Submitted via IRC for Bytram
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: 4, Insightful) by bussdriver on Monday July 01 2019, @01:17PM (3 children)
Will this go the direction of the great British film https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044876 [imdb.com] ?
(Yes, that is Obi-Wan Kenobi before Star Wars fame.)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 01 2019, @01:24PM
"This is not the suit you are looking for"
But, nah, today spatial application will override the (already non-existing) textile industry and trade unions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @11:54AM (1 child)
WOW!
I watched this about 15 years ago, and never made the connection with obi-wan! Probably, because at that point it had been about 20 years since I'd watched star wars, and didn't have his 'voice' and 'mannerisms' fresh in my mind.
Thanks for the head's up :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @07:03PM
Alec Guinness had been a stalwart communist party member back in those days, so the plot of the movie is showing how Capitalism can ruin even the most altruistic of motives all for the great profit. Particularly ironic since Mr. Guinness' acting career was then destroyed by the McCarthy communist hunt a decade or so later when he was a resident(citizen?) of the United States. Guinness didn't have another major part in a movie until cast for Star Wars took place, at which time he realized how big the movie would be with fans, unlike any of his acting brethren, and made sure to negotiate a percentage as part of his contract. Said percentage ended up supporting him and his wife up until their respective deaths many years later (as far as I know, they had no children.)
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Monday July 01 2019, @01:18PM (4 children)
Eat bugs, you click-bitey journo idiot, and may you get diabetes from it.
Examples of "sugars" that aren't sweet, more commonly called polysaccharides:
- starch
- cellulose
- lignin
- chitin [wikipedia.org] - yes, the insects are covered in "sugars". Why... aren't they sweet?
It just happens those extremophiles the TFA mentions have their pili covered in a substance with a close resemblance to chitin, only packed tighter and with unusually high number of hydrophobic units along the biopolymer chain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Mer on Monday July 01 2019, @01:45PM (2 children)
So it's chitin wool, that's a way cooler way to put it imo.
Shut up!, he explained.
(Score: 4, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 01 2019, @03:06PM (1 child)
Chitin wool - accurate, but nerdy, and not as relatable as a super-ultra-lollipop.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Tuesday July 02 2019, @12:05PM
Cockroach wool! The only wool that can survive a nuclear war!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 01 2019, @03:03PM
I'm guessing this pili stuff is the next level up from long chain polyacrylic acids - some fun stuff in its own right. Put enough energy into making massive chemical bond lattice structures and, if the structure is sound, it can take massive energy to undo the assembly.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @02:01PM (2 children)
This sounds like a great way to make products that won't biodegrade or be recyclable in any way
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 01 2019, @02:19PM (1 child)
Set it on fire.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday July 01 2019, @03:53PM
Always great for the environment. Isn't that what Disney's Fantasia taught with that volcano number?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Interesting) by aiwarrior on Monday July 01 2019, @02:14PM (6 children)
We do not need everyday things almost indestructible. We actually want them to be degradable unless you count your product as life saving or having an expected time of life of decades. Otherwise it will just end up in a landfill.
What I would like is an almost indestructible material with a kind of biologic or chemical kill switch that would be activated when the product was in a landfill or certain maintenance was not done. This way things by default would decompose and become nothing.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 01 2019, @02:59PM (4 children)
As a consumer, these are the things I value the most, the ones I purchased or acquired decades ago and they still serve their original purpose, and are likely to continue to do so for decades into the future. Things that have value on the used market, in short: things that screw the industrial complex out of a continuing income stream.
Funny how consumers outnumber representatives of the industrial complex 1000:1 at the ballot box, and yet we still make laws that favor disposable industrial output.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday July 01 2019, @08:59PM (3 children)
You can still (mostly) get such long-lasting goods - you just have to pay 4x as much because that kind of quality is more expensive to build, and there's not nearly as much market demand and thus far poorer economies of scale.
It's not government interference that has flooded the market with cheap trash, it's consumers not being willing to spend the extra effort and money to identify and purchase high-quality goods.
Now, maybe a little government interference could help nudge things back in a less wasteful direction - for example just like foods must have nutrition labels and ingredients lists, make non-consumable goods carry a durability label indicating the expected lifetime before replacement or major repair will be required, as estimated by some battery of government regulated tests. Maybe require a repairability score as well, since there's usually not any good way for a potential consumer to judge that for themselves without dismantling it in the store.
That might help - especially if accompanied by an expected cost per year based on the suggested retail price, since few people will do that division for themselves. Maybe something based on the warranty period as well.
Then again - they did that with CFLs for years and they still didn't really catch on until subsidies made them almost as cheap as incandescents. Didn't matter to the masses that a $10 CFL might (on average) save them $12 in electricity every year for several years, they were still out $10 today instead of $0.25 and wouldn't break even until almost a year later, with no guarantee that the bulb would actually last that long. You need long-term planning and enough financial security to feel that you can afford the initial expense for the CFL to be the rational choice. Neither of which are as common as many would like. And of course things get worse when we start talking products that cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, where many struggle to afford even the cheap trash, and where a breakage the day after the warranty expires can make any expected returns over the average product lifespan completely irrelevant to your own net losses.
And then of course there's high tech products, where cheap trash may actually kind of makes sense due to the pace of technological obsolescence.
(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.
(Score: 2) by Mer on Monday July 01 2019, @07:55PM
You don't need an indestructible phone since you're gonna buy a new one in two years.
I would like my clothes to be indestructible though.
Shut up!, he explained.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by CZB on Monday July 01 2019, @02:53PM (1 child)
Typical scientists, thinking too narrow. A sugary substance that can survive caustic heat is really neat. Put it outside in ambient temperature and watch ordinary UV, fungi, and bacteria turn it to dust.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Monday July 01 2019, @04:22PM
That's probably true, but would need to be investigated. OTOH, WOOL coated with chitin wouldn't get wet easily, and most things won't touch it unless they can get it wet. What's probably more accurate is "it's energetically expensive to make, so unless you need it, don't bother". Even insect skeletons last a very long time, and this is supposed to be similar to that but denser.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 01 2019, @02:57PM (2 children)
Shellac, for extreme environments - organic diamond. Is it also flexible?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday July 01 2019, @04:26PM (1 child)
Most things are flexible in thin enough layers. If it's surrounding pilli then it's probably about a single molecule thick, because pilli are used to absorb things from the environment and to manipulate it. So they've got to be flexible and small in comparison the the microbe that uses them.
This raises the interesting question of "How do you get a thin enough coating on wool? ". You'd need to first separate it into individual fibers, then coat them, and then you'd need to recombine them.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 01 2019, @04:57PM
Nanobots. Actually, a chemical process that does automatic highly parallelized assembly at nanoscale, like the bacteria use when they grow them.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Monday July 01 2019, @03:53PM
To the phrase sugar coated, finally a good use for the crack cocaine of food.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 3, Informative) by hendrikboom on Monday July 01 2019, @04:23PM
The tooth decay bacteria anchor themselves to teeth using polysaccharide chains.