Young woman invents ingenious bioplastic made from fish scales and red algae

What does this stuff smell like? If it’s a week-old dead fish smell, the utility is limited.

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You’re very welcome. Here is the inspiration for my comment: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/484/doppelgangers. It’s a good listen.

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Any scent will be from the seaweed. Fish slime is where the stank comes from, and it biodegrades quickly. Scales pretty quickly end up just odorless flakes of protein. It’s very surprising, actually.

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Depends on the material properties (it might not be sufficiently stiff, for example), and it might be problematic for uses involving liquids and, because of potential allergens, food usage (or… it might not). But there are still tons of potential uses, even if it’s not suitable for some things, and any use cuts down on plastic waste.

Specifically, fish scales are composed of hydroxyapetite in a collagen matrix. That makes them a pretty amazing material, since they are essentially a flexible, translucent ceramic!

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[With apologies.]

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Well… that certainly didn’t help.

It didn’t hurt, either.

:slightly_smiling_face:

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Well… it probably hurt a little bit.

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Nope. It was like asking for directions to the highway but getting free ice cream instead. So… nope. :sunglasses:

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and without cozying up to the Aspen crowd. Ack!

Materials: Restructuring chitin. We studied the bugs, now we can molt them wholesale (and agar-agar them together further, apparently.) Still might be worth its license import…as soon as it becomes more embarrassing not to motivate whichever Sussex B-school students she told to be a venture accelerator, I guess.

Yes, rather waiting for the catch; for 4-6 weeks, does the composter completely repel worms and smell a treat for wharf rats and misshapen crows, or just make beetle-neutral soil quickish?

A kindred spirit plus mention:


I dub thee marinatex, priceworthy hypoallergenic (uh…soon) ski jacket material and edible donut box window…

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OTOH after 6 weeks the smell is completely gone.

Perhaps it might have application in horticulture as well. I’ve just been potting up some cuttings in some clear plastic cups. If I could grow them on for 3 or 4 weeks before planting cup and all straight into the soil that would be great - they might lace it with fertilizer too. Could also see use as a weed suppressant mat in sheet form. Cover with mulch and forget about it.

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Gardening was my first thought too - I use clear plastic to solarize my beds. I’d be happy to have it biodegrade into something probably beneficial for my soil.

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More to the point, James Dyson can go fuck himself.

The only proper answer here is to find those people and point the hardcore environmentalists at them, then use the remains of everyone who didn’t make for various sustainable purposes.

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