this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2023
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Iron Man-inspired material made from DNA and glass is 5x stronger than steel — and 4x lighter::Regular glass is brittle and fragile. But pure glass coated on DNA is a different beast entirely.

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[–] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 28 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It could also be that the material is just not all that special. "Stronger than steel" is a very easy goal to achieve. Lighter is easy too. Now pair those two with higher fracture toughness, and you have something worth talking about.

[–] CADmonkey@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Stronger than steel"

Recovering machinist here, and I agree. The other thing that annoys me about "StRoNgEr ThAn StEeL" is that there is a wide variety of different types of steel, all with different strength charachteristics. Some types of steel are 5x stronger than other types of steel.

Same thing for Ford's "Military grade" aluminum. The truck bodies are made out of 5052 and 6061 depending on how it's shaped. Those are literally the most common grades of aluminum. And that's what you'd make a truck body out of, but its funny.

[–] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Also, industrial grade, surgical grade, space grade or whatever grade stuff is just funny marketing BS to me. You could probably come up with fancy terms for selling something as mundane as pencils. Instead of calling the materials wood and graphite, these marketing monkeys would probably use some fancy super high tech words instead.

[–] CADmonkey@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

These advanced pencils are designed by A.I. and use biological carbon foam encasing stacked layers of graphene!

[–] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How about throwing in some ”organic lignin composite nanomaterial” to jazz up the sales pitch. Just imagine the 300 million years of continuous development to form this fine material with extraordinary tensile properties…

[–] CADmonkey@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"lignin" was the word I couldn't think of, thanks! I probably should have tried to crowbar "blockchain" in there somewhere.

[–] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Oh, totally forgot about blockchains. I wonder if there’s a way to include blockchains, NFTs and cryptocurrencies into a pencil purchase. Maybe each package of pencils could come with an NFT corresponding with the physical objects or something like that. Remember that time when people wanted to buy NFTs corresponding to a part of the world map. Well, why would you want to own the NFT of France when you can own the NFT of this pencil. :D

[–] overload@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 year ago

The only one I have personal experience with that's real would be "analytical grade" with respect to chemicals. And probably Food grade. Those actually mean something.

[–] Blamemeta@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah, theres a reason why trains, ships, and trucks are all made with steel. The ongoing toughness. Higher fracture or whatever the engineers call it.