Future Tech: Second Skin clothing adapts to body heat by opening flaps to increase breathability
See more at: http://road.cc/content/tech-news/170090-future-tech-second-skin-clothing-adapts-body-heat-opening-flaps-increase#sthash.xy9HBcbM.dpuf
MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) has developed Second Skin clothing. Utilising bacterium that reacts to levels of humidity, the fabric becomes more breathable as the wearer’s body heat increases by opening and closing flaps.
The inventors of this new clothing fabric have adapted a living Bacillus Subtilis natto cell as a humidity sensitive nanoactuator. It’s a bacterium apparently used in Japanese cooking, and it reacts to moisture and humidity levels. The bacteria cells get bigger the higher the level of humidity, the individual cells can change as much as 50 percent.
"The synthetic bio-skin reacts to body heat and sweat, causing flaps around heat zones to open, enabling sweat to evaporate and cool down the body through an organic material flux. In collaboration with New Balance, bioLogic is bringing what once may have lived in the realm of fantasies into the world of sportswear," says MIT.
Working with the Royal College of Art, the MIT Media Lab's Tangible Media Group BioLogic project has found a way of incorporating this technology into clothing, which it has called Second Skin. The outfit in the video above shows flaps that react to the body heat. As the body heat rises through exercise, the flaps curl and open up, increasing the ventilation and allowing excess body heat to escape.
To make use of this technology in clothing, a composite biofilm is created from the cells and can then be integrated into a traditional fabric. The printing of the biofilm can alter the characteristics of the flaps, how much they react to body heat and how much they open. Because the cells react to levels of humidity, they only open as much as is necessary.
“We’re just at the beginning,” admits Lining Yao of MIT. It certainly has really interesting applications for cycling. Many cycle clothing manufacturers attempt to tackle overheating with vents you can open or close with a zip, but imagine a jacket with rear vents that automatically opened as you built up heat during a ride. We’re probably many years from seeing this become a reality, though, so don’t get your hopes up. But it's an interesting glimpse of what future cycle clothing could be like.
More at http://tangible.media.mit.edu/project/biologic/
I wish Rugby was a bigger sport here, it definitely has the best male specimens of any sport on the planet!
The World Rugby Sevens Series is coming to Vancouver, British Columbia in March 2016. I have a couple friends that are REALLY into the sport; I would love to take in some of the games and festivities when this comes around just before Rubbout 25 next year.
A fun weekend just passed. I went out with Mr. P and friends on Friday, spent most of the day Saturday shuffling on- and off-site storage lockers, went out for a few drinks for Rob's birthday then to the Marina and the Diamonds concert at the Commodore Ballroom on Saturday night, and helped Mr. P cook a fantastic turkey dinner on Sunday in addition to collecting all the Rubbout promotional stuff I need to take to Chicago with me.
This could be an interesting week; it's definitely going to busy...prepping for MIR and all the responsibilities I have in Chicago this year, an ITIL Certification course this W/Th/F with exam next Monday. In addition, Wardog will be coming for his weekly ffuntime, We certainly celebrated his birthday in depraved style last week....it was so fun! I think he may be working on Tuesday this week, however I may see if he's available Thursday evening. **Just heard from Wardog, his schedule is completely fucked which means we won't be playing tonight. Merde.
RedBootBottom is (finally!) in town and wants to play on Thursday evening...we haven't had a chance to get together since late last November. ** Just heard from RedBootBottom, his scheduled is completely fucked which means we won't be playing on Thursday. Merde.
Almazmol wants to get together for an extended session on Saturday, which I know is Halloween, BUT I am seriously considering skipping all the social engagements and hosting my own 'private costume party' at home because he loves to top and top and top me again. How can I say no?
Should I stay in and enjoy multiple rubber scenarios and ample sling time, or should I dress up and go out with friends? The one thing I do say as a rubberman is that Halloween runs year-round for us; Halloween day ,I guess, is like Gay Christmas, but only for the vanilla ones. I'd rather have a head-to-toe rubberman destroying me in the sling?!
Happy Fisting Day! Since 2011, October 21 has been labeled International Fisting Day as introduced by Courtney Trouble and Jiz Lee to highlight the hypocrisies of which sex acts can be shown in (distributable) porn and which can't.
An interesting history in the occasion can be found here and here.
So, to celebrate, you know what you have to do....have a very RED day. Let your freak flag fly!
Admittedly this is pretty funny....Jimmy is generally a pretty even-keeled guy. The perpetuation of the girly stereotypes in ballet is pretty juvenile, but everyone was a good sport regardless!
Guillermo really needs to get his own show, he's so ridiculous LOL
The multi-million pound business started as a laugh
By Julie Griffiths BBC Business reporter
19 October 2015
As with so many good ideas, inspiration came to them after a few beers. At the time, the three co-founders of MorphCostumes had successful corporate careers. But nevertheless, the notion of starting a business to sell top-to-toe spandex bodysuits seemed like a good plan.
Edinburgh University graduates Gregor Lawson, 36, and the Smeaton brothers Fraser, 36, and Ali, 34, went on to create fancy dress and party fashion company Morphsuits, now rebranded MorphCostumes. Beer or no beer, their instinct was right because the business achieved sales of £1.2m ($1.8m) in its first year.
The first business plan stated their aim to sell 20,000 suits because they reckoned that was the maximum number of people who'd want to wear one.
They were wrong. To date, they have sold some 2.5 million.
They first came across the suits - the trio called them morphsuits because wearers morph into a more fun version of themselves - when a friend turned up to a get-together wearing one that he'd bought on eBay. When he wore it out in Dublin, street performers lost their audience as he walked by.
"Hundreds of people wanted a photo with him and so many people were buying him drinks," says Fraser.
Keen to replicate the attention and free drinks, Fraser, Ali and Gregor, went onto eBay to acquire suits of their own. But they found the material was very thick, making it hard for the wearer to see much, and, after a night out in them in January 2009, they decided they could improve the existing design and sell them.
"We thought, 'we could try this. It's a bit of fun outside work - let's see how many we can sell'," says Fraser.
Soon after, they began work on a prototype. They put their request on Alibaba, a website which links small and medium-sized firms to manufacturers and traders across the globe, and found a manufacturer in China. The suits are still made there today.
The first suits the firm made were all solid colours. More recently, topical trends, such as Power Rangers, have helped drive sales.
They perfected the suit so that, although the wearer's face remained obscured, he or she could see properly and even take a drink through it. A key move was putting their brand name on the backside of the suit so that everyone knew who had made it and, therefore, how to buy their own.
Each co-founder put in £1,000 and they ordered 200 suits in six solid colours, which were stockpiled in Fraser's bedroom, taking up a third of the space.
"Gregor would read out the addresses and I'd write them on envelopes," says Fraser. "I'd then take them to work in a massive sports bag and pop to the post office at lunchtime to ship them. It obviously wasn't sustainable so we soon found a warehouse."
They set up their first website for $700 (£459) and used Facebook to advertise the business. In May 2009, they sold their first morphsuit. Within two weeks, they'd sold out so ordered another 2,500 suits.
The point at which they realised the scale of their potential success was in the run up to Halloween. Although it had been just a few months since their first sale, they could barely keep up with demand.
"We got new stock on sale at 4 or 5pm on the Monday and we sold £5k in that one evening and £25k the next day. We thought: 'Wow!'", says Fraser.
Just a year after the beered-up idea in January 2010, the company went global after they took out Facebook ads in Australia and the US.
Some of their costumes now include digital tricks, such as this cyborg mask which uses a phone app to make the laser eye flicker
But, although the success was encouraging, it was hard work. All three had established careers alongside the new business. Fraser was head of marketing for BT Broadband, Gregor was a brand manager for Procter and Gamble, and Ali was an accountant working at Barclays.
"We were all working full time in corporate jobs, getting home at 7.30pm and starting work on the business until 2am and then getting up and doing it all again," says Fraser.
By mid-2010, it became apparent that the day jobs were no longer needed and the three left work to concentrate on the business.
They discovered that, although their idea was niche, there was a huge market. According to the National Retail Federation, the costume market is worth $2bn in the US alone. MorphCostumes now has a turnover of £10m per year.
Now, Fraser is chief executive, Gregor is marketing director and Ali is operations director, roles that were decided according to their individual strengths in commercial, creative and financial areas. Regardless of job title, each founder holds the same amount of the company. They still own the majority, with investors and some other team members having minority stakes.
But working with friends and family has not always been easy.
"There have often been differences of opinion on strategy, but we have always managed to have a good debate or argument and agree on a course of action for us all to get behind without it becoming a long-term disagreement," says Fraser. "Good debate is really important because it ensures you have really thought about the question."
Three months after they started, the first copies came to market and Fraser estimates that there have been about 50 companies that have imitated their morphsuits.
"At first, we were outraged but then realised every new product spawns competitors. It forces you to stay on top of your game and continually create better products to stay ahead," says Fraser.
MorphCostumes now has offices in Edinburgh and London, employs 29 people and sells in 25 countries, with the US the biggest market. The most popular suit across the globe is black, although best sellers are often topical, such as current favourite Stormtroopers.
In 2012, £4.2m funding from investment firm the Business Growth Fund allowed them to grow by moving into the more traditional non-Spandex costume market.
Then, a year later, they began incorporating digital trickery into their costumes. This involved acquiring a costume company that was developed by a NASA scientist, Digital Dudz, on which there is a patent pending. Last year, they relaunched the brand to become MorphCostumes to reflect the diversity of product on offer.
The plan now is to continue the growth and much of their revenue is reinvested in the business to
make this happen.
Not bad for an idea that came about after a few beers on a night out.
Well, whether it was newsworthy or not in your area of the world, Canada had a federal election yesterday. In what is being termed a "stunning" upset, the Liberal Party of Canada has ended up with a majority government over the incumbent Conservative Party of Canada. The other parties didn't fare so well but I think that is mostly due to the strategic voting everyone across the country did. It wasn't so much that the other parties' platforms are off or wrong; it's simply that Canadians pretty much universally were done with the despotic ruler of our country the past nine years, Stephen Harper. I won't go into details here (there is more than enough written about his leadership style and strategy on the Intertubes), but most Canadians are very relieved to see him go this morning.
Not to be missed, the Liberal Party color is RED and the new Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, is young and a looker. He is only six days older than me and running a country now! He is the second-youngest Prime Minister in Canadian history
He campaigned on promises of hope and change (sound familiar?), I don't doubt he'll try to push ahead some of his promises but alas, like any politician, he's not going to be able to do everything he wants and he's going to have to break some promises. I don't expect a lot of change, but I sure am happy that Canadians voted for more than just economic platitudes. We have a lot to do to fix our international reputation's damage incurred over the past decade; does having a hot young leader count for anything?
Looking at the sweep across the country and the host of new Members of Parliament that were elected, Generation X is certainly moving in to take over control of matters. I really sensed a passing of the guard from the Boomers to the Xers in this election. Our time is now!
I love this pic from TwoHandsToChoke. He's got a very sharp photographic eye and I really appreciate his effort put into this image! Great color, tone, and composition.
I finally got the editing and publishing done on the vids off my phone! Check out the best three clips from the first day I got into the face-entry Latexskin...
