Gulf war veterans may be surprised by an admission buried in a patent filed by the US government鈥檚 Naval Research Laboratory: the polyacrylamide compound used since the second world war to stop dust blowing off desert airfields and roads degrades to an acrylamide monomer that is 鈥渁 known neurotoxin to humans鈥�, says the patent. So the lab has developed a safe alternative. Granulated sugar or corn syrup is mixed with dishwashing liquid, phosphate, starch and water to form a hard crust on dusty land or sand. Tests by the Marine Corps in the desert near Yuma, Arizona, show the crust can withstand the downdraught from heavy-lift helicopters. It can also protect dusty land against wind erosion (WO 2005/021674).
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The music and movie industries will love it. Philips has come up with a system that immediately erases tracks or films if you make any attempt to copy them.
The firm, based in Eindhoven in the Netherlands, proposes building MP3 and personal video players with digital memory in two parts. One holds music or movie files in encrypted form; the other holds a digital key that is required to decrypt each file. If someone tries to copy the content, a battery-powered circuit overwrites the key. So though the encrypted music and movie files remain, they cannot be played (WO 2005/001673).
Beach volleyball is in vogue, and players need a shoe that offers traction on sand but is still comfortable to wear on hard surfaces, says Nike of Beaverton, Oregon. Its solution looks a little like a miniature hovercraft. The sole is made of soft foam studded with downward-pointing fins, with a rubbery lip that forms a skirt around the edge. On a beach, the lip traps sand underneath the shoe, giving the fins greater traction. But if the player runs onto a harder surface the lip and fins give a springy feel, cushioning the foot (WO 2005/037004).
