Let there be light - Canadian researchers have devised a new polymer material by manipulating buckyballs (carbon atoms that look like soccer balls). The technology could be used to create optical (light based) switches to replace electronic network switches. It could lead to an Internet based entirely on light.
posted by paladin on Aug 22, 2004 - 4 comments

Introducing: Metal Rubber. "Twist it, stretch it double, fry it to 200°C, douse it with jet fuel—the stuff survives. After the torment, it snaps like rubber back to its original shape, all the while conducting electricity like solid metal." Sounds familiar, no? Here's the son of the Roswell air field's intel officer, describing the debris he says he saw in 1947: "It was possible to flex this stuff back and forth, even to wrinkle it, but you could not put a crease in it that would stay, nor could you dent it at all. I would almost have to describe it as a metal with plastic properties." The UFO freaks are already all over the "back engineering" of Roswell crash debris. Meanwhile, there's something unusual in the sky over Minnesota right now.
posted by CunningLinguist on Aug 20, 2004 - 49 comments