Seven fabrics inspired by nature: from the lotus leaf to butterflies and sharks | Guardian Sustainable Business With technology poised to change the way we dress in the future, here are seven examples of innovative fabrics that take their cue from the natural world. Hooked on Velcro Invented in 1948, Velcro has become a textbook example of biomimicry – an emerging science that emulates nature to solve human problems. And yet Velcro's invention was something of a happy accident, for which we must thank the dog of Swiss inventor George de Mestral. After a walk in the fields, de Mestral noticed burrs stuck to his trousers and his dog's fur, which led to his creation of a new hook and loop fastening device, Velcro. Exploring the lotus effect Water spilled on a lotus leaf does not wet its surface but simply beads up and rolls off, cleaning its surface from accumulated dust and dirt in the process. Fast-as-a-shark swimsuit Golden Orb spider silk cape Although humans learned to spin silk from silkworms as early as 3500 BC, spider silk was introduced much later, in 18th century France. Nature's genius
Soft tissue found on T. Rex explained The controversial discovery of 68-million-year-old soft tissue from the bones of a Tyrannosaurus rex finally has a physical explanation. According to new research, iron in the dinosaur's body preserved the tissue before it could decay. The research, headed by Mary Schweitzer, a molecular paleontologist at North Carolina State University, explains how proteins — and possibly even DNA — can survive millennia. Schweitzer and her colleagues first raised this question in 2005, when they found the seemingly impossible: soft tissue preserved inside the leg of an adolescent T. rex unearthed in Montana. "What we found was unusual, because it was still soft and still transparent and still flexible," Schweitzer told LiveScience. T. rextissue? The find was also controversial, because scientists had thought proteins that make up soft tissue should degrade in less than 1 million years in the best of conditions. Then, in 2007, Schweitzer and her colleagues analyzed the chemistry of the T. rex proteins.
Les territoires au défi de l’innovation agile Retour sur le Forum des Possibles de Futur en Seine 2014 Dans un contexte de mutation des écosystèmes locaux d’innovation, le 1er Forum des Possibles a proposé le 13 juin au CNAM, à une dizaine d’acteurs de convoquer des possibles souhaitables. Convoquer des Possibles pour les territoires Comment construire sur du temps long à l’ère de l’innovation permanente ? A partir d’un retour de cas en 6 minutes, il s’agissait de formuler des propositions concrètes ou des voeux pour l’écosystème. Des présentations qui invitent, selon Daniel Kaplan, à : travailler le lien entre territoires qui partageraient leurs problèmes à résoudre et inventeraient ensemble des solutions faire durer le plaisir d’entreprendre : pouvoir progresser (agilité, expérimentation) un plaisir collectif changer le regard sur l’innovation & les innovateurs, savoir voir et comprendre, leur donner une chance, notamment en ce qui concerne le financement de l’innovation. Innovateurs et dynamiques territoriales
Hagfish Slime: Biomaterial Of The Future? I don’t like to admit that there are many things that are as badass in the marine world as sharks, but hagfish definitely give them a run for their money. Hagfish are primitive, eel-like creatures that spend most of their lives slithering along the ocean floor, scavenging dead and dying fish. They’re spineless, virtually blind, have no jaws and have barely changed over the last 300 million years. They’re not sounding very tough right now, so what makes them so special? Well, hagfish have a sticky trick up their sleeves. Hagfish slime is formed when seawater interacts with two different ingredients secreted by slime glands: mucin vesicles, which rapidly swell and burst in seawater, forming a gloopy net of mucus strands, and threads that are rich in a type of fiber called an intermediate filament (IF). To produce these materials, Benthic Labs intend on inserting hagfish DNA for the filament proteins into bacteria, transforming them into filament-producing factories.
If We Release a Small Fraction of Arctic Carbon, 'We're Fucked': Climatologist This week, scientists made a disturbing discovery in the Arctic Ocean: They saw "vast methane plumes escaping from the seafloor," as the Stockholm University put it in a release disclosing the observations. The plume of methane—a potent greenhouse gas that traps heat more powerfully than carbon dioxide, the chief driver of climate change—was unsettling to the scientists. But it was even more unnerving to Dr. Jason Box, a widely published climatologist who had been following the expedition. Box, who is currently a professor of glaciology at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, has been studying the Arctic for decades. In other words, Box knows the Arctic, and he knows climate change—and the methane plumes had him blitzed enough to bring out the F bombs. Now, the scientists in the Arctic didn't fully understand why the plumes were occurring. First of all, I asked Box if he stood by that tweet. The scientists' video of methane bubbles in the Arctic Ocean.
Innovation sociale et environementale en France Y Combinator, Move Over For IndieBio: A Second Biotech Accelerator Bernadette Tansey10/9/14 Y Combinator, which set off a whirlwind of skeptical commentary when it opened its highly ranked tech accelerator program to biotechnology startups last spring, now has some company. SOS Ventures, the international VC firm that already holds accelerator programs for software and hardware company founders, is launching a separate accelerator called IndieBio in San Francisco and the city of Cork, Ireland, for entrepreneurial teams in fields that include synthetic biology. Like Mountain View, CA-based Y Combinator, SOS Ventures is betting that innovators in certain biotech sectors—bioinformatics, automated lab technology, and the intensive form of genetic engineering known as synthetic biology—can profit from the jumpstart delivered by accelerator programs. “These accelerators are a third way for people to build their own dreams and secure their own futures,” Gupta says. “None of us are competing,” he says. Bernadette Tansey is Xconomy's San Francisco Editor.
Nasa validates 'impossible' space drive Nasa is a major player in space science, so when a team from the agency this week presents evidence that "impossible" microwave thrusters seem to work, something strange is definitely going on. Either the results are completely wrong, or Nasa has confirmed a major breakthrough in space propulsion. British scientist Roger Shawyer has been trying to interest people in his EmDrive for some years through his company SPR Ltd. According to good scientific practice, an independent third party needed to replicate Shawyer's results. However, a US scientist, Guido Fetta, has built his own propellant-less microwave thruster, and managed to persuade Nasa to test it out. The Nasa team based at the Johnson Space Centre gave its paper the title "Anomalous Thrust Production from an RF [radio frequency] Test Device Measured on a Low-Thrust Torsion Pendulum". Back in the 90s, Nasa tested what was claimed to be an antigravity device based on spinning superconducting discs.
Projets solidaires et responsables - actualité et témoignages Quels sont les enseignements de la 11ème édition de l’étude “La France bénévole » ? Plus nombreux mais moins réguliers, plus satisfaits mais plus exigeants, tels sont les bénévoles de 2014, qui ont par ailleurs de fortes attentes en termes d’épanouissement personnel mais aussi de gouvernance des associations... L’engagement associatif a été déclaré « grande cause nationale 2014 », mais aux yeux de la plupart des bénévoles français, qui aimeraient plus de mesures concrètes, cette réponse est insuffisante au regard de leurs attentes. Jugeant sévèrement le manque de cohésion sociale en France, ils misent plus que les autres sur la solidarité et les associations pour faire face à la crise, mais ne sont que 13% à estimer que le secteur associatif est bien considéré par les instances nationales (gouvernement et parlement). 41% jugent qu’il est à peu près considéré et 40% regrettent qu’il ne soit pas considéré. C’est l’un des enseignements de la 11èmeédition de “La France bénévole”.
Two New Letters for the DNA Alphabet Scientists keep getting better at rewriting the book of life. Adding, deleting, and splicing genes has become routine, and some researchers are now even designing DNA for creatures. While many are hard at work rearranging letters on the page, a new experiment is redefining the concept of synthetic biology by writing new letters. As they reported today in the journal Nature, a team of biologists led by Floyd Romesberg at the Scripps Research Institute have expanded the genetic alphabet of DNA—the As, Cs, Gs, and Ts that write the book of life—to include two new letters. The scientists showed that their letters could be integrated into the DNA of a living creature (an E. coli bacterium) and increase exponentially the amount of information the genetic code can store. “This is a very major accomplishment in our efforts to inch towards a synthetic biology," says Steven Benner, a synthetic biologist at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution who was not involved in the study. Failsafe
Upgrade Your Brain: Liquid Hard Drive Implants Could Increase Intellect Researchers have discovered a novel way of storing data in liquid, potentially paving the way for biocompatible brain implants. Storing photos, documents and other files in brain-implantable liquid could one day be a reality after researchers discovered a new method of storing data in microscopic particles suspended in a solution. Scientists at the University of Michigan realised that digital information could be stored on colloidal clusters after observing them switch between two states - such as the 0s and 1s of traditional bits - when placed in a liquid. A research paper detailing the team's findings, entitled Digital Colloids: Reconfigurable Clusters as High Information Density Elements, was recently published in the journal Soft Matter. Sharon GlotzerUoM Glotzer uses the analogy of a Rubik's cube to describe how the storage works. In theory, a spoonful of water containing these nanoparticles could store up to a terabytes worth of data. Brain implants
DIY Manifesto | Une ode à la ville du Do-It-Yourself ! Biodegradable Plastic Option From Shrimp Shells From the depths of the oceans to stomachs of whales waste plastics are out of control. Now there is a new entry in the quest for an alternative that won't require us to get more responsible about littering, although vegetarians may have very mixed feelings. Plastic waste is a classic tragedy of the commons problem. Even if we were able to get 90% of the people who currently dump products without thinking to mend their ways, the rest would still end up destroying marine life the rest of us love, just a little more slowly. Twenty years ago there were hopes that starch or cellulose-based plastics would solve the problem. Since bacteria have had hundreds of millions of years to work out how to break these down they've got pretty good at it. So the Harvard Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering went looking for a different bioplastic base. The Institute's substitute for plastic bags is a product made by combining chitosan with a protein from silk, which has been named Shrilk.