6 ms·
Bill Gates funds creation of graphene condoms
- mumbi 13y agothat'll make some money.
- VladRussian2 13y agojust by association with inpenetrable, armor-piercing bullets, etc... http://media.uow.edu.au/news/UOW118285.html http://media.uow.edu.au/news/UOW118285.html "UOW researchers have used graphene to develop a new composite material which can produce the toughest fibres to date- even tougher than spider silk and Kevlar!"
- robabbott 13y agothere's an advertisement in there somewhere...
- wozniacki 13y agoI have always wanted to know. What does Bill Gates want for the world? He's in India helping Polio efforts [1] and helping distribute mosquito nets in Africa. [2] What does his philanthropic soul want, in the end and in the larger scheme of things? Has he ever expressed this or laid out? There wasn't much in his AMA on Reddit a while ago. [3] [1] http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303309504579181753580988412 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230330950... [2] http://www.kplu.org/post/bill-gates-vs-mosquitoes-whos-winning http://www.kplu.org/post/bill-gates-vs-mosquitoes-whos-winni... [3] http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/18bhme/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/ http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/18bhme/im_bill_gates_c...
- melling 13y agohttp://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do
- cabbeer 13y agoThe Bill Gates Foundation is positioning itself in line with organizations such as the World Health Organization. Or at least that's how I see it.
- cdcox 13y agoThere was an interesting profile in Forbes about how he saw improving access to birth control, eliminating childhood and early adult mortality, and improving education both here and abroad as ways of leading to decreased populations and increased wealth and happiness. http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2011/11/02/the-second-coming-of-bill-gates/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2011/11/02/the-sec...
- jff 13y agoSeems like he wants to eradicate diseases, which is a pretty great plan. Polio, malaria, and now presumably AIDS and other STDs.
- coffeemug 13y agoHe made his mission pretty clear. He believes every human life has equal value. He wants to make basic services and liberties the developed world takes for granted available to every human being on planet Earth. He's applying his wealth and expertise to high impact projects that can make that a reality.
- anigbrowl 13y agoTry stuff from him & Warren Buffet on Charlie Rose. All interviews are available on the website.
- pervycreeper 13y agoI remember he made a comment (can't remember where) that he chooses projects which are likely to have the greatest impact per dollar, or something to that effect. You'll have to find the source yourself, though.
- baby 13y agoI'm very glad to live in this era. I can imagine a few years from now young people will be talking about how back then they used very thick condoms that suppressed all pleasure and people still fucked using them.
- jw_ 13y agoHopefully the packaging is slightly different than what is pictured. :)
- foobarian 13y agoOr not. The depicted condom would provide quite effective contraception for more reasons than just the material strength.
- kazagistar 13y agoThe whole point of the article is that encouraging condom use is better then discouraging it.
- miga 13y agoDepending who unpacks it. I suppose that richest man in the world can be turn-on for many women...
- ISL 13y agoA material as strong as graphene may have curious abrasive properties.
- cjfont 13y agoI doubt the final product will be pure graphene, I'm sure it'll be thinly coated with something else (Teflon?)
- jimmaswell 13y agoIsn't it not recommended to put Teflon inside of yourself or am I misremembering something?
- refurb 13y agoThey use telfon in all sorts of implants. I don't think there are really any safety concerns.
- Double_Cast 13y agoIf Teflon were anymore inert, it'd be a noble gas.
- ars 13y agoTeflon is extremely inert, but it's not quite as inert as a noble gas - the c-c bonds can dissociate and burn. (The f-c-f bonds can't.)
- etler 13y agoTeflon is actually completely inert in your body. It's only a problem if it is heated to the point of giving out fumes at 260 celsius, and I hope that isn't happening in the bedroom...
- dhughes 13y agoTeflon or PFOA is supposedly in everyone's blood already at least in the US and probably most western nations it's so pervasive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanoic_acid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanoic_acid
- sigzero 13y agoBut...don't you want penetration? wah wah wah
- bruceb 13y agoMaybe fund a small chip in your boxers that emits the loud cry of a baby when you take them off.
- XorNot 13y agoThis is a good idea which won't solve the underlying problems with poor condom usage in places which really need it (Africa). That's being powered by deliberate misinformation campaigns and cultural leftovers, not the specific properties of condoms (though improving them is always a good idea).
- coffeemug 13y agoWhen it comes to human life, things aren't binary. A 1% increase in condom usage can have massive impact on the health and safety of millions of people. It's another straw we can add to the camel's back.
- nl 13y agoIn some cases "underlying" problems (eg misinformation campaigns and cultural leftovers) are really just used as excuses by men who don't like how condoms feel. Fix that, and many will be happy to ignore those thing. As an aside: don't forget the largest major anti-condom propagandists is not African at all (ie, the Catholic church).
- XorNot 13y agoActually I was thinking strongly about who they were, I just didn't want to name names in this forum. But the sector they operate most flagrantly and disastrously is still Africa.
- wisty 13y agoOr women, who don't like how condoms feel. AFAIK, women are a lot more discriminating about whether or not sex feels any good. Of course, the worst countries are probably the ones with lots of unregulated prostitution, so in those cases it's probably the men to blame.
- chii 13y agoits more likely that the men has power over the women, especially in under-developed nations.
- 13y ago
- obtino 13y agoIt's not the material that's the problem in many places, but the cost. There are reports of people using post-exposure prophylaxis drugs over condoms because they're cheaper! More info: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24942903 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24942903
- miga 13y agoOnly in places that allow use of cheap generic post-exposure drugs produced in India. Unfortunately the very same drugs in Europe are hell expensive. They should be probably subsidized by the country like Germany which is famous for its sex industry.
- dnautics 13y agoso, just to be clear, is this still vaporware, a prototype condom has not been made yet?
- ChuckMcM 13y agoI must admit I didn't see that one coming. It suggests a fascinating application, which is to wear a graphene condom, on top of a rubber condom, on top of a graphene condom. Thus creating a condom 'super capacitor' [1] that you would charge up by rubbing it, which could then power a piezo electric vibrator. I'm so waiting to see who patents that! [1] http://www.extremetech.com/computing/163071-graphene-supercapacitors-created-with-traditional-paper-making-process-rivals-lead-acid-battery-capacity http://www.extremetech.com/computing/163071-graphene-superca...
- robabbott 13y agoOr, alternatively, recharge your smartphone during sex.
- miga 13y agoI like the vibration effect better. Or at least my girlfriend would :-).
- psbp 13y agoJust one step closer to making your penis obsolete.
- anon4 13y agoNot obsolete. Better. Stronger. Longer. Lasting. With vibration and a USB port.
- omegant 13y agoPenis 2.0 disrupting human sexuality.
- bryan_rasmussen 13y agoand running Windows!
- 13y ago
- miga 13y agoLet's hope they will also be 100x stronger than current ones, so they never break.
- kijin 13y agoJust wait until somebody staples them to a sex-ed pamphlets and hands them out on a college campus.
- darins33 13y agoI swear. He better call it Steel Gates
- bonemachine 13y agoGives the expression "Billware" a whole new meaning!
- jstalin 13y agoMicro... hard?
- randartie 13y agoThe donation was 100 grand to 11 different teams. That's about 1 engineer per company for 1 year (if that?), is that really enough to do this? There's first the invention of this thing, then there's manufacturing process, etc.
- illumen 13y agoPlus PR, and global debate. The mass debate has to be worth 10x that much to the cause.
- jlgreco 13y agoFun graphene fact: As the article mentions, graphene was first isolated at the University of Manchester using sticky tape. For this discovery, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics... making Andre Geim the first person to be awarded both the Nobel Prize and the Ig Nobel Prize. He was previously awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for magnetically levitating a live frog.
- tokenizer 13y agoSo which accomplishment do you find more rewarding? While I see graphene becoming an extremely popular 21st century material, levitating a frog is the first step to levitating anything larger.
- redacted 13y agoThe frog was levitated using diamagnetic levitation which is pretty much useless for anything in the real-world (hence the ig Nobel, not Nobel). The magnetic field used was stronger than the confinement field in ITER - so stronger magnets than you need for nuclear fusion. We can already levitate much larger things, such as trains.
- tokenizer 13y agoThanks. Good point on the trains, completely missed that. I guess levitating a live frog seems more interesting to me however. To be able to use magnetics to simulate gravity for humans safely, is IMO, a huge barrier (of many) to space travel/living one day.
- jlgreco 13y agoMy understanding is that they do use such magnets for microgravity experiments. Here is a cool video on diamagnetic levitation from the University of Nottingham: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nod54HFkH0o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nod54HFkH0o
- akiselev 13y agoThe possibilities of graphene are vast and many and exciting but this is kind of scary. For all intents and purposes, graphene is nanotechnology and in certain forms can act like asbestos and has a lot of other unknown behaviors in the body [1]. Unfortunately the field of nanotoxicology hasn't really organized itself and caught up to the widespread use of nanocoating and other material science in industry[2]. I hope they find ways to make it extremely inert in the human body but there's much work to be done. [1] http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v3/n7/full/nnano.2008.111.html http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v3/n7/full/nnano.2008.11... (CNTs are rolled up graphene and are formed in many graphene production methods as a byproduct) [2] Nature has a whole series on this: http://www.nature.com/nnano/focus/nanotoxicology/index.html http://www.nature.com/nnano/focus/nanotoxicology/index.html
- weland 13y agoIt's ok, most of us, men, would stick our penises into anything.
- emil0r 13y agoSpeak for yourself.
- phpnode 13y agoreally? http://www.landforce.co.uk/layout-images/home-wood-chipper.jpg http://www.landforce.co.uk/layout-images/home-wood-chipper.j...
- anon4 13y agoreally http://nz.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120326191142AAxsDTO http://nz.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=2012032619114...
- moocowduckquack 13y agoGraphene flakes and carbon nanotubes are already relatively common in the environment as they are naturally occurring. You get carbon nanotubes in ordinary soot, for instance.
- nkhodyunya 13y agoRecently Bill talked about making the whole world better. And now inventing condoms... Well, i'm scared.
- iagooar 13y agoCan we consider using "impenetrable condoms" as an intended pun?
- chickenboot 13y agoI preferred the Guardian[1] piece on this, for it's lack of real content (who's heard of graphene?) and very entertaining comments. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/21/graphene-condom-safe-sex-bill-gates http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/21/graphen...
- henpa 13y agoAt the end of the article: "Now read: Do humans dream of android prostitutes?" Is that Google's answer to Microsoft's condoms? ;-)
- gexla 13y agoSo, back in the day we would have said "bring your rubbers." I suppose once this condom hits the market we will say something like "make sure to bring the lead for your pencil." Actually, do people ever refer to the graphite in pencils as lead anymore? We did when I was a kid. The condom is something in bad need of a radical overhaul and it would have a huge effect. At least, if this could deal with the sensation component of the problem, then it would get more people to use them. Still problems would be distribution (religious blocking and availability for the poor are issues here), education (family planning so people know the full financial effects of having lots of kids) and "killing the moment" when you stop to put the thing on. At 100K per competing group, it seems like the foundation could be getting lots of "bang" for its buck here.
- shirro 13y agoI can imagine the tech support calls. "Have you tied taking it off and on again?"
- JulianMorrison 13y agoFinally, science has the answer to "man of steel, woman of kleenex"[1]. [1]http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html
- TIJ 13y agoConsidering that most people don't wear condoms because they they think its coming in their way its a good idea to fund something that will encourage people to use condoms in developing nations such as africa and asia. Gates doing good job KUDOS. Now i only expect him to interviene into ms's anti-google missions and put a hold on that shitty business. Those are some cheap publicity stunts from ms while google is busy making cool products and amaze people[http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/11/21/google-building-chrome-app-based-development-environment-using-dart-polymer http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/11/21/google-building-chro...].
- Ellipsis753 13y agoAm I the only one that finds "impenetrable" a funny selling point? It makes perfect sense but still sounds funny. I'm surprised they didn't go for "unbreakable".
- Gravityloss 13y agoI posted the same idea 244 days ago but was downvoted. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5432569 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5432569