There are actual fabrics made from stone. Here are some I've worked with for composite materials made in Russia from molten basalt extruded into fibers and woven into cloth.
> “If war breaks out lots of sparks and bullets go back and forth.... Cotton tends to melt and vanish but vinalon burns you because it sticks to your skin,” Jung said. “The uniforms made of vinalon are not suitable for combat. When it rains, the uniforms soak up water and become very heavy, which inevitably makes it difficult for soldiers to move. After a while, the uniforms turn very stiff.”
So basically they are wearing flammable and stiffening clothing that defeats the very purpose of combat uniforms....how can a country like this even survive the first few days of war? More reasons for it to never give up its nuclear weapons.
The ( British ) Royal Navy issued nylon uniforms from the 1960s until the Falklands War. At which time they learned that in a fire those were responsible for horrific burns.
I believe they only issue cotton now, though my RAF shirts were still a cotton-nylon blend in the early 2000s.
My USAF green "pickle suit" uniform in the 80's was made of polyester. And we knew that it would melt and stick to our skin in the event of a petroleum or electrical fire. Why did they ever make it from that material? It took a press well, so the creases were sharp. And it was cheap.
Actually, to anyone who knows industrial history this is purest clickbait. North Korea's poylvinyl alcohol fiber is indeed made from coal, but worldwide the chemical industry used coal until after World War 2.
The feedstocks would be acetylene (from carbide) and coal tar distillates. The enormous energy requirements of a carbide oven is why the American chemical industry settled near Buffalo, NY, that's where the Niagara Falls powerplant was.
I was expecting something similar. I know of rockwool for it's insulative and sound absorption properties, I'd never thought of it as a fiber suitible for textiles. I was hoping to learn some intersting properties about rockwool fibers as a textile.
But I did learn about vinylon, so I got to learn something today.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned asbestos yet. Asbestos is a mineral that is/was turned into fibers and fabrics [0]. My father even has a chunk of asbestos rock somewhere. It is relatively safe when not processed. It is the detached fibers that are most harmful.
> [Asbestos] is relatively safe when not processed
The WHO says "all forms of asbestos are carcinogenic to humans" [1]. The CDC specifically addresses "naturally occurring asbestos," which it finds "is only a health problem if it is disturbed," e.g. via "surface soil disturbance" [2].
Another data point: back in 1999 or 2000, my environmental geology professor in college mentioned a large exposed asbestos rock in a nearby playground that he considered a hazard to the children. He said he brought it up a city council meeting but could not convince them to move it.
> Carcinogenic isnt dangerous if it cant be breathed in
OP said their father keeps a bulk of asbestos in their house. For it to get to the house, it had to be picked up and transported. Once there, there is a risk it jostles around or is impacted by something, e.g. due to objects falling on it or it falling on objects. Collecting and keeping asbestos in any form appears ill advised under WHO and CDC guidance.
How about blowing it into the air? My father had a book that instructed kids to do that. It was some sort of project book, with a title roughly similar to "Projects for Boys" or "The Boy Engineer". I'd love to know the exact title and maybe find the text.
The project in question was a volcano. It measured about 4 feet across and 2 feet tall. It was mostly made of chicken wire with paper mache. The crater was something like a large can containing a smaller can. I think the small can contained zinc and sulphur, which would burn to make suitably stinky smoke and fire. The other can contained loose powdered asbestos. A hose ran to it. You were supposed to blow into the hose, causing the asbestos to float up into the air like volcanic ash.
At least one other project in that book involved asbestos. It was a model airplane with a pulsejet engine.
PVA is polyvinyl alcohol. Pretty stinky stuff- it’s used as a mold release for composite lay-ups, and is the active ingredient in certain prescription eye drops.
Both PVA's are steps in the synthesis so it's extra amusing this time. The vinyl acetate is polymerized to polyvinyl acetate (PVA) and then converted into an alcohol (also PVA) because the vinyl alcohol monomer isn't stable enough.
Amazing but true. The scrawl on the board shows how they make vinyl monomers out of acetic acid derived from their carbide process, then PVAcetate, then PVAlcohol.
This whole article reminded me of paper made out of rock. Depressingly, it's still a fuel-based product.
Yeah, I developed chemical processes to make monomers in my last job and was still surprised that they start from coal to do this. I didn't even realize there was a process from coal to acetylene, I just took it for granted that acetylene and acetate generally start from distillate or natural gas unless some bio-source is extremely convenient.
"Until the 1950s, when oil supplanted coal as the chief source of reduced carbon, acetylene (and the aromatic fraction from coal tar) was the main source of organic chemicals in the chemical industry. It was prepared by the hydrolysis of calcium carbide, a reaction discovered by Friedrich Wöhler in 1862[17] and still familiar to students:
CaC2 + 2H2O → Ca(OH)2 + C2H2
Calcium carbide production requires extremely high temperatures, ~2000°C, necessitating the use of an electric arc furnace. In the US, this process was an important part of the late-19th century revolution in chemistry enabled by the massive hydroelectric power project at Niagara Falls."
Well, till not so long ago (the 1950s and 1960s) it was not so uncommon in rural areas (not served by electricity or gas) to have carbide lamps as a source of lighting:
They're using Soviet and Communist words interchangeably. However I'm not sure it's accurate, and whether any of communist regimes outside USSR called themself soviet.
Note that North Korea dropped 'communist' word altogether aroud two decades ago. Now it's Juche state.
I find all these stories of North Korea fascinating. The USSR and China both realized that free markets are a better system and adjusted accordingly. North Korea just seems to keep betting on a system that's broken.
Unfortunately, it's not that simple. North Korea is under incredible sanctions, and South Korea's embracing of the free market is considered to be an economic miracle made possible only by multiple headwinds, and some solid good luck.
China can hardly be called a free market, by the way.
Well, we can debate the definition of a free market forever. We (in the US) tend to define "free market" as whatever benefits the corporations that buy the lobbyists. They sometimes like to slip in silly protectionist laws.
Read up on the chicken tax and the incident with Kerrygold butter in Wisconsin.
More recent examples are how the telcos got net neutrality repealed, the media companies strengthening copyright, and Trump loosening EPA restrictions. Those aren't really "free market" moves, but called free market by the parties who benefit from them.
I feel the opposite way — it’s breaking the old magazine convention that pullout quotes are merely highlights for quick browsing, and it feels disorienting that there’s new information in these design elements.
Designers like pullout quotes because they break up the monotony of body copy, and you can use fancy display fonts on them. Consequently they make pages look more "expensive" to readers simply by association with more thoughtful design.
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