[Pro-Bush]

Looks like nature has the upper hand over Bell-Labs (LUCENT)

[sticker]

Sponge Bob, call home

[jrawk]

My Marketing Degree tells me that with a million years already clocked, the sponge has a First Movers Advantage. Those first to market tend to have a technological advantage. The sponge has been working on the problem longer.

However aren't we part of nature? When we finally build a better fiber optic cable will we be humble enough to write, Nature has finally developed a better silcate light conduit?

-- lates
-- jrawk

[Lazamataz]

And in related news:

Undersea Sponge (USSP) +3.25 (+7.6%)
Lucent Technologies (LU) -0.71 (-37.5%)

[Moonman62]

The hair of polar bear fur also acts like optical fiber, transmitting light to the bear's black skin underneath.

[StatesEnemy]

Sponge in Question:

Source

[LiteKeeper]

SPOTREP - ID

[DainBramage]

"Oh yeah, well lets bury Mrs Songe under the street and see who works best"

"I'll beat him like a red headed Dial Up Modem"

[Chewbacca]

While the sponge may have designed a better fibre optic cable (Betamax) they failed to file a patent for their design.

The current LUCENT (VHS) version wins out because the patent belongs to them.

[nightdriver]

"Modern technology cannot yet compete with some of the sophisticated optical systems possessed by biological organisms," Joanna Aizenberg and colleagues wrote in their report, published in the journal Nature.

"Here we show that the spicules of the deep-sea 'glass' sponge Euplectella have remarkable fiber-optical properties, which are surprisingly similar to those of commercial telecommunication fibers -- except that the spicules themselves are formed under normal ambient conditions and have some technological advantages over man-made versions."

I don't suppose they actually tested these "spicules" to see what their optical properties are?

You know, dimetrical uniformity, cross-sectional index of refraction profile, decibel-meter transparency - stuff like that?

Yet they make the statement that modern tech cannot compete?

Somehow, that gets my back up. Dunno quite why.

[HP8753]

Undersea Sponge?????

Did the Clintoons take up SCUBA diving???