Archive for August, 2005

A sheet made from nan­otubes, tiny car­bon tubes only a few times big­ger than atoms with remark­able strength and elec­tronic prop­er­ties. In today’s edi­tion of the jour­nal Sci­ence, how­ever, sci­en­tists from the Uni­ver­sity of Texas and Australia’s Com­mon­wealth Sci­en­tific and Indus­trial Research Orga­ni­za­tion report the cre­ation of industry-ready sheets of mate­ri­als made from nan­otubes. Nan­otubes are tiny car­bon tubes with remark­able strength that are only a few times wider than atoms. They can also act as the semi­con­duc­tors found in mod­ern electronics.

Sci­ence
The same sheet, emit­ting polar­ized light after the volt­age is applied through incan­des­cent heating.

“This is fun­da­men­tally a new mate­r­ial,” says team leader Ray Baugh­man of the Uni­ver­sity of Texas at Dal­las in Richardson.

• Self-supporting, trans­par­ent and stronger than steel or high-strength plas­tics, the sheets are flex­i­ble and can be heated to emit light.

• A square mile of the thinnest sheets, about 2-millionths-of-an-inch thick, would weigh only about 170 pounds.

• In lab tests, the sheets demon­strated solar cell capa­bil­i­ties, using sun­light to pro­duce electricity.

Niger­ian pres­i­dent Oluse­gun Obasanjo said that Nige­ria would have astro­nauts in space within the next 15 years.

Hmm. Okay.

More…

He said the feat was achiev­able if the momen­tum of cur­rent devel­op­ment drive was sus­tained. “In 15 to 25 years, we will put Nige­ria into space. We will get there. It is not as unat­tain­able as it looks. And we have to do it. For if we are going to make progress, we are going to make it on the basis of com­mit­ment, ser­vice and sac­ri­fice. And we are not going to be found want­ing. We must not be found want­ing. We are mak­ing efforts not to lag behind. We are not where we would want to be. But we must con­sis­tently and cumu­la­tively indus­tri­alise. And to do this, infra­struc­ture is a must. We just can­not do with­out it. Whether it is in terms of road, rail, energy or water. These are non-negotiable. Because of money, we may not be able to do every­thing at same speed and same time,” Obasanjo said.

Great. Within 25 years it’s not going to be just the US and Chi­nese with Space Peace Plat­forms of Death, it’ll also be the freak­ing Nigerians!

Have a happy Monday!