Tag Archives: sports clothing

Forthcoming report by UK House of Lords on nanotechnologies and food; Nike uses nanocoating for new running shoe; quick reference to OECD scorecard; funny technology predictions

Leave a reply

Later this week (Jan.8.10), the UK House of Lords Science and Technology Committee will be releasing a report on nanotechnologies and the food industry. From the news item on Azonano,

The Committee has been looking in detail at the use of nanotechnologies in the food industry and has explored how these technologies are likely to develop. It has considered where government might need to develop regulations and effective communications to ensure public confidence is maintained.

The news item (media advisory) tells you who to contact if you want to attend a press conference, interview the principals, and/or get your hands on the embargoed report in advance.

For most people nanotechnology continues to be something associated with sports equipment and clothing and the latest  from Nike will do nothing to change that. From the news item on Azonano,

Sneakerheads will get an additional performance benefit with the latest launch of Nike Lunar Wood TZ. Using technology by P2i, the world leader in liquid repellent nano-coating technology, Nike’s new lightweight and comfortable running shoe will keep wearers dry during the wettest of winters.

P2i’s ion-mask™ technology applies a nanoscopic protective polymer layer to the whole shoe, on which water forms beads and simply rolls off, instead of being absorbed. Because ion-mask™ gives the whole shoe (including the stitching) superior water repellency, it delivers two crucial benefits; one, it stops external water getting in and two, it encourages evaporated perspiration to flow out.

According to P2i, this coating technology (ion-mask) is environmentally friendly. I have mentioned them before but the last time was in relation to military and police use of their coating technology.

The OECD has released its Science, Technology and Industry ‘scoreboard’ which also includes individual country notes for seven countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, and US). I have looked at some of the country notes and some of the material in the scoreboard online. Unfortunately, this is one of those things I find easier to read in print as they have set up a system that requires a lot of clicking. The news item on Azonano is here, the link to information about the scoreboard, country notes, and more is here, and the link to the web version of the scoreboard document is here. Or you may want to wait for Rob Annan’s (Don’t leave Canada behind) promised in his Jan.4.10 posting comments and analysis.

Thanks to the NISE (Nanoscale Informal Science Education) Network January 2010 newsletter, I found a Wall Street Journal (online) article by L. Gordon Crovitz on technology predictions that has these gems,

“The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys,” Sir William Preece, chief engineer at the British Post Office, 1878.

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” H.M. Warner, Warner Bros., 1927.

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers,” Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

“Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night,” Darryl Zanuck, 20th Century Fox, 1946.

“The world potential market for copying machines is 5,000 at most,” IBM executives to the eventual founders of Xerox, 1959.

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home,” Ken Olsen, founder of mainframe-producer Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.

“No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer—640K ought to be enough for anybody,” Bill Gates, Microsoft, 1981.

“Next Christmas the iPod will be dead, finished, gone, kaput,” Sir Alan Sugar, British entrepreneur, 2005.

It’s a good read (there are more gems) but I can’t laugh too hard as whenever I need to take myself down a peg or two I remember my first response to VCRs. I didn’t see any point to them.

Finally, thanks again to the NISE Net newsletter for the monthly haiku,

Cash @ nanoscale:
Nickel, copper, zinc atoms…
My account balance?
by David Sittenfeld, Program Manager of Forums at the Museum of Science, Boston.

Sporty nano in Vancouver, Canada

Leave a reply

As soon as I saw the title I knew it had to be a nanotech product. “The new ‘no sweat’ science” was an article in the Sunday (Dec. 21, 2008) edition of The Province daily paper. A local company, Firstar Sports (based in Surrey), makes a shirt that wicks away your sweat and never smells. The current CEO, Keith Gracey, wore the shirt over a period of months for his workouts and never washed it. Plus, he never had any complaints about the smell.

The ‘no smell’ part was the clue. There’s been a lot of talk about silver nanoparticles and their anti-bacterial properties which can be used in bandages to combat (infection and in clothing to combat smell.  Interestingly, nobody used the word nanotechnology or any of its variants in the article,

Throw in some anti-bacterial silver ions and Firstar’s garments have a 99.9-er-cent kill rate for bacteria after 50 washes, Gracey  (CEO) and Thom (Founder and VP) say. [emphasis is mine]

Certainly the marketing and PR folks seem to be backing off from using the nanotechnology or any of its variants. I commented on this development in my Talking nano posting. I also gave a link to an article by Alex Shmidt about this.

The article in The Province did not mention any risks but i don’t expect the reporter knew enough to ask the question. For the record, I have seen material which indicates that the silver nanoparticles (or ions) wash off, which means they could end up in our water supply. As far as I know, there’s no definitive data whether or not this feature could pose risks.