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Saturday March 05, 2005 Omni - where are they now? (July 1990)
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Two more Continuum articles: |
- He Sweeps, he Scrubs, but how's his French?
Short piece on a fully automated cleaning robot called Cab-X that has
just been introduced to the Paris metro system to help keep the pavements
clean. Cab-X is six feet tall
and weighs in at about 200 pounds, gets its power from a battery pack and
moves on tank-like treads. He's guided by clusters of magnetic discs embedded
in the station's pavement and by an artificial vision system, that allows him
to avoid such obstacles as scurrying passengers.
Seems Cab-X was still around in 1997 according to a report entitled Reality of robotics in the European Cleaning Journal, with its lease renewed for ten years in 1996.
- The Itsy-Bitsy Spider Lab: Did you know that spider silk is more elastic
than nylon and five times as strong as steel? Molecular biologist Randy Lewis at
the University of Wyoming says that spider silk would be ideal for sutures,
artificial ligaments, aircraft carriers' catch cables, body armor, wet suits and
even space suits. Lewis predicts that super silk should be available for
experimentation in about a year.
Looks like it took a little longer than that according to this January 14th 2005 National Geographic article. "Hopefully in the next month we'll start spinning fibers" says Lewis, who is now a professor of molecular biology at the University of Wyoming. Hmmm. Perhaps we should check in with Randy in another fifteen years.
( Mar 05 2005, 01:41:52 PM PST ) [Listen] Permalink Comments [2]
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Posted by michel v on March 06, 2005 at 07:35 AM PST #
Posted by Rich Burridge on March 07, 2005 at 08:31 AM PST #