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Found: A sweet way to make everyday things almost indestructible
A new discovery from the University of Virginia School of Medicine reveals how sugars could be used to make almost indestructible cloth and other materials. Nature figured it out long ago, but the answer has been hidden away in bubbling baths of acid.
In certain acidic hot springs, even volcanic hot springs, live ancient single-celled organisms that can exist in conditions far too extreme for most forms of life. They have tiny appendages called pili that are so tough that they resisted UVA scientists' numerous efforts to break them apart to learn their secrets. "We were unable to take these things apart in boiling detergent. They just remained absolutely intact," said researcher Edward H. Egelman, PhD, of UVA's Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. "So we then tried much harsher treatments, including boiling them in lye, which is sodium hydroxide. Nope."
The researchers tried several other approaches before throwing up their hands and turning to cryo-electron microscopy, which allows them to image submicroscopic things almost down to individual atoms. What they found was shocking. "There's just a huge amount of sugar covering the entire surface of these filaments in a way that has never been seen before," Egelman said. "These bugs have devised a way to just use massive amounts of sugar to cover these filaments and make them resistant to the incredible extremes of the environment in which they live."
[...] People can take a lesson from nature's design to manufacture products that are similarly sturdy, Egelman said. Take a protein such as wool, say, and coat it in a special arrangement of sugars and you could make amazingly durable clothing, carpet or even building materials. "Proteins are pretty sturdy and resilient, but with this type of covering of sugar, they would be much more stable, even more resilient," Egelman said. "They could have lots of uses."
An extensively glycosylated archaeal pilus survives extreme conditions (DOI: 10.1038/s41564-019-0458-x) (DX)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 02 2019, @12:46AM (2 children)
I'd lean more in the direction of not being able to identify, differentiate and purchase high-quality goods.
Products hit the market and then morph and evolve into cheap imitations of themselves within a few seasons - bought some really great quality underwear at WalMart? Come back 6 months later and find the same brand in the same package at the same price with 1/2 the fabric weight. And, that's just an extreme example - so many industries pump up an image, sell a few copies of something good to get a reputation, and then sell-out their brand to make profit on the reputation. My grandmothers' Maytag washer and dryer come to mind - 30 years old and still look and function like they were new. Meanwhile, we bought "premium Maytag" appliances in 2014 and less than 2 years later the paint was completely removed from the tops, there's rust showing in all sorts of interior places, etc. They're still running, but they look like crap and they're not likely to still be in one piece 25 years hence.
If the "Consumer Reports" concept became a consistently (and preferably, freely) available source of independent product information on a wider range of goods - maybe even as a government service, with some sort of tax breaks given to the product manufacturers who make the most durable and highest value for money goods (or, if you'd rather, a tax penalty for selling cheap junk), that would help a lot. As it stands, all we have are Amazon reviews full of shills.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @10:59AM (1 child)
What you're talking about happened specifically with the GPP's CFL light 'bulbs'. I got a couple of the original ones when they first hit the market at $20 each. They lasted at least 10 years. One in the shed is still going. A few years later and the lifetime on new CFLs was down to a year or so.
It looks like LED bulbs are doing the same thing. The first few I got are still running. Some more recent ones have died within a few months.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @03:56PM
value engineering for sure.