Scientists at General Electric’s Global Research Center in Niskayuna, NY have developed a way to repel water off of metals through a treatment using superhydrophobicity properties. This is big news and is set to change the way we develop new products.

Superhydrophobic metals open up many new applications, says Jeffrey Youngblood, a professor of materials engineering at Purdue University. “Metallic structures are more robust and can survive in harsher environments, allowing for their use in applications where plastic is infeasible, [such as in] planes, trains, automobiles, heavy machinery, and engines,” Youngblood says.

So essentially, you could keep water off a ship, out of an airplane’s engines and so on with this new superhydrophobic metal. GE will no doubt profit to no end from this discovery.

Bonus: Did you notice “hydro” and “phobic”? Super afraid of water, essentially. I suppose those six Latin classes I took paid off.

Link

With all this RFID implant business going on, the Magic School Bus days are getting closer and closer. We already have a pill that’ll show you your insides, so what’s next? How about a robot you can swallow that attaches to your intestinal wall which can then perform biopsies, deliver drugs, or administer localized treatment to your gut? Metin Sitti, a professor at NanoRobotics Lab at Carnegie Mellon, and his team were looking for an appropriate adhesive to adorn the robot’s feet with so it would be able to attach itself to the intestinal wall easily.

With no luck, the team looked to insects like beetles, directly drawing inspiration from the oil-like liquids they secrete along their foot hairs in order to stick securely to surfaces. With their homemade “beetle juice”, the team was successful in having the robot attach to an animal intestines as well as on an animal esophagus. I’d hate to be the poor animal that gets to shit that robot out.

Link (via)

TENS is Transcutaneous Electric Nerve Stimulation for short. It works by disrupting the pain signals originating from the nerves near the pain spot, so the area that would normally be in pain is reduced to a mere tingling sensation. It’s like having a constant little massage at the point that causes you the most discomfort.

You can’t get one of these godsends without a prescription from your doctor. Further more, you can’t use the TENS unit to charge a battery or jump a car. It’s wise to only be used for two hour intervals at a time. A break must be taken in between, otherwise the electrode pads would get too hot, then you’d really have something to cry about.

Link (via)