers say that these nanocrystals cannot harm the skin, how long before it gains this ability, by say becoming exposed to some levels of X-Rays higher than normal? It wouldn't make long before a movie about the hungry killer suit is released. Also judging from the kind of garbage that get the Oscar nowadays, this new movie is going to get fasttracked in that department as well.
You can't handle the truth.
...it'll produce bleach vapor Wait... like chlorine gas? Will I finally be able to make the Bender chlorine jokes while actually choking on chlorine gas? Fantastic!It's not hard to keep the red shirts clean--people don't seem to wear them very long.
New innovative method for weightloss... Clothing that eats you alive - while you wear it.
Ugh. Is it me, or does that woman have a face like Odo?
Method of processing duck feet
This is going to make for very interesting server logs over at Wikimedia. "What the hell were they talking about on Slashdot?!"
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)