iPods and iPhones that can heal themselves… We’re one step closer to the robot uprising
We’ve all seen it in movies a thousand times… A snail-loving scientist wonders if there is a way to bond protein to various elements in the periodic table and grow new materials, one thing leads to another, and then BAM! Skynet becomes self aware on August 29th 1997 2:14 am Eastern Time.
Well, if the trade-off for our eventual enslavement by robots is an iPod that can heal itself of scratches, then I for one would like to welcome our new robot overlords.
According to MIT News, MIT materials scientist (and MacArthur “Genius” award winner) Angela Belcher has discovered a way to create new “self-assembling materials”, inspired by the way abalone (that’s what smart-ass MIT folk call sea snails) create their shells.
“What if iPods and Blackberrys could genetically mend their own cracks?” wonders Belcher. “These devices get dropped; they break; what material can we make so they fix themselves?” Hmmm.. you mean like the T-1000, Angela?!?
I won’t pretend to understand how the process works, but the fact that Belcher created a battery comprised of a virus she and her colleagues somehow engineered to latch itself to cobalt oxide means they’ve either doomed the planet, or written the opening scene of the next Michael Bay film. Either way we lose. Everyone knows that when well-meaning scientists in a coastal lab intentionally creating smart viruses to “help mankind”, it can only lead to Tom Cruise blowing something up.
Let’s think in a larger scale – imagine cars that could repair their shells after crash, engines, that rebuild themself to be more eco (-nomical, -logical), apartaments that evolves to castles…
I liken it more to an Anne Rice “Vampires never get any older” kind of movie than the terminator. Although using viruses to create these materials DOES sound like a recipe for evolution…
CAN’T WAIT!
🙂
People do this and we haven’t taken over the world. Oh, wait a minute.
Probably not in our lifetime, but our kids will sure be lucky with that capability around.
What if the virus mutates and suddenly your iPhone becomes a brown Zune. Imagine the back pain people might suffer, lugging around electronic brick-esque music devices. Omg, what if my iMac mutates into a Dell… waking up to my speakers eerily chirping “Dude you’re getting a Dell, dude you’re getting a Dell…”
I CANT STAND IT. MADNESS.
I hope my cellphone, my computer, my ride can fix them self too. And I save more money every mont 😀 LOL.
Nice content Doc…
I believe that InvisibleShield has that kind of technology. It is said to be able to regain it’s form and mend scratches to some degree. Here’s a quote from the website “Our proprietary film is a clear, urethane plastic (invisible, invincible) with unique properties that allow it to provide self-healing qualities and unparalleled abrasion resistance.”