It looks like wood. It smells like wood. It even feels like wood. So, it must be wood, right?
Wrong.
In one the most uncanny examples of product recycling since Charlton Heston first discovered that the popular food Soylent Green -- in the movie by the same name -- was actually made from human corpses, Taiwanese scientists have figured out how to turn computers into ersatz wood.
PHOTO: CHEN TSE-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
"We're currently seeking to patent this technology," said Chen Chia-hsun (
In order to facilitate closer exchanges between academics and high-tech industries, the ministry held a science and technology fair yesterday.
All the best and latest gadgets from six of the nation's universities were on display as electronics industry captains strolled from booth to booth.
While scientists and pupils sporting pocket protectors were in abundance at the fair, a spicy four-woman dance troupe also helped to launch the event.
Wearing little more than sports bras and tight pants, the divas performed a synchronized dance to Ricky Martin's She Bangs.
With their passions properly stoked, fair-goers then descended on the exhibitions.
Unfortunately, some technologies were hard to grasp for industry outsiders.
Less tech-savvy visitors at the show tended to linger only fleetingly at booths showcasing items such as "designs of three-phase, permanent-magnet synchronous motors for low-speed applications" or "optimal intra/inter-code mode switching."
But the most popular booth was also the simplest. Displaying merely two "wooden" benches, four jars of powdery substances and a computer's central processing unit, Far East University's booth drew the biggest crowds.
National Yunlin University of Science and Technology professor Shu Chi-min (
In addition to melting out the copper and other valuable metals for recycling, the technology also allows the polymers constituting the boards to be reused.
"These benches are made just from CPU boards and recycled plastic milk containers," Chen said, pointing to two stylish, sturdy benches that looked uncannily wooden.
Stronger than wood, the CPU board-based substance is also impervious to weather and parasites and is 20 to 50 percent cheaper to manufacture than wood, Chen said.
He added that the density of the material can be adjusted, allowing screws and nails to penetrate it just as easily as wood.
Basically, the substance boasts all the advantages of high-quality wood with none of the drawbacks.
"Think of how many trees we could save if we started recycling all our discarded computers instead of wiping out whole forests," Chen said.
"We're talking with a recycling company now. We hope to have this stuff on the market in a year," he said.
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