Cool Tech

The other day I ran across this really cool new product called d3o. I have no clue what the name stands for but the product is really cool. It's based off of the principle of a non-Newtonian fluid. A newtonian fluid is like water in the sense that if it flows at a slow rate or a high rate pretty much the same things will happen. However, some common elements don't behave like a normal fluid. For example, if you slow down blood it begins to thicken and eventually forms clots...that's a non-Newtonian fluid. Another example is a solution of Corn Starch, if you run your finger thru is everything is fine, but if you punch it then all of the sudden it is like punching a rock. When under high amounts of strain Corn Starch will resist any forces acting on it. Or for those of you that like Sci-Fi it's like the shields that they wear when fighting on Dune.

So that brings us to the main point. What if you could make a material that was amazing at taking hard bangs and hits, but was still flexible and comfortable to wear? Enter d3o. This stuff is really cool, and I can't wait until it's more widely available.

Check out some stuff on it here:
What is d3o?

Or a similar thing being done with balistics here:
Liquid body armour for soldiers?

Seeing stuff like this makes me really think that we may be finally reaching a new era in material technology. If you look at most things we deal with in our everyday life, they are built focussed around materials that have been around for at least a century, maybe more. However, with the coming of newer materials such as GoreTEX, UnderArmour, and maybe this d30 stuff it is sure to change the way we interact with our world for years or centuries to come.