I was looking through the NYT and saw this article that caught my eye, called "Flubber." Remembering the green gooey movie critter from my younger years, I decided to read further. Can flubber be real? According to new research scientists have produced a new kind of rubber that can actually repair itself. This is straight out of a sci fi flick. The video link in this article is a couple lab coats extra and a Terminator short of an epic blockbuster.
Ok, the gist is that this new rubber heals itself. While remaining all the same properties of rubber, when cut into two distinct halves, the rubber can actually morph itself back together when placed adjacent to one another. Though the rubber is now being produced by a company, there were some hang ups with the chemical composition in its early stages.
The question is, where could this lead? While companies are trying to further this technology into making new products, could we be seeing the beginning of a new wave of technology/products?
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
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2 comments:
So this material is seriously cool and can have major implications for the industrial world. However, in terms of this article, I am not so sure that they give the implications of this discovery the credit it deserves. Ok, so its really cool how this material can heal itself, and it is interesting to understand what makes this rubber different than other, common rubber. And the video makes all of this easily observable and therefore, more understandable. But so what? The authors of this article should have brought in what this means. Why is this rubber already being researched by a major commercializing company? What effects will this possible have on our lives? That's what readers want to know.
I agree with what Emily said. Although this material seems fascinating, the authors did not describe what the importance of this rubber is at all. I was interested at the beginning of the article, but by the end it seemed to lead no where and left me mostly uninterested in the product. I think this is a good exmaple of poor science communication. The product was poorly described without much incentive for readers to want to learn more. I also don't know if this product will actually be as great as the article makes it out to be. By only being able to remend itself very quickly after being cut, it seems to not be very useful. Its great that scientists were able to come up with something like this, but I would need more information before I was sold on the product.
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