more SMACness comes to life

[IdaGno]

Organic Superlube? Oh, it's great stuff, great stuff. You really have to keep an eye on it, though--it'll try and slide away from you the first chance it gets.

T. M. Morgan-Reilly
Morgan Metagenics

http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enDispWho=Articles%5El866&enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enVersion=0&enZone=Technology

'cept in the rw, turns out to be inorganic

Imagine buying a new car and driving it for 10 years without once taking it for an oil-and-lube job. The engine won't even have a dipstick to check the oil. That's what the future holds if Rehovot-based ApNano Materials succeeds in marketing NanoLub.

NanoLub is the world's first synthetic lubricant to be based on spherical inorganic nanoparticles. As with other lubricants, its job is to reduce wear and friction between moving objects (like engine parts), enabling longer operation and higher efficiency. NanoLub dramatically outperforms every known commercial solid lubricant marketed today.

[Lord Nword]

I wonder if that has anything to do with buckyballs...

I don't doubt that the "ad" is dumbed down a bit.... soccerballs are relatively close to spheres

[Dis]

I'm just waiting for hologram theatres.

[Apocalypse]

I had to wait for ever to get the oil changed for my parents car today...I'd love this.

[Alex]

interesting. this shows how much the sci-fi things in SMAC actually are connected to reality.

[dacole]

and is one of the reasons it is soo great. If the nanoparticles are inorganic it can't be buckyballs that would be carbon..hmm I wonder if it is gold nanoparticles or something. Would have thought carbon nanotubes or something would have worked better...

[dacole]

I love the fact that they got an award from red herring magazine..almost made me think this was somehow a joke but it doesn't seem to be inertesting. Good find IdaGno.

[Commy]

Yes, yes, SMAC is actually pretty acurate afterall, and that's saying a lot for Firaxis...

Let's see, a while ago we had the idea of "tidal wave harnesses"...

Then, ah, Discover magazine published the idea of a space elevator...

Oh, and CERN recently released new information regarding M-Theory, or the superstring theory, and how it might relate to the unified field theory, the theory of everything...

Of course, there's rumors of a massive supercollider at CERN as well...

Then new breakthroughs were made with computer interefacing, where a man controlled his computer and typed e-mails without using a mouse or keyboard. The beginning or neural grafting and mind/machine interface?

And of course, there's always new updates about biogenics and cloning and possible cures for certain cancers. Then you got those OTCs that supposedly extend your life 20 years...

And now this...

I wonder what video games will be like 100 years from now. Will their be any futuristic ones like SMAC? Imagine, as the rest of the human race is transcending 2000 years from now, some children still insist on playing SMAC 153, claiming that the are building the Ascent to Transcendence, again...

[WotanAnubis]

Originally posted by Commy
Then, ah, Discover magazine published the idea of a space elevator...

Technically, this is very much a pre-SMAC idea, really. Arthur C. Clarke already introduced the concept of the Space Elevator (and he may not even have been the first).

However, the only reason that one hasn't been built yet (aside from the monumental building costs) is that we simply don't have the right materials yet to construct one, without needing a base for the elevator the size of several small countries.

[Commy]

That is what the article in Discover is about. A new material was found that could be used as support wires, if you will. The problem is money and how to get the cost really cheap. The technology is there. Just no one wants to find it because no one knows if it will make money or not...

[Dis]

I read the Discover article. The theory seems sound.

but I still can't see them being able to do this. Unravelling all that cable from orbit.

god only help you if the cable is tangled.

[Commy]

Never mind the fact that some fundalmentalist group will probably say it's heresy and try to sabotage it...

[Clear Skies]

Originally posted by Dissident
I'm just waiting for hologram theatres.

I want a virtual world ;_;