Scientists have invented a material “that's so light it can rest comfortably on a dandelion seed head without disturbing the fluffy, delicate structure of the plant.”
The report goes on to say “The secret to its lightness is a cellular architecture fabricated from hollow tubes that supports a material structure that is in reality 99.99 percent air”.
The material is essentially just air … invented by a species that like most other Life is just water!
The pace at which technology develops is amazing.
Day by day new technologies appear, all one needs to do, as an observer, is just check Google News or other Internet news service for the next daily surprise.
This augurs well for tackling the challenges that we face in this pivotal century.
Should we be unable to sufficiently reduce the rate of climate change we will need to be even more ingenious than we have ever been before.
At least there is no lack of potential ingenuity …
But we also need to ensure that we do not stifle it.
There is something about freedom, about allowing humans the right to think and express themselves freely.
All humans, not just some and not others …
When humans are not denied this right the most extraordinary thoughts and ideas emerge.
Many of these ideas might not be compatible with the reality of the Cosmos and may be short lived.
Yet others, will be in tune and further incremental steps towards understanding the Magnificence of the Cosmos are taken.
Truly, minute steps, even if they be relatively speaking enormous such as sensing that light bends with gravity, that it seems to have a terminal velocity … almost, and that perhaps some events are so instantaneous that time has no longer meaning in their explanation … what Einstein himself considered not possible – “spooky action at a distance”.
The neutrinos that are breaking the speed limit between Switzerland and Gran Sasso in Italy are perhaps in that transition between the Time dimension and Non Time?
Repeat experiments with "bunches just three billionths of a second long" instead of the previous "ten millionths of a second long" after the outcry from conservative scientists, indicate a similar speed limit breach!
Whatever the outcome, Sustainability still requires the freedom to think.
This is a politically unsavoury freedom – it runs against the grain of many power sinks in Humanity.
The problem with Free Thought is that it has no Mercy.
It has not even spared Einstein – those who have surrendered to a religious following of Einstein as the Ultimate Truth will eventually realise that they will have made the same mistake in principle as the Flat Earthers
Einstein himself would no doubt accept the limitations of his theories with grace.
He was no institution man, a free thinker, bored to tears in school …
He may have upturned Newton’s Absoluteness of Time but in doing so would have realised that even he might not be spared.
However, breakthroughs in science and technology are unlikely to result from suppression of thought.
The Inquisition failed – thankfully. But perhaps it was too close for comfort …
Every great step forward in science is unlikely to be the result of suppression of freethinking.
Perhaps totalitarian/authoritative systems can take a break through and refine it. Unfortunately we do have some examples today still ...
Like the Ancient Spartans – warlike, they refined their war technology.
They also threw goodness knows how many newborns over the cliff with their primal ideas.
How many super bright ‘nerds’ perished in their times … nerds that perhaps may have added Brain to the Brawn that Sparta prided itself on?
Sparta disappeared, all that remains is some art … relatively speaking very little art; Brawn is generally disparaging of Art.
For Sustainability we need to ensure greater freedom of thought … no more Inquisitions, of any creed or culture.
More Mahatma Gandhis and Mandelas ... more of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Then on wings lighter than dandelions we may yet reach the stars …