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The "missing link" in Australia's carbon fibre capability, a wet spinning line (below), has been launched today in a ceremony at Waurn Ponds just outside Geelong. Carbon fibre combines high rigidity, tensile strength and chemical resistance with low weight and is used in aerospace, civil engineering, the military, cars, and also in competitive sports.
Only a handful of companies around the world can create carbon fibre, each using their own secret recipe. To join this elite club CSIRO and Deakin researchers had to crack the code. In doing so, using patented CSIRO technology, they've created what could be the next generation of carbon fibre that is stronger and of a higher quality.
[...] The wet spinning line machinery takes a sticky mix of precursor chemicals and turns it into five hundred individual strands of fibre, each thinner than a human hair. They're then wound onto a spool to create a tape and taken next door to the massive carbonisation ovens to create the finished carbon fibre. The CSIRO/ Deakin wet spinning line was custom built by an Italian company with input from the organisations' own researchers. The company liked the design so much it made another for its own factory and the the CSIRO/ Deakin machine has been described as "the Ferrari of wet spinning lines".
(Score: 2, Interesting) by MostCynical on Wednesday February 22 2017, @08:56AM
doesn't mean all public-funded organisations in all countries do, nor does it mean private is better, it just means , in some cases, yours suck. Unfortunately, many take this to mean ALL government funding is bad. Finland, Sweden, etc etc have excellent government funded education and health systems, so good that no one really bothers with private alternatives.
Australia has let both health and education (and, alas, also scientific research) get worse (yay for "right win", economically 'conservative' ruling political parties), but they aren't at American levels.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 22 2017, @09:35AM
Fortunately, the aren't.
Unfortunately, they aren't yet but heading there (or worse... eg the usians allow home-schooling)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @11:27PM
What do you do about the middle of Australia then? There is lots of vast nothingness. Getting a full classroom of kids could mean commuting hundreds of miles.
Do you not have any bad neighborhoods? Seriously, I don't believe that. Forcing a well-behaved smart kid to go to a bad school is child abuse.
Homeschooling isn't all anti-science stuff. Here we have the ability to take tests to qualify for college credit. I had my 10-year-old do AP Chemistry last year. This year (age 11) she's doing AP Biology, and next year she's starting AP Physics and AP Calculus. This would not be available in a public school at that age; there is no way they would let her skip ahead by 4 years.
You could gripe that homeschooling allows for more indoctrination by the parents, but the alternative is indoctrination by teachers. I suppose I may offend you: there are not 47 different genders, the teacher's union does not favor students, my kids should not write the statement of Islamic conversion/faith in Arabic, illegal aliens are inherently criminal and are usually not "undocumented" because they do identity theft... yeah maybe you agree with the SJW values being taught and you want that jammed down my kids throats, but I have every reason to oppose that. It sure would be nice if school would stick to the 3 Rs plus real science.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday February 23 2017, @01:32AM
School of the Air [wikipedia.org] (you can Google the term for more details) then boarding schools at higher levels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by lentilla on Thursday February 23 2017, @01:59AM
What do you do about the middle of Australia then?
Learn to the approved curriculum via correspondence, often via School of the Air [wikipedia.org].
Forcing a well-behaved smart kid to go to a bad school [...]
There are good schools, and not-quite-so-good schools, but I understand "bad" schools are a rarity. Since parents can't go school "shopping", if the school is crap, people have to make do with what they've got... which means they fix the issues and everyone benefits.
Australian schools are ultimately answerable to a Department of Education which has outlined the framework for education of school-age children. This homogeneity means that all Australian children receive a similar educational experience. It also means that issues can't get stuck at an individual school level - parents always have recourse to a higher authority when issues aren't being resolved.
(Of course, there are two other options if you really don't like the local school: move house into a different school catchment area, or send your children to a private school. If you run a cattle station in the middle of Australia and you have sufficient wealth, you can always pack them off to boarding school in the metropolis.)