The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Superstrong spider skin: Art or scientific miracle? Posted: 12 Sep 2011 08:16 AM PDT
Dutch artist Jalila Essaïdi and cell biologist Abdoelwaheb El Ghalbzouri blended synthetic spider silk with human skin to produce a superstrong material that can stop a rifle bullet shot at half its regular speed. Time to move over Kevlar? Not quite yet, but the new weave could turn out to have various medical uses. Essaïdi's original art work is a lab sample of skin tissue stored in a refrigerator and accompanied by a video showing a gunshot test on the material. The special skin will soon become part of Belgian art collector Geert Verbeke's unusual portfolio: he plans to graft part of the artist's creation into his arm later this year. "It connects nature, science and art. If I put the art that Jalila has made on my arm, then I will always have it with me," said Verbeke, who has a particular interest in marrying arts and life sciences. However, such grafted skin is still far from being truly bulletproof. El Ghalbzouri said that spider silk is three times stronger than Kevlar, which is used in bulletproof vests worn by the military and others in conflict zones. Since bulletproof vests are made from 33 layers of Kevlar, using more layers of spider silk could prove more effective in stopping a bullet, he said. He and Essaïdi see more potential for the blended skin and silk when it comes to developing skin grafts for burn patients. "This skin is much stronger and tougher than regular skin ... you can also make much larger pieces of skin" this way, the artist told Reuters. The layers of spider silk embedded in the skin allow the cultivation of larger sheets of tissue which literally outgrow their petri dishes, she added. Some studies show that incorporating regular silk in burn wounds encourages faster healing and less scarring, she said, so now she wants to see whether incorporating spider silk in the treatment of burn wounds has similar results. While human cells appear to adhere well to spider silk, more research is needed, El Ghalbzouri said. "Next to skin, spider silk could be a very good scaffold for bone regeneration, cartilage, tendons, ligaments," he told Reuters in an interview, while other applications for the silk alone include surgical stitches, thanks to its strength and elasticity, as well as parachutes and parachute cords. — Reuters |
| Smartphones more popular than feature phones in Western Europe Posted: 12 Sep 2011 05:33 AM PDT  Smartphones are more popular than feature phones in Western Europe. — AFP pic Smartphone shipments grew to reach 52 per cent of the total mobile phone shipments within the region during the second quarter of 2011 — an increase of 48 per cent year over year to 21.8 million units. Feature phone shipments, on the other hand, dropped by 29 per cent to 20.4 million units. The large increase in smartphone shipments across all European countries can be largely attributed to a surge in consumer adoption of "smart" Android and iOS devices. Market researcher IDC also suggests that feature phones have become "a niche segment driven by the very-low-end devices targeted at users who only need a device for voice and texts." While smartphone shipments are on the rise, the total Western European mobile phone market declined by 3 per cent year over year to 42.2 million units. Francisco Jeronimo, European mobile devices research manager, IDC, said that a number of factors were responsible for the drop including the current economic environment in the Eurozone and "the sharp decline of Nokia, which was not totally offset by the remaining players, which may indicate that Symbian fans are holding off on their phone replacements until Nokia launches its Windows Phones." "Lastly," he added, "operators focused on clearing inventories for the introduction of the new devices expected in the third quarter, such as the iPhone5 from Apple and Windows Phones from HTC and other players." Samsung was the most popular phone vendor in the region during 2Q11 with a 33 per cent market share followed by Nokia (21 per cent), Apple (11 per cent), HTC (7 per cent) and Research In Motion (7 per cent). A September 6 report by Taiwan's DigiTimes Research division predicts that Apple will surpass Nokia to become the world's largest smartphone manufacturer in 2011. — AFP-Relaxnews |
UTRECHT (Holland), Sept 12 — What started as a work of art and science fiction may become a medical miracle that benefits burn patients, aids bone regeneration and one day may even make us bulletproof.| You are subscribed to email updates from The Malaysian Insider :: Features To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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