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Self-healing material can build itself from carbon in the air

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Re: Self-healing material can build itself from carbon in the air

#51

Post by Dylan16807 »

s_kilk wrote: post #46
agumonkey wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more I know about biology the less I enjoy (applied and commercial) science because .. well biology does much of it right now.

There's a certain fetish for technology that blinds us to the obvious power of biological systems. We end up chasing pipe dreams of self-assembling materials while ignoring the already-existing self-assembling materials right in front of us.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

There are enormous areas of research built around adapting the already-existing self-assemblers to make new things.

Re: Self-healing material can build itself from carbon in the air

#53

Post by agumonkey »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #47
agumonkey wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more I know about biology the less I enjoy (applied and commercial) science because .. well biology does much of it right now.

I remember listening to a AI researcher talk about how his quest to develop an advanced intelligence led him to realize he could do that by having a child.

Remember his name ?

I always thought that the limit of cyber/ai if eco-friendly survival, self-repair to an extent and reproduction was factored in would be homosapiens.exe

Re: Self-healing material can build itself from carbon in the air

#54

Post by hammock »

rosshemsley wrote: post #31

The cynic in me expects to click this and find an article about trees. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifk6iuLQk28

You should click and read the article then, because the new material uses chloroplasts (a plant cell organelle).

Re: Self-healing material can build itself from carbon in the air

#55

Post by agumonkey »

taf2 wrote: post #49
s_kilk wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a certain fetish for technology that blinds us to the obvious power of biological systems. We end up chasing pipe dreams of self-assembling materials while ignoring the already-existing self-assembling materials right in front of us.

It’s called a god complex? But the pragmatic reasoning is that what we build we can control more so than what nature has evolved. If for example, I can build a robot to pick up my trash can and walk it down to the street once a week and it’ll self heal all the wear and tear that is pretty nice.

God complex as the ignorance / greed spectrum.

It only works if you can sell your [bad re]creation to an audience.

Re: Self-healing material can build itself from carbon in the air

#56

Post by user3359 »

infinity0 wrote: post #17

What stops the thing from growing indefinitely, but also fast enough when damaged to return to the "original" state? If there's a "surface coating" which when damaged, causes the "inside" to "grow" again, how does the coating repair itself, to stop the "inside" from growing beyond the original surface?

With trees and porous materials, this is known as "wicking". With humans and biology, it's the clotting factor that prevents bleeding out. There are downsides to this as well, blood clots in veins and arteries can cause heart attacks, strokes.

I read about this recently and found it fascinating - specifically related to tree height, but alludes to other implications.

https://livescience.com/14667-tall-trees-grow.html

Re: Self-healing material can build itself from carbon in the air

#57

Post by Pxtl »

Scriptor wrote: post #42
agumonkey wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more I know about biology the less I enjoy (applied and commercial) science because .. well biology does much of it right now.

I bought some houseplants a bit back and it's been fascinating to see how quickly they grow. The vast majority of that new mass literally comes from thin air.

My favourite for this are South American tillandsia. They have no roots. They just sit on a tree branch and eat air.

Re: Self-healing material can build itself from carbon in the air

#58

Post by tabs_masterrace »

agumonkey wrote: post #45
Scriptor wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought some houseplants a bit back and it's been fascinating to see how quickly they grow. The vast majority of that new mass literally comes from thin air.

Then think about the internals, the subtleties of cellular matrices. It's as beautiful as processor manufacturing, if not more, and right before your eyes all around. I laugh yellow~ when people dream of robotics.. when I see an annoying mosquito, I look at how thin all this is and yet it lives, flies, perceive the world quite a bit ... To an extent I think the future will just be the same old past except we'll now u…

Dragonflies is where its at. These guys supposedly have one of the best eye vision of all species. Now compare that thing with flying camera drones. Anything we can build is so much inferior to what a Dragonfly can do.

Re: Self-healing material can build itself from carbon in the air

#59

Post by aaaaaaaaaab »

tabs_masterrace wrote: post #58
agumonkey wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then think about the internals, the subtleties of cellular matrices. It's as beautiful as processor manufacturing, if not more, and right before your eyes all around. I laugh yellow~ when people dream of robotics.. when I see an annoying mosquito, I look at how thin all this is and yet it lives, flies, perceive the world quite a bit ... To an extent I think the future will just be the same old past except we'll now u…

Dragonflies is where its at. These guys supposedly have one of the best eye vision of all species. Now compare that thing with flying camera drones. Anything we can build is so much inferior to what a Dragonfly can do.

I’d doubt that. Compound eyes have inferior resolution compared to mammal/reptile/bird eyes.

E.g. a compound eye with the angular resolution of your current eyes would be about the size of your head.

Edit: nope, even bigger:

>To see with a resolution comparable to our simple eyes, humans would require very large compound eyes, around 11 metres (36 ft) in radius.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye

Re: Self-healing material can build itself from carbon in the air

#60

Post by WhompingWindows »

Odenwaelder wrote: post #15

Can these surfaces "get cancer"? As in, for some reason, the reaction continues way beyond simply healing the crack?

Cancer is unregulated growth. Since the authors are moving towards non-biologically derived catalysts, there will be no life-derived chloroplasts like they are currently using. So, you're asking can a non-biologically derived material spread indefinitely beyond the filling in of small cracks in its surface? I don't think there's a risk of that based on the article. Is there another non-biological material that spreads in the manner you've described?
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