Pogue does the pants

Explaining Nanotechnology (By David Pogue, The New York Times)

A couple of Sundays ago, "CBS News Sunday Morning" ran my segment about the coming era of nanotechnology. During the preparation of the story, I had two great experiences.

At one point, I set out to illustrate an interview subject's comment that the earliest fruits of this technology are pretty mundane. One of his examples was "nanotechnology pants," which turned out to be Dockers Stain Defenders slacks; as a gag, I put them on and prepared to dump a cup of coffee onto my own thigh to see just how well they'd resist staining.

I warned the camera crew, though, that this would have to be a one-take deal; once the pants were wet, I figured, you'd see the dark spot and we couldn't do a retake. Imagine my shock, though, when the coffee rolled off as though from a duck's back, leaving the pants not only unstained, but completely dry! (The pants don't feel any different from any other cotton pants.) We wound up filming the dump-the-coffee shot six times, and the pants never did get wet. Man, remind me to wear them next time I'm on a plane flight with children. More here (registration required)

Blogger's Note: Once Pogue gets through the requisite "pants" review, (which of course is old news to regular NanoBot readers) there's an interview with nanotech venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson that makes for more-worthwhile reading. Another quick thought, though: Dockers Stain Defenders are made from DuPont's Teflon. It's the Eddie Bauer line that contains the NanoWhiskers from Nano-Tex, which uses technology that's a little more "nano" than simply DuPont downsized.

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