In-pursuit-of-knowledge-blog - Everything Is Interesting!

Ave Imperator! We who are about to nap salute you!

hate doesn’t just happen. war doesn’t just happen. And we are definitely not “right” enough to kill or bring pain to anyone… // Hina Syeda

Robotic companions will never take the place of our furry best friends – but they can help us get them (and us) out of a jam! Test your robotic readiness by figuring out these futuristic scenarios.

Injectable bandages

Above: Akhilesh K Gaharwar, Ph.D., of Texas A&M University, demonstrating injectability of nano engineered hydrogels, Credit: Gaharwar Lab, www.akgaharwar.com A gelling agent commonly used in making pastries just got a major promotion. It’s now a key ingredient for new “injectable bandages” that can simulate the structure of human tissue, stop bleeding and promote healing. Potential applications include helping troops wounded in the battlefield. This Texas A&M research is our featured podcast story - Sweet! http://bit.ly/2ILgNBY

Below: Schematic showing injectable bandage composed of 2D nanoparticles and common food additive - kappa carrageenan, Credit: Lokhande, et al.

Paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1742706118300564

A couple of springboard notched stumps spotted in the field yesterday. Evidence of early 20th century logging activity.

After an extensive talk with a wonderful confidant of mine, I have concluded that “Neat!” is not an appropriate response to an earnest confession of emotions.

In 1941, Swiss engineer George de Mestral noticed after a hunting trip that burrs from burdock plants stuck to his pants and his dog’s fur. 

He took the seed and looked at them through a microscope to find that this seed attaches to animal fur via the hooks on its surface to improve distribution.

                               Source: All of Nature on Blogspot

These hooks would latch onto anything loop-shaped, such as the fibers in his pants and his dog’s tangled fur. This inspired him to come up with the ‘Velcro’.

Velcro is a bio-mimicry of this burrs with small flexible hooks attached on its surface to attach to fluffy surfaces.

Although it goes by the name Velcro the generic name is a  hook-and-loop fastener)  

And depending on the load that needs to be held there are different types of hooks that are available:

The sound that the velcro makes when you rip it apart is oddly satisfying. It is made when the loops are ripped apart from the hooks.

It was always in my head that the hooks or the loops would break whenever you would rip it apart. But turns out, they are extremely flexible.

                                                Source

For a long time I believed that this was the end of the story and that’s how far we had gone. But recently when I was trying to mount a board to the wall, I came across the 3M dual lock fasteners.

These use a mushroom shaped hook on both the sides to snap together in place.

                                                  Source

And evidently it turns out the mushroom fastener design were inspired from dragonflies who used it for stability during mating (check source video above for more).

This is great, but since this is made of plastic this surely would fail at higher temperatures. You need something robust to handle higher temperatures, and this is where the Metaklett comes into the picture:

A square metre of this fastener, called Metaklett (made of steel), is capable of supporting 35 tonnes at temperatures up to 800 ºC,  (Video)

There is something exotic in the blend of nature and technology that is manifested in the Velcro, I just cannot put my hand on what it is.

Have a great day!

Chemistry Valentine’s Cards by Nick Uhlig.

reblog and tag the languages you speak/understand in order of proficiency!!