It looks like the field of nanotubes in the 21st century is looking as fertile as that of plastics in the 20th. The latest breakthrough is “nanotube sheets”:http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8976160/, super-strong super-thin sheets with a whole list of promising applications. (Think “space elevator”:http://www.spaceelevator.com/, but that’s just one of them.)
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Keen. It’s nice to see some new material being made from a technology that’s been praised and nearly beatified but not, to my knowledge, used in a lot of practical application. Besides, I love the idea of spinning it: you could then produce an incredibly thin knit fabric (don’t laugh!) that is strong and stretchy, too. Spacesuits? Artifical hearts? Diving equipment? All you’d need is to make sure the spaces in the stretched material were smaller than an oxygen molecule, right?
And high-speed trains. Ooo. Utilize the research on the bird- or insect-like flight but you wouldn’t need it to be small or superlight, because it would still be resting on the ground (or hovering above the rails).