January 31, 2011

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making stuff @ PBS

MAKING STUFF: Stronger, Smaller Cleaner, Smarter is a four-part PBS television series focusing on materials science: While reports on “smart materials” or “bionic humans” are familiar enough from TV news and magazine shows, Making Stuff will be the first documentary to provide the basic science behind these and many other technology breakthroughs. Each of the four [...]

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December 14, 2010

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DIY printed semiconductors @ botacom

The first edition of Botacon took place last weekend in Brooklyn. The lineup of speakers was impressive and made for one of the best conferences I’ve ever attended. But one materials-related presentation stood out. Mr. Kim and John Sarik gave a talk titled “MakerBot Printable Transistors and OLEDs or I want to be Jeri Ellsworth [...]

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September 8, 2010

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LumiNet - An Organic, Interactive Illumination Network

What is LumiNet? LumiNet is a distributed physical computing framework, developed for physical organic interfaces, simulation of tree algorithms and swarm behavior, and for wearable computing projects. It is a low cost alternative for the Arduino in projects involving hundreds of nodes. Why Arduino Compatible? The Arduino has an extensive community with well documented tutorials and examples [...]

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August 3, 2010

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wine is good for your superconductors

Interesting article at The Japan Times :) TSUKUBA, Ibaraki Pref. (Kyodo) Researchers at the National Institute for Materials Science have found that an iron compound becomes superconductive — where electrical resistance disappears in a substance — if it is dipped in wine, sake or beer. “It is still not known what it is in sake that causes [...]

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July 28, 2010

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bio-couture :: green tea leather

ghost dress grown from a vat of green tea Treehugger recently reported on BioCouture, a fashion research project based at Central Saint Martin’s College in London and led by Suzanna Lee, which seeks to grow textiles from a vat of liquid: The process uses a sugary green tea recipe, to which, a bacterial culture is added. It [...]

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July 28, 2010

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hylozoic soil

This is from quite some time ago, but a beautiful artwork from Philip Beesley called Hylozoic Soil which I saw at VIDA 11.0 last year. I just love the way he’s used nitinol in the work-

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