Japan: Nanotech Team Creates Palladium-Like Alloy
January 3rd, 2011Via: PhysOrg:
Japanese researchers have created an alloy with properties similar to palladium, a precious metal used in many high-tech goods, a news report said Thursday, dubbing the breakthrough “present-day alchemy”.
Kyoto University professor Hiroshi Kitagawa and his team said they used nano-technology to combine rhodium and silver, elements which do not usually mix, to produce the new composite, the Yomiuri daily said.
The alloy has similar properties to palladium, which is used in cars’ emission-reducing catalytic converters as well as in computers, mobile phones, flatscreen TVs and dentistry instruments.
Like other white metals, such as silver and platinum, palladium is expensive, with its deposits largely limited to South Africa and Russia.
Palladium also has applications in the production of fuel cells — a clean and renewable energy source that produces electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen, with water as the only byproduct.
Who will finally invent nasty ol’ Adamantium?
Am I the only one who finds this s**t batshit SCARY, rather a “hope for the future” moment?
Technology will no more save us than wipe us all out in a moment of blazing AI sentience and self-awareness.
Technology is just another toolshed full of dangerous implements, which could care less if they lop off a finger through careless handling.
The scientific priesthood which rides herd of the world of what “is” and “isn’t” are just as annoying and distasteful as the old school crew with all their arcane rituals and cathedrals.
I’d rather tend a garden and raise livestock, with all the literal s**t that such activities imply, than wade through the bulk of the “civilized” s**t that passes for modern society.
Perhaps it would be easier if the falsity weren’t so obvious. At least we still have the physical arts and disciplines, ’cause without some beauty now and again to soothe the savage breast, I’m not sure what I’d do with myself.