Today’s show is about gloves. In particular, latex ones.
We use over 150 billion a year of these, and probably even more this year, for obvious reasons.
But these are disposable gloves made of a synthetic, petroleum-based rubber that just ends up in a landfill and takes a century to degrade.
There is natural latex rubber, and it degrades a lot quicker, in a couple years, but the proteins it contains can cause allergic reactions.
Scientists at Cranfield University in the UK have another idea: a reformulated, protein-free natural latex that can biodegrade in just weeks.
As if that wasn’t enough, the creators say producing these gloves is a lot less energy-intensive than synthetic latex gloves, which are typically made by dipping, drying and curing liquid latex around a mannequin hand.
And the trees that produce the rubber are also pulling carbon out of the atmosphere, so you might say the method and the finished product work hand in glove together.
It was on this day in 1997 that none other than saxophone icon Kenny G set a world record for longest note held on a saxophone, over 45 minutes.
The record’s since been broken, but G has suggested he’ll try to win back the record by holding a single note for the length of an entire airplane flight.
Was the note a G by chance?
How a new type of glove can reduce environmental damage (BBC)
World’s Longest Note Held on Saxophone (Complex)
Kenny G Plans To Hold One Note On The Sax For An Entire Flight (Huffington Post)
Our backers on Patreon are like our songbirds, join them today
Gloves photo by Flood G via Flickr/Creative Commons
