What could be more natural than a life aquatic, a life lived to the fullest under the waves? Royal College of Arts in London student Jun Kamei wants you to live your dream!
(Amphibio gill shirt)
In the tradition of biomimetic design, Kamei began to conceptualize a garment that could let people adapt to a more aquatic lifestyle. He studied air-breathing insects that survive underwater by using a reservoir of air trapped beneath their exoskeleton, which acts as a sort of gill and barrier between the insect and the water, allowing oxygen molecules to seep in.
Running with this idea, Kamei created Amphibio: a 3D-printed garment designed to capture air and replenish oxygen, while dissipating carbon dioxide underwater.
Sure, I know what you're thinking. What science fiction writer could possibly come up with something so impossibly futuristic as a gill shirt? If you were thinking of Philip K. Dick, you're good. If you were thinking of a little item mentioned in his 1966 short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, you're amazing.
The bottom of the ocean - our ocean is much more, an infinity of times more beautiful. You know that; everyone knows that. Rent an artificial gill-outfit for both of us...
(Read more about Philip K. Dick's artificial gill outfit)
Also, I distinctly remember an episode of the sixties sf series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea in which a scientist decides that the best way to breathe underwater is to give himself gills. Alas, once equipped with gills, and fully acclimated to life in the sea, Dr. Jenkins and his associate lie in wait outside the submarine Seaview, converting every diver who emerges from the ship into mermen.
Do We Still Need Orbiting Factories?
'... his contract with Space Industries required him to work summers in their orbital factory complex.' - Jerry Pournelle, 1976.
MIT Self-Assembling Reprogrammable Materials
'Faster the cubes moved; faster the circle revolved; the pyramids raised themselves, stood bolt upright on their square bases...' - Abraham Merritt, 1920.
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Zoom Education Idea Is 100 Years Old
'... the frosted glass squares began, one by one, to show the faces and shoulders of a peculiar type of young men.'