Fed2 Star - the newsletter for the space trading game Federation 2

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by ibgames

EARTHDATE: November 15, 2015

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REAL LIFE NEWS: ULTRA-HARD GLASS MAY PROTECT PHONES

by Hazed

I dropped my phone a few weeks ago, while I was waiting for the bus. It landed badly, and the glass shattered. Good news: it wasn’t the screen that broke, but the strip of glass along the bottom of the back. Bad news: the broken area is just where I put my fingers when I hold the phone, and the splinters of glass jabbed into my skin in a painful and bloody manner.

I solved the problem by purchasing a cheap phone case which neatly covered up the broken bit.

It’s obviously a common problem, judging by the number of people I see every day while commuting to work that have cracked phone screens. But it could soon be a thing of the past, because scientists have developed a new type of ultra-hard glass which is both hard and thin.

It’s made using alumina, an oxide of aluminium. In the past, attempts to increase the amount of the substance in glass have failed because it made the mixture crystalise when it touched the edges of the container. This stopped a useful glass from being formed. But a Japanese team from the University of Tokyo and the Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute have found a way to prevent this, using oxygen gas to push the ingredients into the air and then melting it with lasers. The glass forms without any part of it touching anything else, therefore there’s no cryalisation.

The resulting glass is colourless and transparent, as glass needs to be – and it’s extremely hard, much harder than some metals. This would make it ideal for car windows, or windows in buildings – and phone screens.

Dr Masuno, one of the scientists involved, said: “We will establish a way to mass-produce the new material shortly. We are looking to commercialise the technique within five years.”

It can’t come soon enough!

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34714993

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