Earth Filtered

Inspired by the theme of "Pure" and created for this months Dont Panic Poster competition. If you get the chance, please vote for my poster here.

Self-Repairing Rubber

This is truly astounding! Just imagine the applications for a material which self-heals itself...and this is just the start...If these Scientists manage to refine and increase the repairing abilities, and apply it to metals and other materials, we're in for one crazy future! No more repairs required! No more car right-offs! And of course..robots with self-healing rubber "skin" and hardware!

Check out the original post below(and click on the bbc link to watcha video if you have real time player):


A material that is able to self-repair even when it is sliced in two has been invented by French researchers.

The as-yet-unnamed material - a form of artificial rubber - is made from vegetable oil and a component of urine.

The substance, described in the journal Nature, produces surfaces when cut that retain a strong chemical attraction to each other.

Pieces of the material join together again as if never parted without the need for glue or a special treatment.

This remarkable property comes from careful engineering of the molecules in the material.

The French researchers are already making kilogramme quantities in their Paris laboratories and say the process is almost completely green, and could be completely so with a few adjustments.

'Tiny hands'

The secret of the substance lies in how the molecules are held together.

A piece of normal rubber, says Dr Ludwik Leibler, who headed the research, is actually a single molecule with billion upon billions of smaller units chemically welded together to form a giant tangled network.


Children are always breaking their toys. Wouldn't it be nice if you could put them back together so easily?
Ludwik Leibler
The elasticity comes from the fact that the strands within the network are buckled like a concertina: pull on them and they straighten and elongate; let go and the buckles reappear.

But break a rubber (or most other solids), and the chemical welds - known as covalent bonds - are also broken.

These cannot be remade. Nor can a piece of rubber be remoulded or reshaped.

"We wanted to see if we could make a rubber-like material using small molecules," Dr Leibler of the Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Educational Institution (ESPCI) in Paris told the BBC's Science In Action programme.

The trick was to replace the covalent bonds in rubber with weaker connections known as hydrogen bonds.

These are like hands on neighbouring molecules that can clasp together, but let go when broken.

Dr Leibler quickly realised that this meant not only that the new rubber could be recycled and remoulded many times over, but that if separated by a cut or break, the chemical hands at the fresh surfaces would still be waving about ready to bind again.

Child's play

François Tournilhac, who runs Dr Leibler's laboratories, demonstrated the healing to me.

Using a razor blade he severed a thin strand of the yellowish material (the colour of corn oil), showed me the clean square faces, and then pressed them together.

Almost immediately, the grip was strong enough for him to hold the sample just at one end.

Within an hour the bonds had rebuilt themselves so thoroughly that it was possible to stretch the strand to twice its length without any sign of weakness where the cut had been made.

One obvious use, says Dr Leibler, is for self-healing seals.

Puncture a seal in a compression joint with a nail, and the hole would automatically repair itself.

He also has more playful suggestions.

"Why not use it to make children's toys? Children are always breaking their toys. Wouldn't it be nice if you could put them back together so easily?"

The material was developed with the support of the French company Arkema, which is already investigating whether it can be turned into a commercial product.

Original Words by By Roland Pease
BBC Radio Science Unit

Original Post found on bbc.co.uk

MOW FOW (Middle of the Week- Fun of the Week)

Welcome to MOW FOW! ESPvs answer to making the middle of the week a little more fun! Every Wednesday we'll be posting a set of some of the strangest and most amusing video clips found on the net to help you get through the mid-week blues!

So..to kick off this new feature..Here's a selection of Office themed clips, from angry workers to stupid pranks:

This guy needs a holiday!



When the Boss is away...classic!



What is it with the desire to photocopy your butt? Serious backfire though!



No Smoking means No smoking!



Finally..sweet ad!




Hope you enjoyed...'ttil next week, this is MOW FOW!


All vids found on YouTube

Real Transformers

These Vids bought a smile to my face because they made me realise how influential the original Transformers cartoons from the 80's must have been! It is crazy to think that in the last 20-30 years the kids that grew up watching the cartoons are now making these robots a reality!



It was amazing-enough to witness what these machines may eventually look like in the recent Transformers Feature film, which stunned us with its detail and mind-boggling animation...but to see any form of working real-life transformer takes everything to a whole new level.

A recent article on MSN cited that AI technology would soon surpass the capabilities of man..perhaps in the next 20 years. Couple this with a further 20 years of enhancing these small transformer robots and we could be looking at a world with Transformers sooner than we think!

Vids found on YouTube

PS3 Game Review: EA's NBA Live 2008

The latest edition to the ESPV gamers room, a fresh 40Gb Playstation 3, has had Dkoda glued to the screen for the last week shooting hoops in EA’s NBA Live 2008.

With the newest generation of consoles bringing sophisticated, glamorous visuals and rendering. Sports Videogames are looking slicker than ever, and with more sub-games and multiple play options, no to mention high definition resolution and smooth-moving animation, EA’s ‘08 release is a breath of fresh everything!



Firstly, the graphics are stunning; sweat shimmers on the players skin; muscles contort with movement, the leather ball actually looks like it’s made of leather. Even the background crowd is more detailed.

The soundtrack is awesome with some really dirty tunes and the in-game commentary is even more accurate in it’s response to the action, with updated player stats and the odd argument for added realism!

Including the regular NBA season and Championship competitions, 08 offers the gamer a chance to create their own NBA Dynasty. In this game mode, the user gets to manage their chosen team, from purchasing the administration staff to scouting and signing new talent. You can even set the teams training schedule for the off-season, chosing where you’d like your team to focus most, whether its offense, defense or just physical exercise.



Gameplay is fairly easy, though some may struggle with the finer commands for setting plays and pulling off stunning moves. The in-game quickplay selection is useful but the method can be a little tricky to perform. Signature moves and improved dribbling skills add a great deal of flare to the experience, but it can take a while to get your timing down on shot-taking, lay-ups and dunks.

Aside from the option of creating your own player from scratch, you can also modify the player attribute ratings, so if you feel like KG isn’t jumping as high as in real life, or AI’s not quite as fast, you can soop these players up to make them better-than-all-star players!

The only real downfall of this latest NBA title from EA is the mundane, plain-jane loading screen. It lacks any of the style and flava witnessed in-game and is on screen just long enough to irritate you...and that goes for the ESPN sponsored NBA quiz that appears whie your next game loads too. For the die-hard fan, sure your gonna love it, but for casual admirers it’s a bit heavy. When will we see actual NBA highlight reels replace these time-stretchingly boring loading screens?!!!! I want fast paced inspirational visuals of the guys on my team to get me “pumped-up” for my next battle!



Besides the loading screens this is a fantastic basketball game, truly representing and reproducing the atmosphere, excitment, strategy and flare of the NBA league. If, like me, you are a fan of the sport then this is the best game on the market! Go shoot some hoops why don’t you?!


Images from EA Sports found on Google

Dkoda On Threadless.com

Hi Everyone! I recently submitted a design to Threadless.com, an awesome online T.Shirt store/competition. They hold a monthly T.shirt design competition based on an online voting system, and the T.shirt with the highest votes gets printed and sold through their e-store.

Not only that..but if your t.shirt design is selected as a winner you win some great cash prizes! It's more than just a store though! It's also a great forum for T.shirt designers, a place to put your work online for honest feedback.

And I would love it if you would gimme some feedback too! Just click on the picture above to reach the voting registration page, or the banner (Free Dom) on the side of the BLOG.

Really, there's nothing to lose, so if you have a couple of cool designs you think could do well on a T.shirt, check out www.threadless.com, sign yourself up and get submitting those designs! OH...and remember to read the terms and conditions and legal blahdiblah before you submit your design!

Steeeeee---rike ONE! Robot Baseball

At first this video didn't really strike me as anything spectacular, especially as the robot didn't have any real aesthetic beauty...but after a few seconds I started to realise that it hadn't missed a ball yet!!!....If you've ever watched baseball, the hitters miss quite often! The action of striking the ball is really fluid and after the montage of successful hits the rugged machine, created by Robocross, takes on it's own personality, playing certain pitches with certain strokes. Add a sophisticated outer shell and you've got yourself a fatigue-free, perfect strike-rate-hitter!


Video found on YouTube by baseballbats

In Your Face!!! WD-2 robot-face Morphs to look like yours!

This robot has serious identity issues! Phenomenal engineering and robotics makes the WD-2 a very advanced machine, capable of morphing it's facial features within a matter of seconds to recreate the face of someone else!



And as if that wasn't freaky enough...you can even project your face onto the mask...check the dudes out in the video...that's an image projected onto the robots face....which has morphed into the same shape as yours!



This is normally when I go off on some spiel about the Matrix and the future...but this is very much in the present day! Though it's hard to see a practical use of this feature in the commercial sense, I can see it's use for more sinister applications with ease(Hitman Codename 47 anyone?)....but I don't want to reveal them in case I end up like John Connor in the Terminator triggering some outrageous set of events leading to the destruction of the human race by the very machines created to make life a little easier..not to throw it away and complicate things like I just have in this ridiculously long paragraph!

Original Post on http://investorspot.com

Cyborg Advances

Remember those awesome armored robot "suits" in Matrix Revolutions? Well...this could well be the early stages in the development of these types of cyborg suits! This one, in the video clip above, is designed to "give" the wearer increased strength, allowing them to lift greater weights than possible with the normal human body. (Can't wait for the cyborg version of Worlds Strongest Man...they'll be lifting buildings and dragging oil tankers I imagine!)

The potential commercial use of these cyborg suits is infinite and I'm sure that once they are proved useful and economically viable, we'll see many more companies developing products along the same line. So...by the time I'm 60 (about 30 years from now), I should have no problem changing that spare wheel on my car!... if we're not all flying spacecraft by then that is!

If you've seen an interesting article or video on cyborg technology, and would like to share it with our ESPV readers, please post the link in with your comment and we'll do our best to give it a feature!

Right...my cyborg suit is re-charged! Time to take care of that skip outside my house once and for all!

Original Video found on Youtube by CYBERPUNKREVIEW

1 step closer to the T1000 & Dkodas "Twisted Ad of the Future"

New World Associates (left-hand image); Biomechatronics Development Laboratory, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (right-hand image); Otto Bock Healthcare Products; Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

Ok...so it's not quite the "Terminator" just yet...but we all remember that amazing scene in T2 when Arnie peels back the skin on his forearm revealing an intricate network of robotic electronics right?? ... well read on!...

This bionic arm really does take a step closer to integrating man and machine. Using sensors implanted in the shoulder muscle which process electric signals from the brain into mind-controlled limb movement, this arm will enable the user the best capabilities offered by a prosthetic limb yet.



Rajeev Doshi/Medi-Mation; New World Associates; Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

The technology boasts an immense improvement in joint manipulation and user-controlled motion, with fingers which can grip firmly, touch delicately, and sense temperature. Linked directly to the brain, the user can manipulate the arm (and its' appendages) with the same subconscious effort required by regular organic limb movement.


New World Associates; Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

The challenge of brain-regulated artificial limb manipulation is diminishing, however there still remains the issue of fitting the electronics and robotics into the space and shape of a realistic looking prosthetic arm. Work is underway to shrink the size of components and decrease the weight of the limb so as to make it as near to the real thing as possible.


Otto Bock Healthcare Products; Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory


Original post by Bjorn Carey and Michael Belfiore on www.popsci.com



DKODAS "TWISTED AD OF THE FUTURE":

"Pimp" your Bionics!

Here at BlingoniX we offer a pimping range of prosthetic limb upgrade services.

Boost it with a fully integrated media centre, sporting a sub-cutaneous flat screen display and sensor-transmitted audio.

Download movies and music, browse the web and compose emails using voice recognition software and wireless web connection.

With a memory upgrade of 2 terabytes you really should make use of the HI-Def pin-size camera located in the palm of your (bionic) hand to record home movies.

Why not show your movies to your friends? With the Mini-Pro HI-Def projector located just above your palm camera you can display your movies, or your downloads, anywhere you like!!

Fed up of your credit cards? Install a fingertip Chip-and-Pin panel and you can leave your wallet at home!

Ladies?!!! Tired of nail polish remover? Upgrade with our Nail-Tron package and you can have whatever colour or design you like whenever you want it. Using bionic pigment chromatophor controls, you can pick any colour in any tone! You can even upload a design to your on-board memory drive and the Nail-Tron processor will format it to fit your nail! Got 5 kids? Why not put their pictures on your nails to show your friends?


Other Upgrade services include:

Self-Defense Pro Package

Sun-sensitive Tanning

Home automation control

Wrist-Integrated Telephonics



Wanna hear more about "BlingoniX"? Leave a comment!

TAMOTASTIC TOY GIVEAWAY : STAGE 2

Welcome to the 2nd stage of our Toy giveaway competition: "TAMOTASTIC" in association with Crazy Label Toys.

We'd like to give a BIG thank you to all of you who took part in our first competition for the custom Tamo by Selph(ESPV), and congratulations to Tedder who was randomly selected as last months WINNER!

DON"T DESPAIR if luck wasn't on your side last month!...Because you can enter our 2nd TAMOTASTIC giveaway and win this month's TAMO, customised by Dkoda(ESPV).

Once again, all you have to do is leave a comment and your email address in this "STAGE 2" post, and you could be in with the chance of scooping the prize this time round!

And remember, by entering any of our TAMO Giveaway competitions you are automatically entered into our overall prize-draw for the heavily-in-demand Treeson, 2nd Birthday Box-set by Crazy Label!!!

Read below for the comp rules and guidelines.


To enter, simply leave a comment and your email in this blog post and we'll randomly select a winner at the end of each month! The eventual prize draw for the Treeson will take place after all 4 ESPV TAMO have been won, with the winner announced in conjunction with that of the final ESPV TAMO.

You may enter only once for each monthly ESPV TAMO give-away. You have to enter at least one of the TAMO giveaways in order to qualify for the Treeson prize-draw.

The Winner(s) must reply to our notification of victory within 72 hours of it's despatch.

Goodluck everyone!

"Teleport" Canvas by Dkoda

A new canvas by Dkoda using spray paint for background, and a mixture of acrylics and poster pens for the character.

Touch Me!

This is an AMAZING video showing experimentation with multi-touch screen technology! I particularly like the section with what look like turntables...the future DJ's tool? I can just see this technology used to incredible effect at live music shows where the music and musician can actually create stunning visuals while they play their instruments. They might even be able to program notes with specific images so that repetitive and cognitive messages can be directed through the music not only through aural but visual stimulation as well.

I love this kind of technology because it feels like we are learning to breakdown the rules of nature and twist its abilities to our purpose. Should this type of technology become a part of everyday life I often wonder how it may effect the workings of our own brains, even our evolution as a species.

Eitherway..as the vid says..this is from 2006... so by the time this gets into the shops...just imagine what they'll be working on by then? GASP!!!!

Video posted by arthckr on YouTube.

RANT by Dkoda : New Comic Strip

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

"Fear" : 3 Canvases by Dkoda

A few new canvases I made last week as gifts for friends Stateside. The Dragon and Octopus are for my girl's nephews, and the Monster in the middle was a house-warming present for some friends in New York. I like to use these little yellow scared faces with an object of fear behind them as I feel it resembles the way society is administered these days.