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"I'm a fairly visual thinker. In doing science, I think in terms of pictures of things happening, and then do the mathematics."
- Gregory Benford
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| Diveskin | ||
| Special wetsuit that allows a diver to function at extreme depths. |
Most of the action in Starfish takes place much deeper in the ocean than a person could venture unprotected. Extremes of temperature and very high pressure would make it impossible. One of the technological adaptations is the skinsuit, a special form of wetsuit.
| She twists out of reach without a word, bending down to seal the [dive]skin on her leg. Fischer watches the leggings slide up her body. They seem almost alive. They are almost alive, he remembers. The 'skin's got these reflexes, changes its permeability and thermal conductivity in response to body temperature. Maintains, what's the word, homeostasis. |
| Technovelgy from Starfish,
by Peter Watts. Published by Tor Books in 1999 Additional resources -
|
It is made out of a copolymer that can withstand temperatures of 150 degrees centigrade.
The wetsuit, which the skinsuit is modeled on, was invented in the early 1950's. The basic idea is that a small amount of water is allowed into the suit, and is then trapped against the body; the neoprene insulates this warm layer. That's why a wetsuit has to be skin tight.
Compare to skin suit from Dinosaur Beach (1971) by Keith Laumer, transkin from Parasite Planet (1931), by Stanley G. Weinbaum, kloraderm from Old Man's War (2005), by John Scalzi and skintight from War Dogs (2014), by Greg Bear.
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Diveskin-related
news articles:
- Breathable Carbon Nanotube Membrane For 'Smart Uniforms'
| Is There A Subterranean Ocean? |
| The Robotic Shopping Cart Of The Future |
| Arctic Resource Jackpot An Old Wish |
| Marie Curie's Papers Still Radioactive |
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'Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface... and the amount of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.'
'I guess there's nobody round this table who doesn't have a Crosswell [tapeworm] working for him in the small intestine.'
'Figments of his mind in one sense, of course, for he had shaped them...'
'So the parent drone carries a spotter that it launches...'
'...nurse drones that would cruise around dumping large amounts of power into randomly selected pods.'
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
'...for months Grantline bores had dug into the cliff.'
'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
