Thread: Nanotech Yarn behaves like Super Human Muscle

Originally Posted by UT Dallas

New artificial muscles made from nanotech yarns and infused with paraffin wax can lift more than 100,000 times their own weight and generate 85 times more mechanical power than the same size natural muscle, according to scientists at The University of Texas at Dallas and their international team from Australia, China, South Korea, Canada and Brazil.

The artificial muscles are yarns constructed from carbon nanotubes, which are seamless, hollow cylinders made from the same type of graphite layers found in the core of ordinary pencils. Individual nanotubes can be 10,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair, yet pound-for-pound, can be 100 times stronger than steel.

“The artificial muscles that we’ve developed can provide large, ultrafast contractions to lift weights that are 200 times heavier than possible for a natural muscle of the same size,” said Dr. Ray Baughman, team leader, Robert A. Welch Professor of Chemistry and director of the Alan G. MacDiarmid NanoTech Institute at UT Dallas. “While we are excited about near-term applications possibilities, these artificial muscles are presently unsuitable for directly replacing muscles in the human body.”

Wax-filled Nanotech Yarn Behaves Like Powerful, Super-strong Muscle - UT Dallas News

Imagine, 20 or 30 years from now, having your muscles replaced with yarn that could allow you to lift 200 times more than what you could normally. Plus, this stuff seems perfect to make Spider Man like webbing!

Edit: And just to add on the nanotech division of UT Dallas has in the past created a invisibility cloak I have been in their labs, they do some very cutting edge stuff.

I can see this being used for those who has lost their limbs in some sort of accident. But one must also consider what kind of harm this can do against others.

When someone makes a jetpack, we can make human Superman!

Cool, but imagine what one can do to someone...

The concept of someone having that much strength is kinda scary, hopefully it wont be abused too much but imagine how easy it would be to lift things then, so I guess this is pretty cool, it would make it easier for people to do more things.

But I thought they hadn't found a way to, uh, string carbon nanotubes together? Unless they have since I last read about them.
Anyway, I hope this isn't abused too much.

I can just imagine some whacko getting plastic surgery to look like a walking dinosaur and then using these muscles to vaporize people with his clawed fists. Still, I'm looking forward to what this brings. I have a few personal hopes.

For one, when this technology is available to replace human muscles, it might make strong people actually attractive. I don't know about you, but I find big bulging muscles to be incredibly unattractive, and I myself have tried dancing along that fine line. My job requires higher physical strength than normal jobs as well as endurance, but when I reach that point I've got bigger muscles than most of the guys I've dated, which, to me, makes me very unappealing to look at.

The implications for those who've been paralyzed is amazing, too. When I got into a car wreck last year, I was afraid I would never walk again, but I'm lucky that I still can after a few months of being bedridden. Having experienced that, it's heartbreaking to see people stuck in wheelchairs for their entire lives. Hopefully the first people to get to test this new technology out are people who are paralyzed or have muscle disorders. They deserve the rich, full lives of independent movement most of us abuse and take for granted.

And lastly, super soldiers! No longer will you have to breach a door with a shotgun, just kick the god damn wall down and leave the door standing. :P

I hate to say it, but I don't think they'll even consider this for commercial use. It's probably going to be used exclusively for military applications. Oh well, at least we'll get our Captain America.

Originally Posted by Big Lutz

Imagine, 20 or 30 years from now, having your muscles replaced with yarn that could allow you to lift 200 times more than what you could normally. Plus, this stuff seems perfect to make Spider Man like webbing!

Carbon nanotubes are stronger than spider silk, but they are less flexible as well. I'm not sure how important flexibility is when making artificial human like web structures and grappling ropes.

Originally Posted by Glitchipedia

I hate to say it, but I don't think they'll even consider this for commercial use. It's probably going to be used exclusively for military applications. Oh well, at least we'll get our Captain America.

Why?

It seems a lot of exoskeletons are being considered for fire/rescue and heavy load lifting in construction and forestry. I predict commercial will follow military or possibly even come before military.

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The other thing is, how will this scale up to sizes needed for artificial limbs and exoskeletons?

This seems awesome, but one also has to think about your bones. Humans have much more strength than we know, but we have a psychological barrier, that prevents us from damaging ourselves. I know it will be awesome to lift 200kg when you want to, but your bones can't handle it. So, if you have your muscles replaced, you need your bones replaced too. Kinda awesome though. Superhuman strenth and endurance, except with your vital organs.

While replacing human muscle tissue with this is ultimately unpractical (except perhaps, for the heart?), this could be useful for many other things. From a diversity of tools that use the mechanical force... to say, armoring and protection.

In fact, an exoskeleton combined with this (and an insanely complex design to avoid driving any of the force to the body inside) could realistically create a mech-power suit hybrid. Which would be awesome.