plastics
Gadgets
Where Plastic Goes When It Dies: Birds’ Stomachs
2:40AM Mark Wilson | This nature photography by Chris Jordan isn’t for the faint of heart. The series of decomposing bird carcasses faithfully documents the impact of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch on albatross chicks in the Midway Atoll. More »
Design
Plastic Concrete: Hippie’s Wet Dream, Hit Man’s Worst Nightmare
8:20AM Wilson Rothman | Imagine concrete that’s two-thirds granulated plastic, but is as strong as the stuff currently in use. Architect/engineer Henry Miller figured out how to make it, not just on paper, but in a couple of real-life structures. More »
Home
This Is How Your Plastic Objects Are Made
10:40AM Jason Chen | Curious as to how all those plastic cups, trash cans and containers you get at Ikea are made? Random Good Stuff takes a tour of the Koziol plastics factory in Germany, where many of those household items are designed. More »
Gadgets
Amazon Promises Frustration-Free Packaging: Dentists, Scissor-Makers Dismayed
11:30PM Kit Eaton | I’m 100% certain I’m not alone when I say I hate gadget packaging—specifically the armoured transparent stuff that they clamshell-wrap electronic gizmos in nowadays. But an unexpected guardian angel has arrived to ease our packing woes: Amazon has just launched its “Frustration-Free Packaging” initiative. I think they should call it the “don’t rip out your teeth/stab your fingers with scissors as you struggle with plastic” initiative, but I get the point. More »
Science
Self-Assembling Chips First Step Towards Extra-Bendy Evil Robots
7:30AM Wilson Rothman | It may look all innocent, but this little logic circuit is made from organic molecules that lined themselves up to form 300 transistors, without the need for machine production. This kind of chip-in-a-test-tube approach to creating semiconductors, demonstrated as effective for the first time by Philips Research, could cause a big leap towards cheaper, more flexible electronics—in a word, to quote The Graduate, “plastics.” More »
Science
Self-Refrigerating Plastic Sheets Could Make Ultimate Heatsink
3:20AM John Mahoney | Researchers at Penn State have cooked up a new plastic that can be cooled by simply running a current through it. It uses the electrocaloric effect to rearrange its individual atoms when charged, allowing for heat to more easily come and go. By wrapping up a chip in the stuff and zapping it with current, researchers hope they’ve found a way to make more efficient heatsinks for laptops and other gear with small, hot enclosures. Right now the process requires too much voltage to be feasible (120v, rather than the couple of volts your laptop battery could give it), but manufacturing improvements could make it ready for prime time, and Intel seems interested. More »
Online
Google Street View Becomes Google Bag View in Alaska
10:40PM Addy Dugdale | One of the occupational hazards of Google Street View is, I guess, having the camera obscured by something. It could be a pterodactyl, perhaps, flying low for a closer view, it could be a giant Monty Python-style animated brogue homing in on the car as if it were a roach ripe for the squishing. Or it could be a plastic bag. One minute it’s dancing around, American Beauty-style, the next it’s spread-eagled over the camera rather like an over-amorous spinster at a barn dance. This is what College Road in Fairbanks, Alaska, looks like, according to Google Street View. [Google Maps via Google Sightseeing] More »
Phones
iPhone Case Manufacturers Get a Sneak Peek at 3G iPhone Dimensions, Specs?
9:16AM Jason Chen | iLounge brings up this interesting, and true-sounding, story of iPhone peripheral manufacturers getting pre-briefed on specs for the 3G iPhone before the device is even announced. It makes sense since these companies need the specs to make cases that actually fit, but only need as little detail as possible to do so. Here’s what one of these manufacturer says the new one will have: slightly different tapering on the edges, a different speaker/mic hole setup, slightly different sensor arrangement (possibly even a front camera), and a red, white or black colour scheme. More »
Press
Bioplastics: Environmentally Unfriendly, Contributing To The Food Crisis
10:00AM Gizmodo US Edition | About those bioplastic bags – you know, the ones you’ve been using to assuage your eco-conscious guilt – turns out not only are they not as green as you think, they could also be partially responsible for the global food crisis. A worldwide effort by bag-heavy industries to replace petroleum-based plastics with plant-based plastics could actually lead to more environmental problems, according to a study by the Guardian UK. More »
Science
