nanoscale particles

PopSci Scores the First Test Drive of Yamaha's Fastest WaveRunner Yet

By popsci Posted 08.20.2007 at 1:27 pm 4 Comments

PopSci
scored the first drive on Yamaha’s water rocket, which makes waves with a lighter, stronger hull—courtesy of nanotech

You know that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when a rollercoaster slips over the edge of a huge drop? I got it the first time I grabbed a fistful of throttle on Yamaha’s 2008 FX Cruiser SHO WaveRunner. And I liked it.

I was flying over a glassy lake near Yamaha’s headquarters in Newnan, Georgia, as the first civilian to test-drive the beast. And I mean flying. The FX Cruiser packs one of the most powerful—and cleanest-running—engines in the industry: a 1.8-liter, supercharged four-stroke with roughly the same power as an Audi TT coupe.

But the big news is the WaveRunner’s ultralight hull—the first to use nanotechnology. Instead of hand-laying a traditional fiberglass-and-resin hull, Yamaha combines fiberglass resin with nanoscale particles of clay, melding it all together in a high-compression mold. This new recipe links molecules together in an overlapping design that boosts strength and stiffness while reducing weight by 25 percent.

With more power and less heft, the FX Cruiser jumped from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 6.8 seconds—as fast as a sports car—and went from 0 to 30 in just 1.8 whiplash-inducing seconds. The light, stiff hull was so nimble, I felt like I was riding on rails even as I cranked a sharp turn at 50 miles an hour. All this helps with fuel efficiency, too, but that was the last thing on my mind as I blew past the Yamaha guys who were trying in vain to wave me back to the dock. —Mark Anders

READ MORE ABOUT > audi tt coupe, compression mold, fiberglass resin, nanoscale particles, traditional fiberglass

Science

Monitoring Everyday Nanotechnology

By Gregory Mone Posted 08.02.2007 at 4:31 pm 0 Comments

Last week, an FDA task force issued a report basically stating that the agency needs to be better versed in nanotechnology to ensure that the deluge of products using some derivation of it now and in the future will actually be safe. Though the term nanotechnology often conjures science fiction visions of swarms of tiny machines carrying out complex tasks, this is already a concern today. There are plenty of simpler nanotech-based products already on the market.

The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies has been compiling a list of these, and it's interesting to take a look, to get an idea of the breadth of applications, including cosmetics, food, sunscreens and animal feed. Thankfully, the Project also points out which supposedly nanotech-based products are really just marketing stunts.

Sunscreens using nanoscale particles of titanium dioxide or zinc oxide are a good example of the tough questions these new products pose. In this case, the issue is whether these tiny particles can penetrate the skin and have far-off effects in other parts of the body. Let's hope the FDA starts figuring out the answers soon.—Gregory Mone

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read more about > Gregory Mone, nanoscale particles, term nanotechnology, tiny particles, zinc oxide