It's not necessarily a bonus, different sports need completely different ice properties (e.g. figure skating vs hockey), and a managed arena needs ease of maintenance.
I spend an enormous amount of time at the rink (18 ice times in the last 9 days). Can you explain this? Because I don't see the difference between the ice for figure skating vs hockey, both of which happen daily at our local rink.
A local magazine did a test on ice cream cone melting. Some of those were still intact looking after sitting open at room temperature for an hour. Hooray for additives! So it's not a fundamentally new idea. These have to be safe to eat so maybe not too harmful for environment, though you never know.
Some parts of the world use ice roads and have struggled with warm winters. Maybe this could be used to improve the strength and extend time in the spring.
Thanks for the link. I took a look at the wikipedia pages of the gums and they are closer to the modified celulose in the main article than to the polyphenols in the article I linked.
It's very complicated to compare, because they use other sugars and there are a thousand of details that are important, like how long are branchy the molecules are, and also a million of details that are above my chemistry knodledge level.
As a persomal prefference, I'd call that jelly instead of ice cream. (And in a bad day that I want to lie a little just to be mean, I'd call them a piece of cake.)
Wonder if this will then be used to fulfill the dream of shooting ice bullets which then melt inside the victim, leaving less evidence. If memory serves, I think the CIA explored this at some remote point in time.
For fictional purposes, the ballistic information disappears. You might know the murder victim was shot with an ice bullet, but you won't be able to match it to a specific weapon.
sounds like a problem that might be solvable by a new super ice that is 10x stronger and "can absorb much more energy and deform gradually" instead of disintegrating.
Concrete's not strong enough to be used as a bullet either- you'd need something roughly the size of a shotgun slug. If you're going that big, you aren't going for subtle.
"The intended application isn't for aircraft carriers this time, but rather for construction projects in remote, cold areas where conventional building methods aren't easy to apply – like the Arctic and Antarctic.
With no concrete or steel required, and with ice and plant-based cellulose as the main ingredients, this could be a building material with a low carbon footprint that's also biodegradable."
"Further down the line, this approach could open up a whole new landscape for materials used in packaging, construction, and more: Using a custom protein to bring two unlikely compounds (ice and cellulose) together."
Ice roads would be one application. Once it freezes, usual ferry services can often no longer be upheld. Then, one has to wait until the ice is thick enough to drive a car over the ice. If there was an easily applicable material to drive on ice less than usual 15-20cm of ice, that would decrease that waiting time quite a bit (and make ice roads/bridges possible in locations that would previously be unsuitable). And since it is ice, you can grow it somewhere else and transport in place with a barge.
Another is underground tunnel building. In sandy places, there are cases where they freeze the ground when building a concrete structure. If that could be reinforced with stronger ice, it might make working easier.
Similar, you can use ice as an temporary scaffold when e.g building a spanning bridge in winter. Stronger ice => easier application of said scaffold.
It always sounds/looks like a trap to me when I hear about/see people driving whole-ass cars over 15cm ~= half a foot of ice. That's just wrong, and I would barely consider walking on ice that thick (thin).
(I'm telling you I'm from southern California without telling you I'm from southern California)
The farther you go, the faster you need to go to get enough time dilation to make the trip worthwhile. The faster you go, the more the shielding matters. It still applies!
This type of ice composite would be super interesting for space structure construction. Melt cometary ice and mix it with additives of some kind and spin big cylinders out of it. You’d just have to make the surface reflective so it doesn’t melt, and possibly have some active cooling which you need anyway if anything inside makes heat.
The outer surface would probably be sprayed with something, maybe just reflective dust, to also keep it from subliming into the vacuum.
Extremely repairable, melts at human and equipment friendly temperatures, recyclable, doubles as an emergency water reservoir, and last but definitely not least a fantastic radiation shield.
Would also work for structures on Mars, the Moon, etc, but I’m a fan of the idea of settling space itself not another planet. Gravity wells are a trap.
The article briefly touches on future packaging. Would ice ever be useful in packaging frozen foods? It'd be biodegradable, and would be a sign of trust that the goods have been permanently frozen from packaging to delivery.
You'd literally be able to just throw the trash outside and let it feed your garden, lol.
The integrity check could also make this especially valuable for transporting medication that must remain cold. The current state of the art isn't much more than putting ice packs in a styrofoam cooler.
I hate how researchers always have to pretend there's a practical application for their inventions. This is clearly never going to replace concrete in any situation. But it's still interesting.
The Wikipedia article mentions how this happened with an anti-AIDS medication called ritonavir. I watched this video by Veritasium on that situation a while back; I recommend it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksn5yrsC3Wg
Another instance of 'Super Ice' or as named in the article 'Pykrete' in science fiction is in Neal Stephenson's Novel from 2015: Seveneves.
The substance is used in space for the construction of temporary habitats.
I suppose this is plausible if you manage to find a large source of ice and bring it into a stable orbit. It won't melt into liquid, and perhaps the reinforcing fibers could help prevent sublimation.
A lot of the novel strained my ability to suspend disbelief, but the overall scope and ambition is so awesome I was able to forgive the poor editing. It's attempting to be hard sci-fi, much of the novel is taken up by technical descriptions that could only appeal to an engineer-minded person.
> A lot of the novel strained my ability to suspend disbelief, but the overall scope and ambition is so awesome
While the 2nd half of the book is definitely still sci-fi territory, the first part is slowly getting into the plausible tech realm, 12 years after the book was written. We now have a much stronger space industry, and probably could match or exceed the payload to orbit in 2 years from the book (if everyone would work towards the same goal, which is still a bit of fantasy but hey...)
You could cleanly think about it in three parts, but the time jump in the middle which involves a whole new set of characters is another way to split it.
Yes the book itself is broken into 3 parts but if you're looking at it from a scientific plausibility scale parts 1 & 2 are in the same vicinity of that scale where part 3 jumps a good ways into more traditional scifi levels of plausibility.
It basically enabled the plot and mostly happened 'off camera'. The parts about the management of radiation was pretty cool though. Because if it I earmarked "Ichi-F: A Worker's Graphic Memoir of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant" to read later on.
Nice to see Pykrete being mentioned!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pykrete
Fun fact: you don't need sawdust for pykrete. Adding any kind of material e.g. just newspapers can help similar to how rebar makes concrete stronger
Came to the comments for the pykrete reference, thanks for this.
I feel like the obvious answer here for use is at the skating rink.
It's not necessarily a bonus, different sports need completely different ice properties (e.g. figure skating vs hockey), and a managed arena needs ease of maintenance.
I spend an enormous amount of time at the rink (18 ice times in the last 9 days). Can you explain this? Because I don't see the difference between the ice for figure skating vs hockey, both of which happen daily at our local rink.
A local magazine did a test on ice cream cone melting. Some of those were still intact looking after sitting open at room temperature for an hour. Hooray for additives! So it's not a fundamentally new idea. These have to be safe to eat so maybe not too harmful for environment, though you never know.
Some parts of the world use ice roads and have struggled with warm winters. Maybe this could be used to improve the strength and extend time in the spring.
Which additive were they using? This article [1] use poliphenols, that are very different from the modified celulose in the top article.
[1] https://thisismold.com/uncategorized/the-science-behind-the-...
https://yle.fi/a/74-20234378
Carob extract and guar gum at least.
Thanks for the link. I took a look at the wikipedia pages of the gums and they are closer to the modified celulose in the main article than to the polyphenols in the article I linked.
It's very complicated to compare, because they use other sugars and there are a thousand of details that are important, like how long are branchy the molecules are, and also a million of details that are above my chemistry knodledge level.
As a persomal prefference, I'd call that jelly instead of ice cream. (And in a bad day that I want to lie a little just to be mean, I'd call them a piece of cake.)
Wonder if this will then be used to fulfill the dream of shooting ice bullets which then melt inside the victim, leaving less evidence. If memory serves, I think the CIA explored this at some remote point in time.
I believe they used a different frozen compound than water, but yes.
It's a mix of water and celulose, do it does not disapear completely.
Add some enzymes to help reduce the remaining cellulose?
For fictional purposes, the ballistic information disappears. You might know the murder victim was shot with an ice bullet, but you won't be able to match it to a specific weapon.
Well no, because these aren't just ice-- it's an ice composite.
Mythbusters busted ice bullets. IIRC, the ice didn’t tolerate being shot out of a barrel and disintegrated.
sounds like a problem that might be solvable by a new super ice that is 10x stronger and "can absorb much more energy and deform gradually" instead of disintegrating.
what if you obtained your target's DNA and grew their flesh to make bullets out of? Add additive, freeze and voila!
i think there's an episode of Bones along those lines. maybe it was just a frozen blood bullet? i forget.
Coroners are confused about strange cellulose fibers through the entry and exit wounds. “It looks like they were attacked by… celery.”
Concrete's not strong enough to be used as a bullet either- you'd need something roughly the size of a shotgun slug. If you're going that big, you aren't going for subtle.
Make a bolt and use crossbow
Wouldn’t there still be evidence that some object penetrated the person and ripped them apart and caused them to bleed out?
Surely the CIA has untraceable ammo at their disposal already?
They already have the heart attack gun and half a dozen other gadgets. An ice bullet would be just (pardon the pun) an icing on the cake.
The murder weapon is clearly the only gun around that can shoot ice bullets.
Ah but then the murder weapon would melt!
Ok stronger but doesn't it melt.. What are they going to do with it?
"The intended application isn't for aircraft carriers this time, but rather for construction projects in remote, cold areas where conventional building methods aren't easy to apply – like the Arctic and Antarctic.
With no concrete or steel required, and with ice and plant-based cellulose as the main ingredients, this could be a building material with a low carbon footprint that's also biodegradable."
Maybe we’ll be building ice caves on other planets after all
Climate change feels like a grim reaper slowly stalking the value proposition of this technology.
Potentially becomes more viable in some locations. Or a future ice age.
Exactly what I wanted. A biodegradable building. I’m making mine out of compost!
Or maybe Mars?
warmer igloos obviously. :)
igloo skyscrapers
"Further down the line, this approach could open up a whole new landscape for materials used in packaging, construction, and more: Using a custom protein to bring two unlikely compounds (ice and cellulose) together."
Ice roads would be one application. Once it freezes, usual ferry services can often no longer be upheld. Then, one has to wait until the ice is thick enough to drive a car over the ice. If there was an easily applicable material to drive on ice less than usual 15-20cm of ice, that would decrease that waiting time quite a bit (and make ice roads/bridges possible in locations that would previously be unsuitable). And since it is ice, you can grow it somewhere else and transport in place with a barge.
Another is underground tunnel building. In sandy places, there are cases where they freeze the ground when building a concrete structure. If that could be reinforced with stronger ice, it might make working easier.
Similar, you can use ice as an temporary scaffold when e.g building a spanning bridge in winter. Stronger ice => easier application of said scaffold.
This sounds like a Rube Goldberg machine if I've ever heard one, for the nichest of niche applications.
I am pretty sure that 99.9% of material science covers very niche applications
Minecraft iceboat racing coming true?
It always sounds/looks like a trap to me when I hear about/see people driving whole-ass cars over 15cm ~= half a foot of ice. That's just wrong, and I would barely consider walking on ice that thick (thin).
(I'm telling you I'm from southern California without telling you I'm from southern California)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk
The original pykrete also melted less easily than pure ice, IIRC the sawdust acts as insulation or something.
The BioPykrete name is kinda funny. As opposed to the regular pykrete, made with the famously not-bio wood pulp
Sounds like a good candidate for shielding an inter-galactic colony ship.
Inter-galactic? My dude I think you missed a few steps
The farther you go, the faster you need to go to get enough time dilation to make the trip worthwhile. The faster you go, the more the shielding matters. It still applies!
> The faster you go, the more the shielding matters.
Unless of course you just bend everything around your private bubble with your warp drive.
Frozen fish is about the same strength as carbon fiber composite. You need carbide saw to cut it.
This type of ice composite would be super interesting for space structure construction. Melt cometary ice and mix it with additives of some kind and spin big cylinders out of it. You’d just have to make the surface reflective so it doesn’t melt, and possibly have some active cooling which you need anyway if anything inside makes heat.
The outer surface would probably be sprayed with something, maybe just reflective dust, to also keep it from subliming into the vacuum.
Extremely repairable, melts at human and equipment friendly temperatures, recyclable, doubles as an emergency water reservoir, and last but definitely not least a fantastic radiation shield.
Would also work for structures on Mars, the Moon, etc, but I’m a fan of the idea of settling space itself not another planet. Gravity wells are a trap.
The article briefly touches on future packaging. Would ice ever be useful in packaging frozen foods? It'd be biodegradable, and would be a sign of trust that the goods have been permanently frozen from packaging to delivery.
You'd literally be able to just throw the trash outside and let it feed your garden, lol.
The integrity check could also make this especially valuable for transporting medication that must remain cold. The current state of the art isn't much more than putting ice packs in a styrofoam cooler.
I hate how researchers always have to pretend there's a practical application for their inventions. This is clearly never going to replace concrete in any situation. But it's still interesting.
Finally! Ice-9!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice-nine
The Wikipedia article mentions how this happened with an anti-AIDS medication called ritonavir. I watched this video by Veritasium on that situation a while back; I recommend it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksn5yrsC3Wg
Another instance of 'Super Ice' or as named in the article 'Pykrete' in science fiction is in Neal Stephenson's Novel from 2015: Seveneves.
The substance is used in space for the construction of temporary habitats. I suppose this is plausible if you manage to find a large source of ice and bring it into a stable orbit. It won't melt into liquid, and perhaps the reinforcing fibers could help prevent sublimation.
A lot of the novel strained my ability to suspend disbelief, but the overall scope and ambition is so awesome I was able to forgive the poor editing. It's attempting to be hard sci-fi, much of the novel is taken up by technical descriptions that could only appeal to an engineer-minded person.
> A lot of the novel strained my ability to suspend disbelief, but the overall scope and ambition is so awesome
While the 2nd half of the book is definitely still sci-fi territory, the first part is slowly getting into the plausible tech realm, 12 years after the book was written. We now have a much stronger space industry, and probably could match or exceed the payload to orbit in 2 years from the book (if everyone would work towards the same goal, which is still a bit of fantasy but hey...)
Side note, but I have a hard time thinking of Seveneves in halves; isn't it 3 distinct parts?
Mainly I remember skimming the middle third because it felt like such a drag.
Heh, true. My brain went into "pre space" and "post space" as halves :)
You could cleanly think about it in three parts, but the time jump in the middle which involves a whole new set of characters is another way to split it.
Yes the book itself is broken into 3 parts but if you're looking at it from a scientific plausibility scale parts 1 & 2 are in the same vicinity of that scale where part 3 jumps a good ways into more traditional scifi levels of plausibility.
> getting into the plausible tech realm
Except bringing an asteroid all the way down to the ISS. That part was uncharacteristically thoughtless, I think.
It basically enabled the plot and mostly happened 'off camera'. The parts about the management of radiation was pretty cool though. Because if it I earmarked "Ichi-F: A Worker's Graphic Memoir of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant" to read later on.
pykrete isnt a scifi material. its a ww2 idea the brits had for making an ice based aircraft carrier
I saw the title and thought "pykrete". Here's the aircraft carrier in question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk
I literally picked up Cat's Cradle for first time in decades this weekend. Funny how these things line up.
Ice nine!
What is Ice 362880?
(I’m sorry.)