Should we view the last 500 years or so of Western culture as a strange interlude, defined by printed page and other artifacts that once dominated the landscape but are now fading in relevance?
In this forum, Thomas Pettitt makes the deliberately provocative case for a Gutenberg “Parenthesis” — a period marked by the reign of the printing press and isolated from the largely oral culture that came before, and the digitally shaped culture emerging today. Pettitt, who finds an upside in society’s return to “something that resembles the past,” encounters some resistance among his listeners.
From MIT World
MIT researchers have produced carbon fibers coated in carbon nanotubes without degrading the underlying fiber's strength. The engineered fibers may be woven into composites to make stronger, lighter airplane parts.Image: Stephen Steiner
Planes, trains and automobiles: faster, stronger, lighter
New technique advances carbon-fiber composites.
