Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Impossibly thin fabric could cool you down by 16-plus degrees

fastcompany.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 106 posts

Re: Impossibly thin fabric could cool you down by 16-plus degrees

#41

Post by btilly »

denton-scratch wrote: post #18

I'm suspicious that perhaps silver nanowires might be a health risk? I believe finely-divided silver can be toxic, at least in some circumstances. Also, it's a composite with a plastic material, and would probably resist all attempts to recycle it, resulting eventually in microplastics (contaminated with metallic silver).

I am concerned about all kinds of nanowires. If they are sufficiently strong, they should be able to damage your lungs in the exact same way that asbestos does.

Not through a chemical reaction, but a mechanical process that damages cells. The damage makes it easier to mutate. Which creates a long-term potential for cancer.

Silver nanowires should not be as strong as carbon nanotubes. But are they stronger than cell walls? If so, the potential exists for the same kind of harm as asbestos. Will we only learn whether it happens in practice only after they are widely used?

Re: Impossibly thin fabric could cool you down by 16-plus degrees

#42

Post by crucialfelix »

midasz wrote: post #22
deaddodo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article was written for an American audience. I feel like if you went to a French article and it said "12 degrees" you would know to convert that to Fahrenheit, if you needed. And that's an even less common situation than second-language English speakers ending up on American articles.

How come specifically American, and how'd you reach that conclusion from glancing at the site? A huge number of people speak English as a second language. Usually the notation follows the number, so it's kind of lazy to just say it's written for americans specifically - moreso as a counter to someone saying it's Farenheit instead of Celcius since I also clicked immediately thinking how is that possible.

Every website clearly states what country it's in and who the target audience is. Except if it doesn't, in which case you know it's the Americans.

Re: Impossibly thin fabric could cool you down by 16-plus degrees

#43

Post by cyberax »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #39
cyberax wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silver is uniquely non-toxic among heavy metals. You can consume a lot of it without consequences. Some people do, look up "colloidal silver". However, it also has a long elimination half-life, and it can stain the skin.

Uhh, there are consequences to ingesting colloidal silver, if you look it up.

Sure, at _really_ high doses anything can become toxic. And we're talking about multiple grams of silver, enough to cause skin staining.

Re: Impossibly thin fabric could cool you down by 16-plus degrees

#44

Post by btilly »

OutOfHere wrote: post #2

There have been a lot of such materials over the years, but for some strange reason, none of them ever gets commercialized. We could have been using them all over the place, on all surfaces that expose to sunlight, but they're nowhere to be found.

The two main problems are how to manufacture them at scale, and how durable they are.

A thin outer layer on your clothing tends to get fairly rough treatment. Think about sitting down, then scooting your butt back. How much force was that? Amd if this is anywhere other than the outer layer, it won't work as well.

Re: Impossibly thin fabric could cool you down by 16-plus degrees

#47

Post by _Microft »

The unit is Fahrenheit here, that is 16°F ≈ 8.9°C. It‘s also mentioned towards the end of the article but just to give readers an idea what to expect. The difference is also compared to silk while other, more modern fabrics perform much better and close the gap to the new material to just over 2.3°C/4°F.

These are certainly impressive numbers!

Re: Impossibly thin fabric could cool you down by 16-plus degrees

#48

Post by [deleted] »

OutOfHere wrote: post #30
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #12

"impossibly thin" sounds a lot like "very fragile and therefore completely impractical for things that you want fabrics for". Or maybe we now want to fill the world and coat our bodies in nanoscale plastic and silver dust?

> very fragile Thin can always be made thicker by adding layers, but thick cannot similarly be made thinner. Thin is a feature.

[deleted]

Re: Impossibly thin fabric could cool you down by 16-plus degrees

#49

Post by bigstrat2003 »

jajko wrote: post #34
deaddodo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article was written for an American audience. I feel like if you went to a French article and it said "12 degrees" you would know to convert that to Fahrenheit, if you needed. And that's an even less common situation than second-language English speakers ending up on American articles.

That's a weak defense when its obviously beneficial for marketing to claim 16 of X, instead of 8 improvement. Which at the end isn't even that if I understood the claims correctly. 95% of the world population uses Celsius scale, all scientists and military use it too, and ignoring units when having bombastic claims is either negligence or more probably on purpose. I am pretty sure the team (and subsequently company/c…

People use the units that are customary in their country, that's all there is to it. There's no need for some conspiracy theory.

Re: Impossibly thin fabric could cool you down by 16-plus degrees

#50

Post by zamadatix »

OutOfHere wrote: post #30
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #12

"impossibly thin" sounds a lot like "very fragile and therefore completely impractical for things that you want fabrics for". Or maybe we now want to fill the world and coat our bodies in nanoscale plastic and silver dust?

> very fragile Thin can always be made thicker by adding layers, but thick cannot similarly be made thinner. Thin is a feature.

> There is no mention of plastic here.

The use of plastics here is mentioned as early as the second paragraph. It's the outer layer at least so at least it's better than normal microplastics on skin from plastic fiber abrasion. Still a bit of a problem once it hits the wash though.

Post reply on HN