Monday April 04, 2005 Omni - where are they now? (April 1989)
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Two more Continuum articles: |
- Drought Repellent for Fruits:
This piece describes how Walter Polovina, a chemist at Southern Research Enterprises in Florida has come up with a way to protect fruits and vegetables from the ravages of drought.
The produce is coated in a biodegradable film that blocks the evaporation of fluid from fruit trees or vegatable plants.
The non-toxic film can be applied using a hand-held sprayer or a field conveyor. Polovina says the substance should be available later this year.
On googling for "Walter Polovina", I found that, he's was involved in litigation over his invention, where (in 1996) he was denied a motion to prevent another company selling a similar product which he alleges was based on his invention and was affecting his royalities. In 2003 and appeal of this decision was also denied.
- Organic Sidewalks:
What do you add to concrete to make it stronger? Well, if you are Innobat, a small but innovative company in France, you pep up your product with a healthy dose of dried animal blood.
Innobat buys beef blood from French slaughterhouses, dries it to a powder then blends it with two varities of cellulose cementing agents.
When mixed with water. the blood protein molecules in the solution react to form crystalline shells as the concreate hardens. These shell coated bubbles make the concrete significantly lighter and because the bubbles are distributed evenly throughout the concrete (in traditional concrete, air bubbles are randomly distributed), it is upto 40% stronger than other concretes.
As this list of building events show, Innobat are still going strong, but it's unclear if they are still selling their bloody concrete product.
( Apr 04 2005, 09:10:22 AM PDT ) [Listen] Permalink Comments [0]
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