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Transistor Made From Cotton Yarn
MrSeb writes "Altering the very fabric of technophilic society, a multinational team of material scientists have created electric circuits and transistors out of cotton fibers (abstract). Two kinds of transistor were created: a field-effect transistor (FET), much like the transistors found in your computer's CPU; and an electrochemical transistor, which is similar but capable of switching at lower voltages, and thus better suited for wearable computers. Cotton itself is an insulator, but by using various coatings, the team from Italy, France, and the United States was able to make conductor and semiconductor cotton 'wires' that retained most of their flexibility. The immediate use-cases are clothes with built-in sensors (think radiation or heartbeat monitors), but ultimately, think of how many thousands of interconnections are in every piece of cotton clothing — you could make a fairly powerful computer!"
One of the first uses of punchcards-- indeed turing's inspirations-- was feeding patterns into looms. Somehow this is satisfyingly full circle in the age of steam punk.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
If I overclock a CPU made from this would it burst into flame?
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
Now just wait a cotton-picking minute. Anything that yields a crop of puns this good must surely be fabricated.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
foldingclothes@home*
*With apologies
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell