Polymers Quotes

The proper ending for any story about people it seems to me, since life is now a polymer in which the Earth is wrapped so tightly, should be the same abbreviation, which I now write large because I feel like it, which is this one: ETC.

The proper ending for any story about people it seems to me, since life is now a polymer in which the Earth is wrapped so tightly, should be that same abbreviation, which I now write large because I feel like it, which is this one: ETC. And it is in order to acknowledge the continuity of this polymer that I begin so many sentences with 'And' and 'So' and end so many paragraphs with '...and so on.' And so on. 'It's all like an ocean!' cried Dostoevski. I say it's all like cellophane.

To speak in nature's language, we must prioritize bio-based structural materials; biopolymers. Biopolymers are natural polymers produced by the cells of living organisms.

Lignin, the stuff that prevents all trees from adopting the weeping habit, is a polymer made up of units that are closely related to vanillin. When made into paper and stored for years, it breaks down and smells good. Which is how divine providence has arranged for secondhand bookstores to smell like good quality vanilla absolute, subliminally stoking a hunger for knowledge in all of us.

The way mycelium produces enzymes to break down complex organic polymers into simpler compounds is a case study for how we can upcycle products and materials in our economy.

Plastic is still plastic. The material still remains a polymer. Polyethylene is not biodegraded in any

YOUR WORDS ARE SEEDS. You have the choice to speak life or death. Your words have a nucleus. They can be magnificent co creations with angels, producing mind silk. Or, they can be the polymers of plastic sheets, suffocating the earth one square inch at a time.

To speak in nature's language, we must prioritize bio-based structural materials; biopolymers. Biopolymers are natural polymers produced by the cells of living organisms. We're already utilizing them in products, pharma, and even in fashion. But to deploy them on the architectural scale, we need to invest in design and construction technologies that emulate their heirarchical properties by engineering real time chemical formation.

In the second part of this century, individualization will be greater than mass production. And logistics will be more about data files and polymer packs than freight trucks and cargo ships.

Our most lasting relic will probably be the layer of plastic we’ve deposited across the planet. By digging up oil, processing it into durable and long-lasting polymers, and spreading it across the Earth’s surface, we’ve left a fingerprint that could outlast everything else we do.

A year later, less than 1 percent was gone. “And that’s under the best controlled laboratory conditions. That’s not what you will find in real life,” says Tony Andrady. “Plastics haven’t been around long enough for microbes to develop the enzymes to handle it, so they can only biodegrade the very-low-molecular-weight part of the plastic”—meaning, the smallest, already-broken polymer chains. Although truly biodegradable plastics derived from natural plant sugars have appeared, as well as biodegradable polyester made from bacteria, the chances of them replacing the petroleum-based originals aren’t great.

if you make monomers wet they don’t turn into polymers—except when creating life on the Earth.

I have nerves of curable polymers, like those of plastinated corpses

collects polymer toys, and does Groening-esque renditions of The Dream

By digging up oil, processing it into durable and long-lasting polymers, and spreading it across the Earth’s surface, we’ve left a fingerprint that could outlast everything else we do.

So is this, like, dynamite?” “It’s HMX compounded with three percent polymer-bonded explosive composite,” Cindy says … “Did you say that all extra technical to make me feel like an asshole” Moon asks. “Mm-hmmm.

Shoes made of glass? That wouldn't be very safe,' the man said. 'They're actually midnight crystal. Much tougher than glass and, thanks to a clear polymer lining that adapts to the shape of your foot, a lot softer too. Glass shoes would just be silly.

Difficult To Believe Impossible To Deny The world today is witnessing the emergence of an extraordinary phenomenon that offers a radical way to transform life on this planet for the benefit of all. This phenomenon brought to the world by Mahendra Trivedi is known as The Trivedi Effect®. The Trivedi Effect® is a natural phenomenon that transforms living organisms and non-living materials through the Energy Transmissions of Mahendra Trivedi and The Trivedi Masters™. This Intelligent energy has the ability to transform all living organisms such as plants, trees, seeds, bacteria, viruses, fungi, animals, cancer cells, human cells…everything. In the addition to that, this energy has the ability to transform nonliving materials, such as metals, ceramics, polymers, and chemicals by changing the structure of the atom permanently.

In fact, McDonald’s cares so much about uniformity and efficiency that they add a silicon-based polymer to the fryer oil to reduce splatter,15 which cuts down on cleaning time; called dimethylpolysiloxane, the same chemical is also used in head lice treatments, condom lubricants,16 and breast implants.17 How neat is that?

It happened overnight—the evolution of an atomic identity towards a manifestation of life. There it was, polymers shrinking, disintegrating like Phenol without its Benzene. It was simply there, haphazard and hazardous as a series of exploding celluloid billiard balls. And there it was, until the sudden surge. And there was silence.

Lignin, an organic polymer found in trees, is chemically similar to vanillin, the primary extract of the vanilla bean. So when trees are made into books and kept for long periods of time, the lignin in the paper breaks down and starts to smell like vanilla. This is why antiquarian books, and secondhand bookshops, smell so damn good.

Mechanism of action: Both drugs are active in the G2/M phase of the cell cycle. They bind reversibly to the β-tubulin subunit, but unlike the vinca alkaloids, they promote polymerization and stabilization of the polymer rather than disassembly (Figure 39.27). Thus, they shift the depolymerization-polymerization process to accumulation of microtubules.

that country became a center for making mobile phone components and handsets. 5. The controller board is made in China because U.S. companies long ago transferred manufacture of printed circuit boards to Asia. 6. The lithium polymer battery is made in China because battery development and manufacturing migrated to China along with the development and manufacture of consumer electronics and notebook

Colonel Kassad returns to the fire and slides the night visor up onto the top of his helmet. Kassad is wearing full combat gear, and the activated chameleon polymer shows only his face, floating two meters above the ground. “Nothing,” he says. “No movement. No heat traces. No sound besides the wind.” Kassad leans the FORCE multipurpose assault rifle against a rock and sits near the others, the fibers of his impact armor deactivating into a matte black not much more visible than before.

Order Out of Chaos ... At the right temperature ... two peptide molecules will stay together long enough on average to find a third. Then the little trio finds a fourth peptide to attract into the little huddle, just through the random side-stepping and tumbling induced by all the rolling water molecules. Something extraordinary is happening: a larger structure is emerging from a finer system, not in spite of the chaotic and random motion of that system but because of it. Without the chaotic exploration of possibilities, the rare peptide molecules would never find each other, would never investigate all possible ways of aggregating so that the tape-like polymers emerge as the most likely assemblies. It is because of the random motion of all the fine degrees of freedom that the emergent, larger structures can assume the form they do. Even more is true when the number of molecules present becomes truly enormous, as is automatically the case for any amount of matter big enough to see. Out of the disorder emerges a ... pattern of emergent structure from a substrate of chaos.... The exact pressure of a gas, the emergence of fibrillar structures, the height in the atmosphere at which clouds condense, the temperature at which ice forms, even the formation of the delicate membranes surrounding every living cell in the realm of biology -- all this beauty and order becomes both possible and predictable because of the chaotic world underneath them.... Even the structures and phenomena that we find most beautiful of all, those that make life itself possible, grow up from roots in a chaotic underworld. Were the chaos to cease, they would wither and collapse, frozen rigid and lifeless at the temperatures of intergalactic space. This creative tension between the chaotic and the ordered lies within the foundations of science today, but it is a narrative theme of human culture that is as old as any. We saw it depicted in the ancient biblical creation narratives of the last chapter, building through the wisdom, poetic and prophetic literature. It is now time to return to those foundational narratives as they attain their climax in a text shot through with the storm, the flood and the earthquake, and our terrifying ignorance in the face of a cosmos apparently out of control. It is one of the greatest nature writings of the ancient world: the book of Job.

Eventually, humans will die out. Nobody knows when,12 but nothing lives forever. Maybe we’ll spread to the stars and last for billions or trillions of years. Maybe civilization will collapse, we’ll all succumb to disease and famine, and the last of us will be eaten by cats. Maybe we’ll all be killed by nanobots hours after you read this sentence. There’s no way to know. A million years is a long time. It’s several times longer than Homo sapiens has existed, and a hundred times longer than we’ve had written language. It seems reasonable to assume that however the human story plays out, in a million years it will have exited its current stage. Without us, Earth’s geology will grind on. Winds and rain and blowing sand will dissolve and bury the artifacts of our civilization. Human-caused climate change will probably delay the start of the next glaciation, but we haven’t ended the cycle of ice ages. Eventually, the glaciers will advance again. A million years from now, few human artifacts will remain. Our most lasting relic will probably be the layer of plastic we’ve deposited across the planet. By digging up oil, processing it into durable and long-lasting polymers, and spreading it across the Earth’s surface, we’ve left a fingerprint that could outlast everything else we do.

Take a simple pocket pen, so cheap that they are given away as advertising. Back of it lie several sorts of chemists, metallurgists, synthetic polymer experts, mechanical engineers, extrusion presses, computer programmers, computers, computer technicians, toolmakers, electrical engineers, a planet-wide petroleum industry, five or more sorts of mines with mining engineers, geologists, miners, railroads, steamships, production engineers, management specialists, merchandizing psychologists—et cetera to a splitting headache. It is impossible even to list the myriad special skills that underlie even the most trivial trade item of our enormously complex and interdependent industrial web.

warm little pond” where Darwin supposed life began to the bubbling sea vents that are now the most popular candidates for life’s beginnings—but all this overlooks the fact that to turn monomers into polymers (which is to say, to begin to create proteins) involves what is known to biology as “dehydration linkages.” As one leading biology text puts it, with perhaps just a tiny hint of discomfort, “Researchers agree that such reactions would not have been energetically favorable in the primitive sea, or indeed in any aqueous medium, because of the mass action law.” It is a little like putting sugar in a glass of water and having it become a cube. It shouldn’t happen, but somehow in nature it does. The actual chemistry of all this is a little arcane for our purposes here, but it is enough to know that if you make monomers wet they don’t turn into polymers—except when creating life on Earth. How and why it happens then and not otherwise is one of biology’s great unanswered questions.

Pointsman is the only one here maintaining his calm. He appears unruffled and strong. His lab coats have even begun lately to take on a Savile Row serenity, suppressed waist, flaring vents, finer material, rather rakishly notched lapels. In this parched and fallow time, he gushes affluence. After the baying has quieted down at last, he speaks, soothing: “There’s no danger.” “No danger?” screams Aaron Throwster, and the lot of them are off again muttering and growling. “Slothrop’s knocked out Dodson-Truck and the girl in one day!” “The whole thing’s falling apart, Pointsman!” “Since Sir Stephen came back, Fitzmaurice House has dropped out of our scheme, and there’ve been embarrassing inquires down from Duncan Sandys—“ “That’s the P.M.’s son-in-law, Pointsman, not good, not good!” “We’ve already begun to run into a deficit—“ “Funding,” IF you can keep your head, “is available, and will be coming in before long… certainly before we run into any serious trouble. Sir Stephen, far from being ‘knocked out,’ is quite happily at work at Fitzmaurice House, and is At Home there should any of you wish to confirm. Miss Borgesius is still active in the program, and Mr. Duncan Sandys is having all his questions answered. But best of all, we are budgeted well into fiscal ’46 before anything like a deficit begins to rear its head.” “Your Interested Parties again?” sez Rollo Groast. “Ah, I noticed Clive Mossmoon from Imperial Chemicals closeted with you day before yesterday,” Edwin Treacle mentions now. “Clive Mossmoon and I took an organic chemistry course or two together back at Manchester. Is ICI one of our, ah, sponsors, Pointsman?” “No,” smoothly, “Mossmoon, actually, is working out of Malet Street these days. I’m afraid we were up to nothing more sinister than a bit of routine coordination over the Schwarzkommando business.” “The hell you were. I happen to know Clive’s at ICI, managing some sort of polymer research.” They stare at each other. One is lying, or bluffing, or both are, or all of the above. But whatever it is Pointsman has a slight advantage. By facing squarely the extinction of his program, he has gained a great of bit of Wisdom: that if there is a life force operating in Nature, still there is nothing so analogous in a bureaucracy. Nothing so mystical. It all comes down, as it must, to the desires of men. Oh, and women too of course, bless their empty little heads. But survival depends on having strong enough desires—on knowing the System better than the other chap, and how to use it. It’s work, that’s all it is, and there’s no room for any extrahuman anxieties—they only weaken, effeminize the will: a man either indulges them, or fights to win, und so weiter. “I do wish ICI would finance part of this,” Pointsman smiles. “Lame, lame,” mutters the younger Dr. Groast. “What’s it matter?” cries Aaron Throwster. “If the old man gets moody at the wrong time this whole show can prang.” “Brigadier Pudding will not go back on any of his commitments,” Pointsman very steady, calm, “we have made arrangements with him. The details aren’t important.” They never are, in these meetings of his.

DuPont, for 130 years, had confined itself to making munitions and explosives. In the mid-1920s it then organized its first research efforts in other areas, one of them the brand-new field of polymer chemistry, which the Germans had pioneered during World War I. For several years there were no results at all. Then, in 1928, an assistant left a burner on over the weekend. On Monday morning, Wallace H. Carothers, the chemist in charge, found that the stuff in the kettle had congealed into fibers. It took another ten years before DuPont found out how to make Nylon intentionally. The point of the story is, however, that the same accident had occurred several times in the laboratories of the big German chemical companies with the same results, and much earlier. The Germans were, of course, looking for a polymerized fiber—and they could have had it, along with world leadership in the chemical industry, ten years before DuPont had Nylon. But because they had not planned the experiment, they dismissed its results, poured out the accidentally produced fibers, and started all over again.

Gomi. Thirty-five percent of the landmass of Tokyo was built on gomi, on level tracts reclaimed from the Bay through a century's systematic dumping. Gomi, there, was a resource to be managed, to be collected, carefully plowed under. London's relationship to gomi was more subtle, more oblique. To Kumiko's eyes, the bulk of the city consisted of gomi, of structures the Japanese economy would long ago have devoured in its relentless hunger for space in which to build. Yet these structures revealed, even to Kumiko, the fabric of time, each wall patched by generation of hands in an ongoing task of restoration. The English valued their gomi in its own right, in a way she had only begun to understand; they inhabited it. Gomi in the Sprawl was something else: a rich humus, a decay that sprouted prodigies in steel and polymer. The apparent lack of planning alone was enough to dizzy her, running so entirely opposite the value her own culture placed on efficient land use. Her tax ride from the airport had already shown her decay, whole blocks in ruins, unglazed windows gaping above sidewalks heaped with trash. And faces staring as the armoed hover made its way through the streets.

Russia’s biggest transport helicopters flew around the clock dropping a special polymer resin to seal radioactive dust to the ground. This prevented the dust from being kicked up by vehicles and inhaled, giving troops time to dig up the topsoil for extraction and burial. Construction workers laid new roads throughout the zone, allowing vehicles to move around without spreading radioactive particles.218 At certain distance limits, decontamination points, manned by police, intersected these roads. They came armed with dosimeters and a special cleaning spray to hose down any passing trucks, cars or armoured vehicles. Among the more drastic clean-up measures was bulldozing and burying the most contaminated villages, some of which had to be reburied two or three times.219 The thousands of buildings that were spared this fate - including the entire city of Pripyat - were painstakingly sprayed clean with chemicals, while new asphalt was laid on the streets. At Chernobyl itself, all the topsoil and roads were replaced. In total, 300,000m³ of earth was dug up and buried in pits, which were then covered over with concrete. The work took months. To make matters worse, each time it rained within 100km of the plant, new spots of heavy contamination appeared, brought down from the radioactive clouds above.

NATO paper: Modification of Tropospheric Propagation Conditions, detailed how the atmosphere could be modified to absorb electromagnetic radiation by spraying polymers behind high flying aircraft.  Absorbing microwaves transmitted by HAARP and other atmospheric heaters linked from Puerto Rico, Germany and Russia, these artificial mirrors could heat the air, inducing changes in the weather.  U.S. Patent # 4253190 describes how a mirror made of “polyester resin” could be held aloft by the pressure exerted by electromagnetic radiation from a transmitter like HAARP.   A PhD polymer researcher who wishes to remain anonymous told researcher William Thomas that if HAARP’s frequency output is matched to Earth’s magnetic field, its tightly beamed energy could be imparted to molecules “artificially introduced into this region.” This highly reactive state could then “promote polymerization and the formation of   new compounds,” he explained. Adding magnetic iron oxide powder to polymers exuded by many high flying aircraft can foster the heat generation needed to modify the weather.  Radio frequency absorbing polymers such as Phillips Ryton F 5 PPS are sensitive in the 1 50 MHz regime, HAARP transmits between two and 10 MHz.                  HAARP's U.S. Air Force and Navy sponsors claim that their transmitter will eventually be able to produce 3.6 million watts of radio frequency power. But on page 185 of an October 1991 “Technical Memorandum 195” outlining projected HAARP tests, there is a call by the ionospheric effects division of the U.S. Air Force Phillips Laboratory for HAARP to reach a peak power output of 100 billion watts. Commercial radio stations commonly broadcast at 50,000 watts.  Some hysterical reports state that HAARP type technologies will be used to initiate

Jenna is acting strange. Weeping, moping, even remarks tending toward belittlement Melmoth might tolerate (although he cannot think why; she is not his wife and even in human females PMS is a plague of the past) but when he caught her lying about Raquel—udderly wonderful, indeed—he knew the problem was serious. After sex, Melmoth powers her down. He retrieves her capsule from underground storage, a little abashed to be riding up with the oblong vessel in a lobby elevator where anyone might see. Locked vertical for easy transport, the capsule on its castors and titanium carriage stands higher than Melmoth is tall. He cannot help feeling that its translucent pink upper half and tapered conical roundness make it look like an erect penis. Arriving at penthouse level, he wheels it into his apartment. Once inside his private quarters, he positions it beside the hoverbed and enters a six-character alphanumeric open-sesame to spring the lid. On an interior panel, Melmoth touches a sensor for AutoRenew. Gold wands deploy from opposite ends and set up a zero-gravity field that levitates Jenna from the topsheet. As if by magic—to Melmoth it is magic—the inert form of his personal android companion floats four feet laterally and gentles to rest in a polymer cradle contoured to her default figure. Jenna is only a SmartBot. She does not breathe, blood does not run in her arteries and veins. She has no arteries or veins, nor a heart, nor anything in the way of organic tissue. She can be replaced in a day—she can be replaced right now. If Melmoth touches “Upgrade,” the capsule lid will seal and lock, all VirtuLinks to Jenna will break, and a courier from GlobalDigital will collect the unit from a cargo bay of Melmoth’s high-rise after delivering a new model to Melmoth himself. It distresses him, how easy replacement would be, as if Jenna were no more abiding than an oldentime car he might decide one morning to trade-in. Seeing her in the capsule is bad enough; the poor thing looks as if she is lying in her coffin. Melmoth does not select “Power Down” on his cerebral menu any more often than he must. Only to update her software does Melmoth resort to pulling Jenna’s plug. Updating, too, disturbs him. In authorizing it, he cannot pretend she is human. [pp. 90-91]

They found that the crowd assembled around Innocentive was able to solve forty-nine of them, for a success rate of nearly 30 percent. They also found that people whose expertise was far away from the apparent domain of the problem were more likely to submit winning solutions. In other words, it seemed to actually help a solver to be ‘marginal’—to have education, training, and experience that were not obviously relevant for the problem. Jeppesen and Lakhani provide vivid examples of this: [There were] different winning solutions to the same scientific challenge of identifying a food-grade polymer delivery system by an aerospace physicist, a small agribusiness owner, a transdermal drug delivery specialist, and an industrial scientist. . . . All four submissions successfully achieved the required challenge objectives with differing scientific mechanisms. . . . [Another case involved] an R&D lab that, even after consulting with internal and external specialists, did not understand the toxicological significance of a particular pathology that had been observed in an ongoing research program. . . . It was eventually solved, using methods common in her field, by a scientist with a Ph.D. in protein crystallography who would not normally be exposed to toxicology problems or solve such problems on a routine basis.

The rifle was mottled with a synthetic preservative that smelled like overripe peaches. The stock and pistol grip were made of a bright orange wood that was slick with the preservative. The Russians had gone to polymer stocks, but the Chinese still went with the wood. Pike opened the bolt to inspect the receiver and breech. They were flawless. Stone

We bring you the best straight plain first completely Biodegradable Pet Waste bags made of Mater-Bi. This is the compostable bio-polymer entirely biodegradable ingredients available in multi sizes. We help you and your pet go eco- friendly.

The rifle was mottled with a synthetic preservative that smelled like overripe peaches. The stock and pistol grip were made of a bright orange wood that was slick with the preservative. The Russians had gone to polymer stocks, but the Chinese still went with the wood. Pike opened the bolt to inspect the receiver and breech. They were flawless.

The guns were Smith & Wesson Sigma .40s, which were modern part-polymer weapons, and expensive. They were both fully loaded.

life is now a polymer in which the Earth is wrapped so tightly

The proper ending for any story about people it seems to me, since life is now a polymer in which the Earth is wrapped so tightly, should be that same abbreviation, which I now write large because I feel like it, which is this one:

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polymers

Even in the less-obviously creative fields of hard science, LSD can be profoundly beneficial. In fact, it played a role in the two biggest discoveries in biology of the 20th century. Francis Crick, who discovered the double helix structure of DNA with James Watson, and Kary Mullis, who invented the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), had both taken the drug, and attributed some of their understanding and insights to it. Mullis has gone so far as to say: "would I have invented PCR if I hadn't taken LSD? I seriously doubt it ... [having taken LSD] I could sit on a DNA molecule and watch the polymers go by. I learnt that partly on psychedelic drugs.

Douady and Hubbard used a brilliant chain of new mathematics to prove that every floating molecule does indeed hang on a filigree that binds it to all the rest, a delicate web springing from tiny outcroppings on the main set, a "devil's polymer," in Mandelbrot's phrase. The mathematicians proved that any segment-no matter where, and no matter how small-would, when blown up by the computer microscope, reveal new molecules, each resembling the main set and yet not quite the same. Every new molecule would be surrounded by its own spirals and flame-like projections, and those, inevitably, would reveal molecules tinier still, always similar, never identical, fulfilling some mandate of infinite variety, a miracle of miniaturization in which every new detail was sure to be a universe of its own, diverse and entire.

Be prepared, indeed. The polymer case housed a Sig-Sauer P229 semiautomatic pistol chambered in 9mm Luger, along with a pair of thirteen-round magazines. And a suppressor designed to be screwed into the threaded barrel. MI-5 officers weren’t supposed to be armed. Not on British soil, at least. Something he had voiced to the DG.

You were able to get what I’d requested?” Harry asked, turning to lead the way into the kitchen. Flaharty nodded, setting his own bag down on the table with a dull thud and unzipping it to withdraw an AK-103 assault rifle, its polymer stock folded against the receiver. “Nearly. Four rifles, though I was only able to acquire two of these like you’d asked.” “And the other two?” “Wooden-stocked AKMs,” the former PIRA man replied, gesturing toward the bag Harry was holding. “Good enough,” he said, opening the bag and pulling out one of the rifles. The AKM was a far older design, but they’d still be able to share ammunition and magazines. Russians were nothing if not efficient

The weapon was one of the variants of the standard SAS sniper rifle, the British-made Accuracy International PM — Precision Marksman — or L96A1. Designed for covert operations, the rifle Dekker had chosen was the AWS, or Arctic Warfare Suppressed, model. The name was a hangover from the days when the manufacturer produced a modified version for the Swedish armed forces, a move which spawned several different models generically known as the AW range. The stainless-steel barrel was fitted with an integrated suppressor which reduced the sound of a shot to about that of a standard .22 rifle. It was a comparatively short-range weapon, because of the subsonic ammunition, effective only to about three hundred yards in contrast to other versions and calibres of the rifle, some of which were accurate at up to a mile. Both the stock, its green polymer side panels already attached, and the barrel were a tight fit in the case, each lying diagonally across its interior. He pulled them both out, fitted and secured the barrel, and lowered the bipod legs mounted at the fore-end of the machined-aluminium chassis to support it, while he completed the assembly. Then he took a five-round magazine out of the recess in the briefcase, along with an oblong cardboard box containing twenty rounds of 7.62 x 51-millimetre rifle ammunition.

The rifle was disassembled into its component parts, with its stock, barrel, grip, and scope separate to allow it to fit inside a standard-sized briefcase. There was also a long suppressor. Victor’s was the latest variant of the SVD, with stock and hand guards made from high-density polymer to lighten the weight, instead of the original wood furniture. Though not as sophisticated or accurate at long range as some Western sniper rifles, Victor had a fondness for the Dragunov because of its reliability in all conditions and its no-nonsense mechanics. As a semi-automatic rifle, the Dragunov had a much better rate of fire than a typical bolt-action sniper rifle, though the greater number of moving parts that made the rifle semi-automatic also made it less accurate than a bolt-action. But as a semi-auto the SVD could also be used as an assault rifle and was fitted with conventional iron sights and bayonet mount for just such a use. The Soviet philosophy on arms manufacture had been ease of use and reliability over accuracy, and Victor had found there to be a lot of merit in the ideal. Weapons that were world beaters on the range weren’t much use if they didn’t work under battlefield conditions

What we need is an approach that’s more degradable yet still scalable. Chemists are coming closer with a polymer called polylactic acid, or PLA. Fabricated from corn or tapioca plant starch, PLA is sturdy—it feels like a normal plastic cup. But it cuts greenhouse gas emissions by 75 percent as compared to traditional plastics. What’s the catch? The polymer is biodegradable only in specialized industrial composting facilities, where it takes ten to twelve weeks to break down, limiting its utility. In a conventional landfill, or if dumped into the ocean, it struggles to decompose.

Complex” means that the carbohydrates in wheat are composed of polymers (repeating chains) of the simple sugar, glucose, unlike simple carbohydrates such as sucrose that are one- or two-unit sugar structures. (Sucrose is a two-sugar molecule, glucose + fructose.)

Why Sulfur Blooming Is Undesirable In The Rubber Industry? Rubber is the main raw material in the manufacturing of tires. Industriy uses both natural and synthetic rubber for the purpose. To maintain the quality of rubber sulfur content is one of the most important parameters. Raw rubber is a hydrocarbon in nature and is a thermoplastic. in order to eliminate the dundesirable property of malodorousness, treating rubber with sulfur, other accelerators, and antioxidants are necessary. Which in turn help to prolong the life of rubber product, tire in this case. However, being crystalline organic sulfur is somewhat soluble in polymers (rubber). Mixing ordinary sulfur to the natural rubber will be of no use as it will dissolve during the hot mixing process. Later after cool-down, it will form the crystalize surface, causing the sulfur to bloom. This might not affect the function of the rubber product but it will mess up the appearance of the product. To prevent this undesirable effect of sulfur blooming, insoluble sulfur is used in Rubber. Being a homopolymer, it forms a long chain compound, which eliminates the chance of blooming by keeping the sulfur inside and not allowing it to crystalize on the surface of the rubber.

That chair must be made from marine-grade polymer.

European perfumery started in earnest around the turn of the twentieth century, and developed apace with the discovery of aroma chemicals: coumarin, vanillin, cyclamen aldehyde, the great nitro musks. The Great War left industry and cities largely intact and killed countless males. Many factors then conspired to make the period 1918-1939 the golden age of mass perfumery: working women vying for the remaining men, cheap aroma chemicals, cheap labor to harvest the naturals, flourishing visual arts and music, the obsolescence of prewar bourgeois dignity, replaced by irreverence and optimism. The WWII destroyed the great engine of European chemistry (Germany). The tail end of German chemistry on the Rhine lay in the neutral Switzerland and was untouched, which is wy today two of the biggest perfumery houses in the world (Firmenich and Givaudan) are Swiss. Postwar France stank. In 1951, six years after the Liberation, only one household in fifteen had an internal bathroom. The Paris Metro at rush hour was famous for its unwashed stench. Given cost constraints, French perfumes in those years ('50) had an air de famille, a perfumey feel based on then-cheap drydown materials like sandalwood oil and salicylate esters. Being able to smell someone's fragrance was a sign of intimacy. When a perfume left a trail (called sillage) it was remarked upon, usually unfavourably. It is a strange coincidence, or perhaps a hint of the existence of God, that skin melanin is a polymer spontaneously formed from phenols, and that the perfumery materials that defined American perfumery were also in good part phenols.

We like to be able to have options for taking your temperature. Hence, the gown,” Dr. Maynard said with a straight face as she reached for a polymer privacy sheet on one wall.

When I look back at Ryle, he’s halfway down a hallway. He disappears into a room and I stand here, looking at the picture again. That’s when I see it. The picture is blurred, so it was hard to make out at first. But I can recognize that hair from anywhere. That’s my hair. It’s hard to miss, along with the marine-grade polymer lounge chair I’m lying on. This is the picture he took on the rooftop the first night we met. He must have had it blown up and distorted so no one would notice what it was.

The term polymer is often associated with synthetic fibers and plastics, but there are also many naturally occurring polymers. The word comes from two Greek words, poly meaning “many” and meros meaning “parts”—or units—so a polymer consists of many units.

An exercise in illusion via allusion. Wear it and after a few hours you will find your daily life suffused by the same feeling of peace you get when you settle into an armchair after tidying your apartment from end to end. If you think of all the best Chanel fragrances as varieties of little black dress - sleek, dependable, perfectly proportioned - Bois des iles is the one in cashmere. I have worn it on and off for years, whenever I felt I needed extra insulation from the cold world. To my nose Chinatown ( Bond No. 9 ) smells like a corner of a small French grocery in summer, in the exact spot where the smell of floor wax meets that of ripe peaches. Lignin, the stuff that prevents all trees from adopting the weeping habit, is a polymer made up of units that are closely related to vanillin. When made into paper and stored for years, it breaks down and smells good. Which is how divine providence has arranged for secondhand bookstores to smell like good quality vanilla absolute, subliminally stoking a hunger for knowledge in all of us. Perfume is, among other things, the most portable form of intelligence. Oman was making perfumes when Europeans only bathed once a year on doctor's orders. Chanel No. 5 is a Brancusi. The beauty and fragrance industry has lied to women for so long, convincing us to fork over cash for crud in shiny packages, that at this point event pure quality has trouble getting taken seriously. Clever marketing can get us to buy something once, but rarely again. We don't wear Chanel No. 5 because Marilyn Monroe wore it, we wear it for the same reason that Marilyn did: because it''s gorgeous. Sycomore, Chanel. If putting it on does not make you shiver with pleasure, see a doctor. Aside from beautiful aircraft, nuclear power stations, food and wine, perfumery is France's biggest export, yet there is no perfume museum in Paris. The ability possessed by certain fragrances to briefly turn the most arid mind into a fairy garden, to make us lament the passing of loves and losses we know full well we never had, is a miracle specific to perfumery.

And I was not a believer in easy solutions, something to swallow that would rid my soul of an ancient fear. But I could not help thinking about that saucer-shaped tablet. Would it ever work, could it work for some but not others? It was the benign counterpart of the Nyodene menace. Tumbling from the back of my tongue down into my stomach. The drug core dissolving, releasing benevolent chemicals into my bloodstream, flooding the fear-of-death part of my brain. The pill itself silently self-destructing in a tiny inward burst, a polymer implosion, discreet and precise and considerate. Technology with a human face.

The proper ending for any story about people it seems to me, since life is now a polymer in which the Earth is wrapped so tightly, should be that same abbreviation, which I now write large because I feel like it, which is this one: • • • And it is in order to acknowledge the continuity of this polymer that I begin so many sentences with “And” and “So,” and end so many paragraphs with “… and so on.” And so on.

There's an urban myth, still popular in some quarters, that the Glock can't be detected by X-ray machines. The myth was spread by a Bruce Willis line in the 1990 movie Die Hard 2: "That punk pulled a Glock 7 on me. You know what that is? It's a porcelain gun, made in Germany. Doesn't show up on your airport X-ray machines." Every bit of the line was false: there was no such thing as a "Glock 7"; Glocks are made of polymer, not porcelain; it was made in Austria, not Germany; and they do show up on X-ray machines. But in a strange twist, the firestorm of controversy triggered by the false rumors may have helped goose publicity and aid Glock sales.

His big hands moved quickly, efficiently, over the hard polymer—re-assembling the Smith & Wesson M&P Compact he’d brought with him across the unguarded border with France. No borders. It was a lofty idea, in theory. In reality, it only served to make the work of men like him easier. He lifted the semi-automatic pistol in one hand, sliding a full double-stacked magazine into the grip. Twelve rounds of 9mm Federal Hydra-Shok, jacketed hollowpoints. Carrying hardball wouldn’t have been of much use—pistol rounds weren’t going to go through good body armor on the best of days. The Smith & Wesson went into a holster under his armpit, in a cross-draw position. Another pair of loaded magazines went into the pocket of his motorcycle jacket. Along with a long, thin suppressor.

Among its notable material innovations are the coral skeletons of calcium carbonate that create massive reefs; lignin (complex organic polymer), which makes up about a quarter of all tree trunks; feathers composed of twisted and cross-linked protein strands, which enable avian flight; and human skin, whose tear resistance, thanks to the ability of collagen fibrils to slide past each other, is (depending on the strain) as high as 15–21 megapascals—compared to just 2–5 megapascals for concrete.

Mandelbrot found his most enthusiastic acceptance among applied scientists working with oil or rock or metals, particularly in corporate research centers. By the middle of the 1980s, vast numbers of scientists at Exxon’s huge research facility, for example, worked on fractal problems. At General Electric, fractals became an organizing principle in the study of polymers and also—though this work was conducted secretly—in problems of nuclear reactor safety. In Hollywood, fractals found their most whimsical application in the creation of phenomenally realistic landscapes, earthly and extraterrestrial, in special effects for movies.

no light would make it here for months, in any case; you could tell the season by how hard the heating vents were creaking. She dressed herself from head to toe in polymer and synthetic weave. She combed her hair. Then Gideon whistled through her teeth as she unlocked her security cuff, and arranged it and its stolen key considerately on her pillow, like a chocolate in a fancy hotel.

male astronauts had been fitted with condom catheters, but these were always threatening to leak or even burst and obviously wouldn’t work for women. To everyone’s relief, a NASA engineer created an extra-absorbent polymer and worked it into a diaper that could be worn by all. (In the bargain he’d anticipated

Based on this decomposition of the deformation it is sometimes desirable to directly measure the shear response of a material. This can be achieved, for example, by performing torsion experiments.

Having journeyed from inorganic to organic and having considered the handedness of simple monomers, we now take a look at polymers, the next big idea in the story of the past and future of life.

particularly polymers. It has a range of uses, including a fabric stiffener in wrinkle-free clothing and as a component of insulation. It is commonly found

was made from a lightweight polymer material, not metal, making it very light and easy to carry. It was well balanced for a sub gun, and small enough to fit in the back pocket of most dress pants. Only a passionate gun lover would think it was pretty, but I could see the purpose and function. It was a gun made to kill people. Like the folding machine guns carried by Big H’s security goons, it was perfect for concealed carry and could be disguised in a small bag or package.

1,000,000 years forward Eventually, humans will die out. Nobody knows when,12 but nothing lives forever. Maybe we’ll spread to the stars and last for billions or trillions of years. Maybe civilization will collapse, we’ll all succumb to disease and famine, and the last of us will be eaten by cats. Maybe we’ll all be killed by nanobots hours after you read this sentence. There’s no way to know. A million years is a long time. It’s several times longer than Homo sapiens has existed, and a hundred times longer than we’ve had written language. It seems reasonable to assume that however the human story plays out, in a million years it will have exited its current stage. Without us, Earth’s geology will grind on. Winds and rain and blowing sand will dissolve and bury the artifacts of our civilization. Human-caused climate change will probably delay the start of the next glaciation, but we haven’t ended the cycle of ice ages. Eventually, the glaciers will advance again. A million years from now, few human artifacts will remain. Our most lasting relic will probably be the layer of plastic we’ve deposited across the planet. By digging up oil, processing it into durable and long-lasting polymers, and spreading it across the Earth’s surface, we’ve left a fingerprint that could outlast everything else we do. Our plastic will become shredded and buried, and perhaps some microbes will learn to digest it, but in all likelihood, a million years from now, an out-of-place layer of processed hydrocarbons—transformed fragments of our shampoo bottles and shopping bags—will serve as a chemical monument to civilization.

We are all part machine, Kaaro. Your phone is a polymer under the skin of your hand. You have a locator chip in your head.

Tests by Bloomberg showed that Kraft Parmesan contained almost 4 percent cellulose, a plant-derived polymer mainly used to make paper and paperboard. Other brands had cellulose content as high as 7.8 percent.

Bad design with good materials may give you the designed fatigue life, but a good design with bad materials will never give you the designed fatigue life.

A plastic gun? Can you believe it? Detractors always like to say that it is a Tupperware gun. It is not Tupperware, or Rubbermaid my friends, it is the real deal! The frame is made of a nylon based polymer that is extremely light, resistant to temperature extremes, resilient, and strong. It also stands up to caustic liquids, and corrosives better than metal or metal alloys

Opportunities for enhanced recycling remain great even in the case of paper and aluminum cans, the two materials whose recycling rates are the highest in all affluent countries (Japan's paper recycling may be the exception as it is already about as complete as is practical). Perhaps most notably, until 2008 paper was still the largest discarded material going into US landfills (almost 21% of the total mass, compared to nearly 17% for plastics), and although by 2010 it had fallen to just below plastic's share (16.2 vs 17.3%) the total mass of buried paper was still nearly 27 Mt/year (USEPA, 2011a): that is more than the annual production of all paper and paperboard in the same year in Germany (FAO, 2013). And while the mass of paper landfilled in the USA in 2010 was half of the total in 1990 (26.7 vs 52.5 Mt), during the same two decades the mass of discarded plastics rose by 70% and the total of buried polymers, 28.5 Mt, was greater than the combined annual production in Germany and France (Plastics Europe, 2012). Or another comparison: a destitute waste collector may spend a day collecting a mass of 1 kg of plastic shopping bags when rummaging the open garbage tips of Asia's megacities, while the USA buries nearly 80 000 t of plastic in its landfills every day. While in the USA only about 8% of discarded plastics were recovered in 2010 (with the rate ranging from 23% for PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles to less than1% for PP (polypropylene) waste), the EU's goal for 2020 is full diversion of plastic waste from landfills (EPRO, 2011). This would require a 50% increase of the 2010 recovery rate of 66%, roughly split between recycling and incineration for energy recovery. And, of course, waste recovery is not synonymous with recycling as significant shares of collected materials are not reused but landfilled (after volume reduction by shredding or compression).

In the 1970s, UCLA psychologist Eric Holman discovered that certain sweetened substances could make rodents prefer certain foods by virtue of their presence. For instance, by adding a saccharin to either a banana- or an almond-flavored solution, he was able to make rats prefer the taste of bananas or almonds, respectively, a process known as “flavor nutrient conditioning.” In recent years that work has been picked up with humans. Maltodextrin, a glucose polymer, is imperceptible to most of us. It doesn’t taste sweet. In fact, it doesn’t taste like anything. For it to activate the sweet receptors in the brain, the body must first break it down into glucose. If we mix it into another food, we don’t realize there’s a sugar present, but we still develop a preference for that flavor. In one study, people who tasted foods with maltodextrin mixed in would reliably choose the flavor that had been associated with the polymer in subsequent tests. They had been trained to prefer one food over another by a sort of sensory trickery. Imagine dusting a child’s broccoli florets with maltodextrin and transforming a disliked vegetable into a favorite.

Why are we so confident about carbon’s essential role in creating living things? The answer has to do with the core properties of the carbon atom itself. Carbon has four valence electrons residing in the outermost shell of the atom, which, for complicated reasons, makes it uniquely talented at forming connections with other atoms, particularly with hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, sulfur—and, crucially, with other carbon atoms. These six atoms make up 99 percent of the dry weight of all living organisms on earth. Those four valence bonds give carbon a strong propensity for forming elaborate chains and rings of polymers: everything from the genetic information stored in nucleic acids, to the building blocks of proteins, to the energy storage of carbohydrates and fats.

Several years had passed since an American kid named Cody Wilson had designed “The Liberator”—the first 3-D-printed polymer gun—and the technology had improved exponentially. The new ceramic and polymer firearms still did not have much power, but what they lacked in range, they more than made up for by being invisible to metal detectors.

Thanks, Maisie,” I said. “I appreciate the update.” “I enjoy being helpful,” she replied.” Darby chuckled. “I think she’s developing a sense of humor.” “I’m not sure I can handle an inanimate polymer egg cracking jokes all the time,” I said.

The proper ending for any story about people it seems to me, since life is now a polymer in which the Earth is wrapped so tightly, should be that same abbreviation which I now write large because I feel like it, which is this one: ETC.

Stereolithography (SLA) is an additive manufacturing process that belongs to the Vat Photopolymerization family. In SLA, an object is created by selectively curing a polymer resin layer-by-layer using an ultraviolet (UV) laser beam. The materials used in SLA are photosensitive thermoset polymers that come in a liquid form. SLA has many common characteristics with Direct Light Processing (DLP), another Vat Photopolymerization 3D printing technology. For simplicity, the two technologies can be treated as equals. A laser beam is directed in the X-Y axes across the surface of the resin according to the 3D data supplied to the machine (the .stl file), whereby the resin hardens precisely where the laser hits the surface. Once the layer is completed, the platform within the vat drops down by a fraction (in the Z axis) and the subsequent layer is traced out by the laser. The resin that is not touched by the laser remains in the vat and can be reused. This continues until the entire object is completed and the platform can be raised out of the vat for removal. Support structure is always required in SLA. Support structures are printed in the same material as the part and must be manually removed after printing. The orientation of the part determines the location and amount of support. It is recommended that the part is oriented so that so visually critical surfaces do not come in contact with the support structures

To make things even more challenging, cells must also be able to make all of their component molecular machines using only the resources that are available in the local environment. Think of the magnitude of this accomplishment. Many bacteria are able to build all of their own molecules from the a few simple raw materials like carbon dioxide, oxygen, and ammonia. A single bacterial cell knows how to build several thousand types of proteins, including motors, girders, toxins, catalysts, and construction machinery. This cell also builds hundreds of RNA molecules with different orderings of nucleotides, as well as a diverse collection of lipids, sugar polymers, and a bewildering collection of exotic small molecules. All of these different molecules must be created from scratch, using only the molecules that the cell eats, drinks, and breathes.

The study has direct implications for architecture, where it affects the design of strong, light structures, and for the chemistry of polymers, substances with long chains of molecules.