Transparent crab shell holds the secret to bendable screens (HOLY CRAP)

[DainBramaged]

Biologists from Kyoto University in Japan have turned a crab's shell transparent. More than just a neat party trick, the research into see-through structures could help the construction of flat panel displays, solar cells and bendy screens.

Muhammad Iftekhar Shams and his team at Kyoto University took an entire (dead) crab, and treated its body to a brew of acids and chemicals. Hydrochloric acid, sodium hydroxide and ethanol stripped the body of minerals, proteins, lipids, fats and pigments.

This left a crab shell made entirely of translucent chitin. Chitin is a long-chain polymer that is the main component of crustacean exoskeletons.

Finally, the shell was immersed in an acrylic resin monomer. Polymerisation kicked in (monomer molecules react together to form polymer chains), and the team ended up with a perfect, ghostly recreation of a crab, only now completely see-through.



http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/12/transparent-crab-shell-holds-the-secret-to-bendable-screens.ars

[HopeHoops]

1. Looks a little wrinkly for display purposes.

[DainBramaged]

2. Did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

:crazy: :hi:

[lonestarnot]

3. I will be glad to eat the legs of their experiments. Yum.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Hardly the first use of chitin --

http://articles.cnn.com/1999-02-04/tech/9902_04_t_t_shrimp.plastic_1_chitin-researchers-shrimp?_s=PM:TECH

People have been interested in chitin for a long time. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitin#Uses

Not a material of choice for vegans, it should be noted. ;)

[Motown_Johnny]

5. you gotta be chitin me

sorry








but.... now that we know pure chitin can be used in this manner it may be possible to produce it using a process that excludes an actual animal being harmed

[petronius]

6. We don't know it was harmed - maybe it died peacefully in its sleep after a long,

happy, and productive life. ;)

Pretty cool experiment, and a bendable screen would be nice...

[Motown_Johnny]

8. any level of mass production would require sacrificing the animals

unless something like what I already described was used.

[Tyrs WolfDaemon]

7. This is wonderful news!

Perhaps, one day, we can use this process on Repubs so that we can see exactly what their brains are doing as they think*! It might show us how they are flawed.
















* This assumes that what their brains do can be classified as actually thinking.