In an event never seen before, scientists witnessed metal healing itself.
A team from Sandia National Laboratories and Texas A&M University observed the metallic self-repair as they were testing the resilience of the metal. They used a transmission electron microscope to pull the ends of the metal 200 times every second.
Like an annoying sibling continuously pushing your buttons on a cross-country roadtrip, eventually, the metal wears thin and snaps.
However, scientists were amazed that instead of eventually punching its annoying sister in frustration, the metal continuously healed up the fatigue damage it was receiving.
"This was absolutely stunning to watch first-hand," said Sandia materials scientist Brad Boyce.
"What we have confirmed is that metals have their own intrinsic, natural ability to heal themselves, at least in the case of fatigue damage at the nanoscale," Boyce said.
Of course, there were certain conditions in the experiment that one doesn't find out in nature. For example, the experiment was completed in a vacuum. Usually, there are air particles getting between the atoms of the metal as it's fractured, but without the air, the metal could just stick back together
But the scientists hope that now that they have witnessed the phenomenon, they can reproduce it in other environments with other metals, which may change engineering as we know it.
"The extent to which these findings are generalizable will likely become a subject of extensive research," Boyce said.
And if we mix self-healing metals with all the advanced robots and AI we're making, I think we all know what we get.
I just have to say there are a lot of great movie futures we could aim for.
Star Trek
Tomorrowland
Even Bill and Ted's stoner utopia looks pretty good.
Why are we pursuing the machine apocalypse of The Terminator franchise?
It just seems like a bad idea.
On the other hand, never having to get anything metal repaired could be nice.
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