TED2. Textiles/Materials

What I would like you to do here is to select one of the following TED presentations, review it, consider what you feel about it and prepare a response IN ENGLISH ready to post on the TED site.  We will review your comments before you post (unless you are confident enough in your English to post direct). It will require you to set up a TED login / password – but that shouldn’t be too difficult for you!   Then I’d like you to actually post your comment… who knows, it could be interesting – you may even get replies / observations / comments yourself!

Q. Why am I doing this?

A. Well, most R & D is not done in a vacuum – interested people talk and share their thoughts and spin off ideas as a result. When this takes place internationally – it often happens in English.   So I am trying to interest you and tempt you with things that relate to your chosen ‘home territory’: engineering and textiles.  I am also throwing in my personal view that we need to be taking more care of each other, our children and the planet in general.

So, here are the TED Talks!

1.SILK: The material of the Future

Ever thought about ‘silk’ and its amazing attributes. Ideas of how to re-invent the use of silk as:

• ‘liquid Kevlar’…
• a means of creating Holgrams,
• a fibre optic cable…
• Implantable, degradable tissue
• possibilities are endless?

A really interesting presentation by:

Fiorenzo Omenetto

It is also helpfully subtitled in French.

2. ‘Plastics’ from Mushrooms!

A mind-blowing (yet simple) presentation by Eben Bayer – proposing replacements for non-bio-degradable styrofoam/polystyrene etc…. would you believe: Mycelium from Mushrooms with amazing properties and zero health or environmental risk.

Using totally natural materials which are usually waste – convert them into a source of 100% bio-degradable ‘plastic’. It self-assembles in just 5 days!  Imagine you buy a PC with corner packaging you can throw in your compost and will have all the positive nutritional value of decomposed leaves in a few days….

Once again, It is also helpfully subtitled in French.

3. Leather and Meat without Killing Animals