US Jeans Maker Promises 'Smart' Clothes

A young man in a white t-shirt pulls on a dark blue denim trucker jacket, tucks his smartphone in an inside pocket and puts in-ear headphones in his right ear.

He mounts a fixed-gear bike with flat, slightly curved wide handlebars. Riding through the streets of San Francisco, he occasionally taps or swipes his right hand over the left cuff of his jacket, as the directions he's listening to continually pop up on the screen of this advertisement.

It's an ad from iconic US jeans maker Levi Strauss for Project Jacquard, an initiative with Google that the companies started two years ago for so-called "smart" denim.

The future of the popular fabric was the focus at a recent international fashion fair in Paris -- after all most believe the word denim derives from the French "serge de Nimes", a serge from the city of Nimes.

The fair featured many wearable innovations such as a waterproof jacket with sunscreen bands and a cable in the pocket to recharge a cellphone, or jeans that keep your body temperature stable.

Once mainly the purview of athletic gear -- with moisture-wicking shirts and trousers and then clothing that can track motion, heart rate, and body temperature -- the new trend for fashion designers is to take everyday wear and transform it using new technologies.

This is clothing made from specially woven fabric with touch-screen control capabilities that can be designed in such a way to visually stand out or go unnoticed depending on designers' wishes.

French-based fashion company Spinal Design, for example, has created jeans that can give wearers with directions without having to whip out the mobile at every single intersection.

Through blue tooth sensors stitched into the jeans' waistband, the smart phone stays out of sight.

"You put a destination into the pap (and) sensors will vibrate right if you need to turn right, left if you need to turn left," Spinal innovation director Romain Spinal told AFP.

In 2015, the company from the eastern French town of Mulhouse designed a bikini that tells women when it's time to apply more sun screen.

The two-piece retails for 149 euros ($163) and comes with a small detachable ultraviolet sensor that, through a smart phone or tablet, sends a "sun screen alert" when the sunbather's skin needs more protective cream.

The detector is calibrated to the wearer's skin type and how much of a tan she wants to get, and is "virtually devoid of any radiation," Spinal said.

The Spinal jeans, made in France, cost 150 euros and also have email notification capabilities.

"They will vibrate differently depending on whether the message received is from your family, your friends or work, in a way that you won't have to constantly check your email on weekends or on vacation," Spinal said.

On their end, Google and Levi expect to release their denim jacket sometime this year, but it will come with a hefty $350 price tag due in part to its special interactive fabric that allows the jacket's wearer to order various products online.

Other international etch and fashion companies have also jumped on the "smart" denim bandwagon.

Using thermo-regulated fabric and microfiber cloth popular in athletic wear, Brazilian textile maker Vicugna Tex til has designed denims that will keep the wearer's core temperature stable.

American designer Cone Denim for its part has blended its denims with technical textile fibres from equipment used on motorcycles -- this to better tout the sturdiness of its clothes.

But these companies recognise that there has to be more to "smart" jeans than just fashion sense and connected capabilities and that means making sure they are environmentally friendly.

"The consumer demands greater traceability and ecology, especially when it comes to denim because it is a product that is a bit controversial," said Marion Foret, fashion products chief for Premiere Vision Paris, which organises trade shows for the textile and clothing sector, including the denim show.

Denim is a product "that doesn't always carry the best reputation, so textile makers are forced to use more ecological processes," Foret added, such as making denims with organic or traceable cotton, cleaning denims without water, and using dyes that won't pollute the land.

In keeping with that trend, Dutch fashion designer Pauline van Wongen makes denims using fabrics from used and already worn jeans.

Others seek to keep consumers better informed like Pakistani manufacturer Artistic Fabric Mills which developed an application to retrace the history of the jeans.

But for some young fashion students the future of jeans is not all about technology.

"Connecting jeans to a smartphone is not necessarily what we want to have," said Aurelia Martin, who studies fashion in Brussels.

"There are problems that are a little more essential in terms of production, the dye, the cotton, the (jeans') pretty weak longevity, and the quality."

Continue Reading

Scientists Discover New Earth That Could Harbour Life

An international team of astronomers has discovered a so-called "super-Earth" that could contain liquid water, a situation that would make it a very good candidate for harbouring life.

Super-Earth is a rocky, temperate planet orbiting a red dwarf star, Efe news agency reported. In an article published on Wednesday in Nature magazine, the scientists say that the distant planet, dubbed LHS 1140b, is orbiting an M class red dwarf star a little smaller and dimmer than the Sun but the most common type of star in our galaxy.

The super-Earth and its parent star are located in the constellation Cetus, the Whale, 39 light years from the Sun, thus -- relatively speaking -- putting it in our galactic "neighbourhood," according to Felipe Murgas, the coauthor of the study and a researcher with Spain's Canary Islands Institute of Astrophysics.

The study's main author, Jason Dittmann, with the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, said that this is the "most interesting" exoplanet that he's seen in the last decade.

The new planet was discovered thanks to the MEarth-South telescope network devoted exclusively to seeking out exo-planets.

The MEarth-South instruments enabled scientists to measure the planet's diameter and, using the HARPS spectrograph at the LaSilla ESO Observatory in Chile, they also were able to measure its mass, density and orbital period.

According to the measurements, LHS 1140b has a diameter 1.4 times that of Earth and a mass 6.6 times that of our own planet.

But more important than that are the climatological conditions, and its orbital distance from its star puts LHS 1140b in the "habitable zone" - thus meaning that the planet's surface temperature allows water to exist in all three of its states: liquid, solid and as a gas.

Whether there is actually water on the planet or not depends on the composition of its atmosphere and other factors, including the presence of a magnetic field, such as the one Earth has, but the most important thing is for the planet to "fulfil the requirements to have water," which means that it must be in its star's habitable zone, Murgas said.

Regarding the age of the planet, the authors of the study said that it probably formed in a manner similar to Earth and its star is probably 5 billion years old, about the same age as the Sun, although the age of M-class stars is hard to determine for a variety of factors, the Spanish researcher added.

In the coming decades, LHS 1140b is sure to be investigated much more intensively, an ongoing project for the powerful next-generation telescopes, including the James Webb instrument and the E-ELT device, which will be installed in Chile and -- within a few years -- will be able to study the system and try to detect its atmosphere, along with other characteristics.

Continue Reading

Microscopic Molecular Cars To Race

Microscopic molecular vehicles piloted by chemists and physicists will line up in the world’s first nano-car race in France this month-but don’t expect to see anything with the naked eye.

Teams from France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, the United States and a joint Austrian-American group have qualified, but only four will get to compete on April 28-29, organisers of the race said Tuesday.

Sponsored by France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), the race will take place at one of its laboratories in Toulouse, in southwestern France, and will be streamed live on YouTube.

Each ultra-miniature car will be built from just hundreds of atoms grouped together to form the engine, body, wheels and pedals.

Instead of holding a steering wheel, scientists will manoeuvre a microscope equipped with four needle-like metal tips that generate an electric current.

The white-gowned “drivers” will poke the nano-cars with the energy-inducing instruments to propel them across a racing track made from gold.

“The tip will provide the fuel to move the molecule,” said Alain Schuhl, Director of the CNRS’s physics unit.

The race will not exactly be a high-speed chase with hairpin turns. It will take the nano-cars at least 36 hours to reach the finish line after covering 100 nanometres-one-thousandth the width of a human hair.

There are a couple of 40 and 45 degree turns thrown in to make things interesting.

One team was stuck for five hours on a turn during a practice session, said race director Christian Joachim.

“It’s like a video game-you have to focus on the screen and be attentive all the time,” he said. “You need two people, one that gets the images and the other one guiding him on strategy to avoid getting stuck.”

The golden surface on which the nano-cars will race is 50,000 times thinner than a line drawn by a pen. To get to the finish line, the scientists will have to apply an average of 400 to 500 electrical discharges of one to two volts each, without breaking the molecule.

As in Formula One, contestants are allowed to switch cars in case of malfunctions.

Beyond the race’s entertainment factor, organisers hope the event will serve scientific purpose.

“The objective is to try to control the mechanical movement of a molecule a couple of nanometres long,” Joachim said.

Once scientists can handle these cars like getaway drivers, he said, “we’ll be able to create super-miniature motors for all sorts of applications.”

Continue Reading

Remains Of Ancient Pyramid Found In Egypt

The remains of an Egyptian pyramid built around 3,700 years ago have been discovered near the well-known “bent pyramid” of King Snefru, the antiquities ministry announced on Monday.

The pyramid from the 13th dynasty was found in Dahshur’s royal necropolis, some 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of Cairo, it said.

“An alabaster... block engraved with 10 vertical hieroglyphic lines” was among the finds, the ministry said, citing Adel Okasha, director general at the necropolis.

It said granite lintel and stone blocks were discovered that would show more “about the internal structure of the pyramid”.

Excavation is still in its early stages and the size of the pyramid has not yet been established. Blocks of stone and the beginning of a corridor which were discovered can be seen in photos provided by the ministry.

The corridor “leads to the interior of the pyramid, extended by a ramp and the entrance to a room”, the ministry said.

“All the discovered parts of the pyramid are in very good condition and further excavation is to take place to reveal more parts,” it said.

Egypt, home of one of the world’s earliest civilisations, boasts 123 ancient pyramids, Zahi Hawass, former head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, told AFP.

Hawass, who took part in the last discovery of a new pyramid in Egypt in 2008 at Saqqara, just south of Cairo, said the remnants in Dahshur appeared to indicate that the monument belonged to “a queen buried near her husband or her son”.

“The hope now is to find any inscription which can reveal the identity of the owner of this pyramid. To find the name of a previously unknown queen would be an addition to history,” the archaeologist said.

Egypt’s ancient treasures include the world-famous Pyramids of Giza, constructed around 4,500 years ago. The Khufu pyramid, or Great Pyramid, is the largest of the three in Giza, standing at 146 metres (480 feet tall), and the only surviving structure of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

Khufu and Khafre in Giza along with the Bent and Red pyramids in Dahshur are part of Operation ScanPyramids, with teams scanning the structures in search of hidden rooms and cavities.

The project to unearth still hidden secrets of the pyramids applies a mix of infrared thermography, radiographic imaging and 3D simulation-all of which the researchers say are non-invasive and non-destructive.

In October last year, the team announced that two additional cavities had been found in the Great Pyramid after another scan a year earlier found several thermal anomalies.

At a conference in 2015 dedicated to King Tutankhamun and his world-famous golden funerary mask, Egyptian authorities said new technology was needed to determine whether his tomb contains hidden chambers which a British archaeologist believes could contain Queen Nefertiti’s remains.

Continue Reading

Stephen Hawking Appears As Hologram

Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has spoken to a Hong Kong audience by hologram, showcasing the growing reach of a technology which is making inroads into politics, entertainment and business.

The British scientist appeared Friday before an audience of hundreds who cheered and snapped pictures with their phones as he discussed his career and answered questions about the possibility of life on other planets, the use of technology in education and the impact of Brexit on Britain.

The 75-year-old said the election of US President Donald Trump was one in a string of “right-wing successes” that would have grave implications for the future of scientific innovation and discovery. “With Brexit and Trump... we are witnessing a global revolt against experts,” he said, making his first appearance in Hong Kong since 2006.

The swing to the right has come at a time when the world is facing multiple environmental crises, from global warming to deforestation, he added.

“The answers to these problems will come from science and technology,” he said. Hawking suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a form of motor neurone disease that attacks the nerves controlling voluntary movement, leaving him paralysed and able to communicate only via a computer speech synthesiser.

The event was organised by Chinese gaming company NetDragon Websoft, in partnership with ARHT Media, which creates digital human holograms of celebrities including spiritual guru Deepak Chopra, motivational speaker Tony Robbins and slain rapper The Notorious B.I.G..

The technology which allows a human being to appear and interact with audiences in multiple locations simultaneously is gradually expanding its presence.

French far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon appeared to supporters by hologram last month in a technological first for a presidential campaign in France.

Continue Reading