Bill Gates funds creation of graphene condoms | Hacker News Reader

Bill Gates funds creation of graphene condoms

extremetech.com

153 pointsrobabbott127 comments

I must admit I didn't see that one coming. It suggests a fascinating application, which is to wear a graphene condom, on top of a rubber condom, on top of a graphene condom. Thus creating a condom 'super capacitor' [1] that you would charge up by rubbing it, which could then power a piezo electric vibrator. I'm so waiting to see who patents that!

[1] http://www.extremetech.com/computing/163071-graphene-superca...

Or, alternatively, recharge your smartphone during sex.

Not sure how much of a charge you would generate in 2 minutes.

Couldn't this be used in trousers? The friction generated between the legs could wirelessly charge whatever is in your pocket?

...2 minutes?

and that includes the time it takes to eat the pizza.

2 minutes in heaven are better than.. 1 minute in heaven.

I doubt with all those layers you'd be "generating" for only 2 minutes ...

I like the vibration effect better. Or at least my girlfriend would :-).

Just one step closer to making your penis obsolete.

Not obsolete. Better. Stronger. Longer. Lasting. With vibration and a USB port.

Penis 2.0 disrupting human sexuality.

and running Windows!

Sounds like a good idea for a kickstarter.

I "came" here to see this as top comment:

  I must admit I didn't see that one coming

Perfect :-)

i ALWAYS knew he was a pimp.

The possibilities of graphene are vast and many and exciting but this is kind of scary. For all intents and purposes, graphene is nanotechnology and in certain forms can act like asbestos and has a lot of other unknown behaviors in the body [1]. Unfortunately the field of nanotoxicology hasn't really organized itself and caught up to the widespread use of nanocoating and other material science in industry[2]. I hope they find ways to make it extremely inert in the human body but there's much work to be done.

[1] http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v3/n7/full/nnano.2008.11... (CNTs are rolled up graphene and are formed in many graphene production methods as a byproduct)

[2] Nature has a whole series on this: http://www.nature.com/nnano/focus/nanotoxicology/index.html

Graphene flakes and carbon nanotubes are already relatively common in the environment as they are naturally occurring. You get carbon nanotubes in ordinary soot, for instance.

Yes, and ordinary soot is not something you want to have regular contact with.

What about pencils? They're pretty much based on rubbing graphite on paper so that tiny graphene flakes break away and stick on the paper.

I thought it was lucky. Besides, it has been used in cosmetics for millennia.

Breathing ordinary soot is sub-optimal.

The set of things that are sub optimal to breathe is pretty wide ranging though. I agree that breathing soot is not great, but I don't think this is particularly because it contains CNTs, as much as because it is a fine particulate that can get into and block up alveoli. I can't think of any fine particulates off the top of my head that are particularly good to breathe in.

Soot is the first known environmental carcinogen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimney_sweeps'_carcinoma).

I think Paracelsus description of lung cancer in miners might predate that.

"Paracelsus was a pioneer in chemistry and chemotherapy. He introduced mercury, lead, sulfur, iron, zinc, copper, arsenic, iodine, and potassium as internal remedies. But he gave due warning in his writings that all chemicals are potentially poisons, and concentration and dose are what make them poisonous or nonpoisonous. His collected papers on chemotherapy of various ailments, including cancers, were published by his followers in 1567 in a book,4De Grandibus. In it, there is the first description of industrial cancer, cancer of the lung in miners of metal ores and in the workers who smelted the ore."

from here - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cncr.25825/full

To counterbalance, it is important to know that the structure of fullerenes strongly affects their chemical properties and hence toxicity. It does not immediately follow that just because CNTs are rolled up graphene that graphene will be just as toxic.

C60 for example not only shows no indication of toxicity but also appears to have health benefits. My general understanding is while relatively little is known about graphene, what is known suggests it is much safer than CNTs [1]. As well, CNTs are most dangerous when inhaled. CNTs can do damage once inside a cell but breaching membrane is a special enough cirscumstance to make it relatively easily solvable compared to how to mass produce the fullerenes in the first place. The asbestos like quality also seems to be length dependent [2] and most risky to workers - which is a more controllable environment. While it is important to know how harmful these substances may be to us and our environment and I am a tad wary of CNTs, one must keep in mind that the setting of these experiments tend to be exceptional. The fear mongering on this seems like it will end up like GMO, vaccines and fission; yet another inappropriately maligned technology of great potential.

[1] The results show that GO [digraphene oxide] has a moderate toxicity to organisms since it can induce minor (about 20%) cell growth inhibition and slight hatching delay of zebrafish embryos at a dosage of 50 mg/L, but did not result in significant increase of apoptosis in embryo, while MWNTs exhibit acute toxicity leading to a strong inhibition of cell proliferation and serious morphological defects in developing embryos even at relatively low concentration of 25 mg/L

[2] The apparent similarity between multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) and asbestos fibers has generated serious concerns about their safety profile. The asbestos-like pathogenicity observed for long, pristine nanotubes (NTlong, see scheme) can be completely alleviated if their effective length is decreased as a result of chemical functionalization, such as with tri(ethylene glycol) (TEG).

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11426-012-4620-z

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201207664/ab...

It's ok, most of us, men, would stick our penises into anything.

Speak for yourself.

really?

http://www.landforce.co.uk/layout-images/home-wood-chipper.j...

really

http://nz.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=2012032619114...

Fun graphene fact: As the article mentions, graphene was first isolated at the University of Manchester using sticky tape. For this discovery, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics... making Andre Geim the first person to be awarded both the Nobel Prize and the Ig Nobel Prize. He was previously awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for magnetically levitating a live frog.

So which accomplishment do you find more rewarding? While I see graphene becoming an extremely popular 21st century material, levitating a frog is the first step to levitating anything larger.

The frog was levitated using diamagnetic levitation which is pretty much useless for anything in the real-world (hence the ig Nobel, not Nobel).

The magnetic field used was stronger than the confinement field in ITER - so stronger magnets than you need for nuclear fusion.

We can already levitate much larger things, such as trains.

Thanks. Good point on the trains, completely missed that.

I guess levitating a live frog seems more interesting to me however. To be able to use magnetics to simulate gravity for humans safely, is IMO, a huge barrier (of many) to space travel/living one day.

My understanding is that they do use such magnets for microgravity experiments. Here is a cool video on diamagnetic levitation from the University of Nottingham: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nod54HFkH0o

This is a good idea which won't solve the underlying problems with poor condom usage in places which really need it (Africa).

That's being powered by deliberate misinformation campaigns and cultural leftovers, not the specific properties of condoms (though improving them is always a good idea).

When it comes to human life, things aren't binary. A 1% increase in condom usage can have massive impact on the health and safety of millions of people. It's another straw we can add to the camel's back.

In some cases "underlying" problems (eg misinformation campaigns and cultural leftovers) are really just used as excuses by men who don't like how condoms feel. Fix that, and many will be happy to ignore those thing.

As an aside: don't forget the largest major anti-condom propagandists is not African at all (ie, the Catholic church).

>As an aside: don't forget the largest major anti-condom propagandists is not African at all (ie, the Catholic church).

That would be the curch that also goes on about abstinence before marriage and monogamy afterwards? Never understood why the church gets beaten up for that (not a fan of the stance on condom use but this implies people "religously" follow one of their rules while blatantly ignoring others).

The difference is that you can't really convince people to practice abstinence and monogamy. You can quite easily convince people to not use condoms. Failing to take this into account when you are in a position of authority is unethical at best. Spreading misinformation such as HIV being able to get through condoms is plain old evil.

If you abstain you have no chance of getting pregnant. It depends: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/3167/do-condoms-... .

Sex is part of human nature. It used to happen before Humans invented the notion of marriage. The church is trying to stop something that is intrinsically a part of us, that is a bad strategy and is actively making the world a WORSE place.

A better idea would be to encourage people to use condoms. This does not circumvent human nature and has a much better chance of working.

Don't defend ill thought out policy with bad logic.

Violence and war are also parts of human nature, that doesn't mean religions should give up preaching peace and forgiveness.

Most people don't wake up in the morning with the urge to fight someone, a lot of people do wake up with the urge to have sex. Sex, like voilence, will always happen. We need to find a way to work with what we've got rather than trying to suppress are human needs.

> people "religously" follow one of their rules while blatantly ignoring others

That's mostly how it works. People follow the rules they like and ignore the ones they don't.

It's not just about (not) following rules. When you have no access to condoms because of the church, it doesn't matter what you think and follow.

> this implies people "religously" follow one of their rules while blatantly ignoring others

Is that so implausible?

Or women, who don't like how condoms feel. AFAIK, women are a lot more discriminating about whether or not sex feels any good.

Of course, the worst countries are probably the ones with lots of unregulated prostitution, so in those cases it's probably the men to blame.

I agree with your point.

However, the reason that I said "men" is that most of the time women aren't the problem. There are three main scenarios where condoms are helpful to society:

1) As a form of birth control. In this case the woman may not have access to other forms, and she has to rely on the man wearing a condom. If the man doesn't like it she is often left without options (particularly in jurisdictions where - unfortunately - consent laws are different for women who are married). Even if a women doesn't like sex with a condom she usually prefers it to yet-another-baby.

2) As a protection against sexually transmitted disease. A subset of that is sexually promiscuous women who dislike condoms (and in that case you are 100% correct - a condom which feels good to women will help). However, the other case - women who are paid to have sex - is unfortunately more common, and in that case the woman often has few options if the man doesn't want to wear a condom.

3) Gay Sex. Obviously this is really a subset of (2) above, but I'm putting it separately because it's quite a large vector for sexually transmitted diseases, and increased condom use would cut it dramatically.

>3) Gay Sex

It is not 1988 anymore, and it's called AIDS not GRID anymore. What else? 4) Bi sex 5) Threesome sex 6) Lesbian with strapon sex?

> What else? 4) Bi sex

If it's two bisexual men

> 5) Threesome sex

If it's three men.

> 6) Lesbian with strapon sex?

No, because that wouldn't involve any penises.

The parent was arguing that it's more common for men to be making decisions about condom usage than women. Why would lesbians use a condom?

> Why would lesbians use a condom?

It makes toy clean-up easier.

Sorry, what is the correct term for sex between two men these days? That's the specific issue I was attempting to highlight (and I was making a distinction between that and other sex because - to generalise - the power difference between two gay men is different to between a man and a woman).

Lesbian with strapon sex? - not sure there is a huge incident of sexually transmitted disease associated with that?

what is the correct term for sex between two men these days

Men sex, or just mex. And if you do it with a guy from Texas, it's called texmex.

> what is the correct term for sex between two men these days?

MSM - men who have sex with men.

That is "mainstream media" is ermm mainstream usage. Most gay men I know just call it "anal" without making a big song and dance over it. It is 2013 after all.

Anal includes women.

> It is 2013 after all.

And even today people are executed or imprisoned for life because they are gay.

its more likely that the men has power over the women, especially in under-developed nations.

People don't feel the need to turn to God(s) when they are doing fine. That's why the Catholic Church goes out of its way to make people miserable and afraid. They have been doing that in Europe for centuries, now Africa is the better target.

Actually, you can't really fix the 'feel' problem, because the 'feeling' is mostly imaginary. The problem with condoms is part education, part laziness and part men actually wanting women to have more kids.

I don't know, to have to pull back the foreskin and have it immobile during sex, is a pretty big difference.

You might want to consider a different brand. Never had that problem, not even heard of it, and I'm from a not-circumcised country.

Where did you read that? Have you ever actually used a condom?

Yes. That's how I know, but nice job of being an example.

Actually I was thinking strongly about who they were, I just didn't want to name names in this forum.

But the sector they operate most flagrantly and disastrously is still Africa.

Melinda Gates herself said condoms, in their current state, don't really solve a lot of contraceptive issues in Africa in an article she wrote for Foreign Policy. But any advancement in the technology that encourages greater adoption is a net positive.

Certainly worth a read:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/26/why_birth_c...

I'm very glad to live in this era. I can imagine a few years from now young people will be talking about how back then they used very thick condoms that suppressed all pleasure and people still fucked using them.

I have always wanted to know.

What does Bill Gates want for the world?

He's in India helping Polio efforts [1] and helping distribute mosquito nets in Africa. [2]

What does his philanthropic soul want, in the end and in the larger scheme of things?

Has he ever expressed this or laid out?

There wasn't much in his AMA on Reddit a while ago. [3]

[1] http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230330950...

[2] http://www.kplu.org/post/bill-gates-vs-mosquitoes-whos-winni...

[3] http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/18bhme/im_bill_gates_c...

"Here’s My Plan to Improve Our World — And How You Can Help" from 10 days ago: http://www.wired.com/business/2013/11/bill-gates-wired-essay...

"We take a double-pronged approach: (1) Narrow the gap so that advances for the rich world reach the poor world faster, and (2) turn more of the world’s IQ toward devising solutions to problems that only people in the poor world face."

There was an interesting profile in Forbes about how he saw improving access to birth control, eliminating childhood and early adult mortality, and improving education both here and abroad as ways of leading to decreased populations and increased wealth and happiness.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2011/11/02/the-sec...

He made his mission pretty clear. He believes every human life has equal value. He wants to make basic services and liberties the developed world takes for granted available to every human being on planet Earth. He's applying his wealth and expertise to high impact projects that can make that a reality.

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do

I remember he made a comment (can't remember where) that he chooses projects which are likely to have the greatest impact per dollar, or something to that effect. You'll have to find the source yourself, though.

He gives where he think it can do the most good the most efficiently. Specifically, his major goals seem to be global disease reduction and elimination.

The Bill Gates Foundation is positioning itself in line with organizations such as the World Health Organization. Or at least that's how I see it.

i'm sure gates, with his ambition, wants to be all of the below, and more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Foundation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Corporation_of_New_Yor... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._and_Catherine_T._MacArt... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_and_Flora_Hewlett_Found... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_and_Lucile_Packard_Founda...

Try stuff from him & Warren Buffet on Charlie Rose. All interviews are available on the website.

Seems like he wants to eradicate diseases, which is a pretty great plan. Polio, malaria, and now presumably AIDS and other STDs.

Why do rich white men develop condoms for Africa? So that there will be fewer black people. He's just like his father, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ6mjx4J7dM

A material as strong as graphene may have curious abrasive properties.

Tribologist here, about to publish a study of reciprocating friction and wear in graphene-loaded plastic composites. We see two orders of magnitude wear reductions at 30,000 cycles for 10% graphene by mass (dry reciprocating conditions) and suppression of the abrasive wear mode. Also friction coefficient goes down by 10%, but other studies have reported much bigger friction coefficient improvements.

Doesn't graphite (a close relative of graphene) have lubricative properties?

Yep. We had graphite gel and spray for our pinewood derby axles in Boy Scouts.

Same here -- graphite lubricant was the standard stuff.

A locksmith tried to fix our sticking front door lock with a bit of graphite spray, which I hadn't seen before.

Scribble a pencil on a piece of paper for a while, fold it in half, blow the dust into the lock and run the key in and out a few times. Works like a charm.

I doubt the final product will be pure graphene, I'm sure it'll be thinly coated with something else (Teflon?)

Isn't it not recommended to put Teflon inside of yourself or am I misremembering something?

Teflon is actually completely inert in your body. It's only a problem if it is heated to the point of giving out fumes at 260 celsius, and I hope that isn't happening in the bedroom...

They use telfon in all sorts of implants. I don't think there are really any safety concerns.

Teflon or PFOA is supposedly in everyone's blood already at least in the US and probably most western nations it's so pervasive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanoic_acid

> Teflon or PFOA

Teflon and PFOA are not the same thing!

Teflon is made from PFOA true, but the properties of the two are quite different.

Teflon is completely inert, PFOA isn't.

If Teflon were anymore inert, it'd be a noble gas.

Teflon is extremely inert, but it's not quite as inert as a noble gas - the c-c bonds can dissociate and burn. (The f-c-f bonds can't.)

I had read in another source that it would be a mixture of graphene and latex. Surely it will have some kind of lubricant.

Most condoms today are enhanced with advanced lubricants.

Hopefully the packaging is slightly different than what is pictured. :)

Or not. The depicted condom would provide quite effective contraception for more reasons than just the material strength.

The whole point of the article is that encouraging condom use is better then discouraging it.

Depending who unpacks it. I suppose that richest man in the world can be turn-on for many women...

Maybe fund a small chip in your boxers that emits the loud cry of a baby when you take them off.

It's not the material that's the problem in many places, but the cost. There are reports of people using post-exposure prophylaxis drugs over condoms because they're cheaper!

More info: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24942903

Only in places that allow use of cheap generic post-exposure drugs produced in India. Unfortunately the very same drugs in Europe are hell expensive. They should be probably subsidized by the country like Germany which is famous for its sex industry.

So, back in the day we would have said "bring your rubbers." I suppose once this condom hits the market we will say something like "make sure to bring the lead for your pencil." Actually, do people ever refer to the graphite in pencils as lead anymore? We did when I was a kid.

The condom is something in bad need of a radical overhaul and it would have a huge effect. At least, if this could deal with the sensation component of the problem, then it would get more people to use them.

Still problems would be distribution (religious blocking and availability for the poor are issues here), education (family planning so people know the full financial effects of having lots of kids) and "killing the moment" when you stop to put the thing on.

At 100K per competing group, it seems like the foundation could be getting lots of "bang" for its buck here.

Considering that most people don't wear condoms because they they think its coming in their way its a good idea to fund something that will encourage people to use condoms in developing nations such as africa and asia. Gates doing good job KUDOS. Now i only expect him to interviene into ms's anti-google missions and put a hold on that shitty business. Those are some cheap publicity stunts from ms while google is busy making cool products and amaze people[http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/11/21/google-building-chro...].

The donation was 100 grand to 11 different teams. That's about 1 engineer per company for 1 year (if that?), is that really enough to do this? There's first the invention of this thing, then there's manufacturing process, etc.

Plus PR, and global debate. The mass debate has to be worth 10x that much to the cause.

I preferred the Guardian[1] piece on this, for it's lack of real content (who's heard of graphene?) and very entertaining comments.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/21/graphen...

I can imagine the tech support calls. "Have you tied taking it off and on again?"

so, just to be clear, is this still vaporware, a prototype condom has not been made yet?

The grant has just been made. I think it will be a couple of years before this becomes real.

No, it's aerogel condoms that are vaporware. Ho ho.

Finally, science has the answer to "man of steel, woman of kleenex"[1].

[1]http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html

Am I the only one that finds "impenetrable" a funny selling point? It makes perfect sense but still sounds funny. I'm surprised they didn't go for "unbreakable".

I posted the same idea 244 days ago but was downvoted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5432569

just by association with inpenetrable, armor-piercing bullets, etc...

http://media.uow.edu.au/news/UOW118285.html

"UOW researchers have used graphene to develop a new composite material which can produce the toughest fibres to date- even tougher than spider silk and Kevlar!"

there's an advertisement in there somewhere...

Let's hope they will also be 100x stronger than current ones, so they never break.

Just wait until somebody staples them to a sex-ed pamphlets and hands them out on a college campus.

Can we consider using "impenetrable condoms" as an intended pun?

I swear. He better call it Steel Gates

that'll make some money.

Every propellerhead on the planet will buy some just because.

Weird comment. I, like most people, will likely buy hundreds with which to fuck people.

Micro... hard?

But...don't you want penetration? wah wah wah

Gives the expression "Billware" a whole new meaning!

At the end of the article: "Now read: Do humans dream of android prostitutes?"

Is that Google's answer to Microsoft's condoms? ;-)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com