Spray-on liquid glass is about to revolutionize almost everything

http://www.physorg.com/news184310039.html

by morganpyne • 16 years ago

249 134 16 years ago

physorg.com

ryanwaggoner• 16 years ago

This seems like the kind of report they'd show as a flashback in a post-apocalyptic film :)

bergie• 16 years ago

Asbestos was also a great idea once :-)

KaeseEs• 16 years ago

It still is, so long as it's sequestered such that the fibers don't become airborne. Asbestos removal projects done in eg. municipal buildings are often misguided.

sophacles3• 16 years ago

I'm going to start a pool. Buy in is $200 equivalent[1] per square. The board will be a 3 dimensional matrix, whose axis are:

1. The amount of time from now the collapse occurs. (most likely a logrithmic scale)

2. How far civilization falls, e.g. "back to the 19th century" or "back to the stone age"[2].

3. How "wierd" this makes the world, e.g. are there 40 degree temperature shifts in the afternoon in San Diego and warm beaches in Antarctica. Are there now hyper-intelligent wasps running the show. Do we discuss the "fragility of the fabric of space-time" much more frequently.. and so on.[3]

Finally, every "square" is actually in a state of superposition, based on the answer to the question "are there zombies[4] now" at the time of selection. Therefore if you are sure 10 days from now, early 16th century avg tech, wierd factor of .09, put in $400 worth of goods to catch the both zombies outcomes.

Winners will be chosen at the END of the collapse, before the rebuilding period. The winners will be given the location and secret combination to enter the cache. Transport and armed escort will not be provied by me or any other participant of this pool, (except by other arrangement out of scope of the pool) nor will any other form of survivability enhancement until reaching the cache.

[1] Entry fee must be in the form of non-perishable food, ammo, guns and other items traditionally considered valuable post-apocalypse

[2] Avg tech level does not include the fact that various warlords, mad scientists, intelligent creatures and other bad guys will have access to various tech remnants and caches... This is strictly about the level of technology and civilization available to the average person.

[3] Weirdness factor algorithm tbd, but it will be normalized on a 0-1 scale, with the current state of the US being .27.

[4] Zombies here includes both new and old style zombies, some forms of mutant, possibly mind-control victims, and certain types of insectoid horde. All other types of undead, mutants and creatures, as well as those with supernatural powers are actually just manifestations of the wierd factor (see [3]).

pavel_lishin• 16 years ago

> This is strictly about the level of technology and civilization available to the average person.

So, um. How would you define this now, given that right now I have three computers within easy reach, a big-screen television and a game console in a heated apartment with lights and a gas stove - while somewhere across the world, someone is hoping they find enough water to drink so they can finish building their mud-hut before the wolves come?

Bonus points for pointing out that while my girlfriend is playing a post-apocalyptic video game, someone is probably doing almost exactly what she's doing, except with a real gun against real people?

moozilla• 16 years ago

What happens if you are killed or decide to steal the contents of the cache?

Groxx3• 16 years ago

In my mind, especially because of this:

>[Neil McClelland] said soon almost every product you purchase will be coated with liquid glass.

Because such things are probably good for you, right?

lwat5• 16 years ago

Silica is one of the most abundant oxides in the earths crust. Our bodies have no problem dealing with it.

T_S_2• 16 years ago

Just because it catalyzes water into ice 9?

growt• 16 years ago

or in this case "glass 9" :)

jbri3• 16 years ago

Nanoscale silicon material with desireable physical properties?

Sounds a little asbestosy to me.

afterburner• 16 years ago

Yeah, I was just thinking, "what if it gets into my lungs?"

Splines• 16 years ago

Have no fear, consumer; it's breathable, so there's nothing to worry about.

steveklabnik2• 16 years ago

> February 2, 2010

Yep. The year of spray-on liquid glass on the desktop!

( Previously: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1092741 )

morganpyne• 16 years ago

Damn, well caught. I normally check the dates but didn't notice this was already a year old. Sorry for the old dupe. Wonder if it's now actually available anywhere. The description of this stuff is almost unbelievable and I wonder if they have found any downsides to it in the past year.

steveklabnik2• 16 years ago

No worries, it's really cool stuff. I haven't heard of any further developments yet.

juiceandjuice4• 16 years ago

The lack of understanding about possible cancerous effects of nano materials worries me, especially with stuff like this and "nanocosmetic" materials. I'd just hate to find out 20 years down the road that all of our miracle materials were slowly killing us.

doyoulikeworms• 16 years ago

Par for the course, as far as modern generations go.

yummyfajitas4• 16 years ago

The lack of understanding about possible cancerous effects of wifi worries me, especially with stuff like this and "cellular" phones.

The lack of understanding about possible cancerous effects of CRT screens worries me, especially with stuff like this and "digital" displays.

The lack of understanding about possible cancerous effects of GMO food worries me...

The lack of understanding about possible cancerous effects of inert silicone gel breast implants worries me...

Someone over 30 can fill in earlier examples: "The lack of understanding about possible cancerous effects of $NEW_TECHNOLOGY_I_DONT_UNDERSTAND worries me. I'd just hate to find out 20 years down the road that $NEW_TECHNOLOGY was slowly killing us. "

jbri3• 16 years ago

The lack of understanding about possible adverse effects of asbestos worries me...

Oh wait, it is actually pretty nasty stuff. Now, while the "20 years down the road" thing is a bit silly, a lack of understanding about potential adverse effects is a reason to investigate further, not to dismiss anyone who's cautious about it as paranoid.

juiceandjuice4• 16 years ago

First off, radio waves have been pervasively bombarding us across a wide spectrum for nearly a century.

Radiation and it's effects are well understood and quantified with fields devoted explicitly to the research of it's effects on humans.

Animals have been continuously eating food food that's mutated since animals have been mutating.

People have not been smearing engineered nanoparticles over their face and putting them into their body in these quantities for any appreciable amount of time, except around places like coal mines, heavy industrial areas (especially where exhaust from combustion), asbestos lined buildings, and all sorts of other fun places directly linked with mesothelioma.

yungchin• 16 years ago

What are you trying to say? That there are things that we know are not carcinogenic, such as wifi signals, and therefore, nothing is??

I think it was a perfectly valid comment: we really don't understand biological interactions at nanostructured interfaces all that well. See eg. all these hand-waving explanations for the supposed toxicity of carbon nanotubes http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080520/full/news.2008.845.ht...

(btw, CRT screens emit beta radiation, so if you'd sit close enough...)

tbrownaw• 16 years ago

Yup, it's probably no more dangerous than printer toner or asbestos or coal dust...

Wifi is known to be safe; we understand what makes UV and higher frequency light dangerous, and know that radio frequencies are fine (ionizing vs non-ionizing). CRT screens I believe use leaded glass to block the xrays they'd otherwise bombard you with.

I'd guess GMO foods are about as safe as anything else intentionally made poisonous to insects and other field pests.

piramida• 16 years ago

Yeah and this cough medicine from Bayer was working fine with some side-effects:

http://www.bonkersinstitute.org/medshow/bayerheroin1901.html

radicaldreamer2• 16 years ago

Yawn... I always see claims like this made about almost every new advance in materials science, but I hardly ever see these products reach the market.

phlux2• 16 years ago

That's because they are NANO - of course you can't see them - they are far too small.

eru• 16 years ago

That's probably because the real advances aren't newsworthy.

Who wants to read about a new kind of steel that's slightly harder than the old one?

NyxWulf• 16 years ago

Not only is this already a product, it's already on sale in Germany and other countries in europe.

http://www.nanopool.biz/

Product demonstration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEgfdr7GKow

I don't know why it isn't for sale in the US at this point. But this is not vapor-ware.

qq66• 16 years ago

Whenever they claim that something will revolutionize everything, it ends up in disappointment.

The things that actually do revolutionize everything are usually pooh-poohed at the beginning ("Another search engine?")

dools2• 16 years ago

Remember when Dean Kamen claimed that the Segway would change the way we built cities? Most hilarious product launch ever.

ceejayoz• 16 years ago

Talk about overpromising and underdelivering. I remember people speculating that he'd designed a compact, powerful hydrogen fuel cell, hoverboard or something similar.

tlrobinson• 16 years ago

This was the first thing I thought of when I read the parent comment.

jpcx01• 16 years ago

It did! I see parking attendents on segways every single day. Segway is directly responsible for a rise in parking tickets. Wonderful product!

ippisl• 16 years ago

For some marketing based technologies this is certainly true.For others , the gartner hyper cycle is more accurate : http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2396/1789656101_2229062a20.jp....

Tyrant505• 16 years ago

Indeed, the possibilities of a spray with these properties are infinite. In spirit of hn, I imagine coating my mobo/cpu/gpu for safe and easy, fan-less, liquid cooling! Fill it up and maybe throw a jellyfish in there for good measure...

pbhjpbhj2• 16 years ago

>I imagine coating my mobo/cpu/gpu for safe and easy, fan-less, liquid cooling!

Isn't glass a thermal insulator? I guess a thin layer wouldn't create too great a temperature gradient. Sounds a nice idea. Of course you could do this now with a non-ionic liquid (oil?) but I don't fancy your jellyfishes chances.

Luyt• 16 years ago

People are already building immersion-cooled computers, see http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/hardcorepc_reactor

They use non-conductive oil instead of glass ;-)

webXL• 16 years ago

yawn... Get back to me when you have transparent aluminum.

bpd1069• 16 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparent_aluminium

"To create transparent aluminium, more power than is used by an entire city had to be focused into a dot with a diameter of less than one-twentieth the thickness of a human hair, and then could only maintain the transparent state for 40 femtoseconds."

And its only transparent to the X-rays that are needed to knock out the electron in the L-shell.

lwat5• 16 years ago

What about aluminium oxide, does that count?

adolph• 16 years ago

Hmm, I was hoping for spray-on gorilla glass!

jjcm• 16 years ago

What if it flakes off? How structurally stable is it? If a wide variety of things start using it, will it increase the risk of silicosis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicosis) when using these products?

civilian• 16 years ago

Just guessing: But I think the flakes that cause silicosis are much larger than something 15-30 molecules wide.

hagy2• 16 years ago

Concerns of breathing in this silicate have been popping up a lot in this discussion (especially concerns about silicosis). I’d just like to point out that we’re discussing very small quantities; nano-coatings of ~100nm, only 15-30 molecules high as mentioned in the articles. Wikipedia states that the silicate clusters ascribed to silicosis each have a diameter of ~10 microns; each clusters is 100 times larger than the thickness of this coating. Additionally, the article states that the silicate coating chemically bond to the applied surface. Such silicate bonds only cleave at high temperatures (500 deg C) so the coating won’t evaporate off under ambient conditions.

bobds2• 16 years ago

> the coating won’t evaporate off under ambient conditions

They say a coating lasts about a year, which is what is prompting this type of questions. What happens to it after a year? Does it stick to various things that come in contact with the coating? Does it break off and fall to the floor?

rapind• 16 years ago

I'm actually far less alarmed about the material. It sounds pretty great. What worries me is this fixation we seem to have with eliminating bacteria... Isn't there a downside to this?

If we spread it around as much as this article describes it seems to me like we'd greatly sanitize our environment... What happens if we greatly reduce the amount of bacteria we're exposed to daily due to some sort of invention like nano spray-on glass?

T_S_2• 16 years ago

None of what you said gives me any comfort. In fact the opposite. I thought the lungs have a chance to capture large particles and that too small particles getting into your lungs is the cause of disease.

fuzzythinker• 16 years ago

Somewhat related -- Spray-on Solar cells: http://www.google.com/search?&q=spray-on+solar+cells

phlux2• 16 years ago

>Other outlets, such as many supermarkets, may be unwilling to stock the products because they make enormous profits from cleaning products that need to be replaced regularly, and liquid glass would make virtually all of them obsolete.

I dont get it, I ahve a glass sink and counter in my bathroom at home. I still have to clean them.

Every mirror I have ever had has been glass - I still windex them.

All my drinks at home are served to me in nothing but the finest crystal - I still have my help clean them.

etc....

callmeed• 16 years ago

I wonder if using the word "glass" is a good idea.

I could see some public outcry when people hear that their hamburger and catheter has a "thin glass coating".

Perhaps it will have a brand name later ...

radicaldreamer2• 16 years ago

The nonstick coating wore off your pan? Nonstick coat your food!

jtchang• 16 years ago

I wonder how you remove this kind of coating? Sandblast it?

WiseWeasel• 16 years ago

Easy, just heat to 500 degrees C.

aidenn0• 16 years ago

Sounds like it would be useful to coat aramid composites, since many aramids decompose in UV

dools2• 16 years ago

Finally!! A prediction from "Back to the Future" comes true!! We can get rid of our pesky dust jackets off our books and have dust free paper!!

aik• 16 years ago

It says it only lasts for about a year. What happens to it? Does it steadily degrade over time, or is it exponential towards the end?

elptacek• 16 years ago

What rolls down stairs? Alone or in pairs? What rolls over your neighbor's dog? Spray-on liquid glass!

jodrellblank• 16 years ago

What fits on your back? is great for a snack? http://www.inventables.com/technologies/water-soluble-glass

mike463• 16 years ago

This isn't that new... I've always been told glass is already a liquid. :)

bch• 16 years ago

I've heard that too, but recently saw: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions#C...

light3• 16 years ago

It said in the article that they tested this on plants.. what happens when the fruit grow does the coating expand?

Eliezer• 16 years ago

Every time I see the phrase "revolutionize everything" I want to find someone to take that bet with me at odds of no worse than 9-1.

mmaunder• 16 years ago

Interesting demos of the tech:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPWews7tj_k

theklub• 16 years ago

what company makes this and when can I invest?

markdionne• 16 years ago

Imagine that regular glass had not yet been invented, and someone came up with it today. I suppose people here would be questioning its safety.

khafra• 16 years ago

They'd be right to, there are significant health risks to regular glass. People cut arteries while accidentally sticking their hands through panes of it all the time.

JabavuAdams2• 16 years ago

1) There's a long list of materials that are no problem outside your body but that are really bad for you when small pieces get inside your lungs.

2) There's a higher potential harm from new processes and materials that are used everywhere by consumers, versus being used by specialists in exposure-controlled environments.

Because of (1) and (2), if there's anything wrong with this material, the harm will be multiplied.

For example a possibly toxic material used in low-rate specialty manufacturing by protected workers is different from a possibly toxic material that's distributed in fun inhalers inside of cereal boxes.

These concerns are not at all irrational, and are in fact more empirical than reflexive anti-questioning snarkery.

conorgil145• 16 years ago

The coating is environmentally harmless and non-toxic, and easy to clean using only water or a simple wipe with a damp cloth. It repels bacteria, water and dirt, and resists heat, UV light and even acids.

How can you use water to clean it if it repels water?

lwat5• 16 years ago

How do you wash your teflon pans?

neworbit2• 16 years ago

I misread this as teflon pants and thought "pretty specialty purpose but I bet it'd make cleanup easy"...

mauriciob• 16 years ago

Teflon is not removed with water.

JshWright• 16 years ago

But the water will stick to whatever you're trying to get off the surface, which is the the whole point of using water to clean things...

monkeypizza• 16 years ago

this looks like the stuff: (taobao link) http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=5777316505

astrofinch• 16 years ago

If everything is sterile, how will our immune systems get any practice?

Sapient• 16 years ago

Spray-on glass isn't going to make this situation much worse than it already is.

tjansen• 16 years ago

Seems like you can buy it in Germany since 2007 (www.dienanoexperten.eu / www.der-nano-shop.de). Never heard about it before, so I guess it can't be that revolutionary, but maybe I give it a try...

ilitirit• 16 years ago

Spray-on liquid glass is about to revolutionize almost everything 11 months ago.

bsiemon• 16 years ago

Other outlets, such as many supermarkets, may be unwilling to stock the products because they make enormous profits from cleaning products that need to be replaced regularly, and liquid glass would make virtually all of them obsolete

Likely why the revolution has not arrived.

Spray-on liquid glass is about to revolutionize almost everything

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