Genetic engineers are on the cusp of growing leather — without the animal — by a means of creating a bovine-like collagen from yeast, according to this week’s Economist magazine. The sturdy proteins can then be woven into a leather-like material that producers hope will eventually replace, or at least be alternative to, traditional leather made primarily from cowhide.
Leather tanning is a nasty business, requiring strong chemicals to break down and soften the naturally tough skin. And that’s not even considering the demise of Bessie and her kin.
The synthetic skins will also be blemish-free and of regular shape and size, making for less waste when it comes to cutting out patterns for shoes, purses, and belts.
This is an example of how today’s technology is of immense benefit.
ANOTHER INVENTION with even broader reach is the robot-directed sewing machine. Two companies, SoftWear Automation out of Atlanta and Sewbo of Seattle, are close to arriving at technology that will replace a human being behind a sewing machine.
SoftWear’s “Sewbot” can already make T-shirts, predicting that it will be able turn out 3,300 shirts a day at an individual plant.
While Sewbo is keeping its plans more closely to the vest, it too will produce the casual shirts most preferred by today’s youth.
The two companies use different methods. The Sewbot attacks the problem of unwieldy cloth with robots able to adjust the material as it is fed through a machine’s needles.
The Sewbo is less accommodating and uses a plastic coating to stiffen the fabric, making it easier to control. After the design is complete, the plastic is dissolved by soaking in warm water.
Besides mass production of a greater scale, the advantage to robot tailors is that at a moment’s notice the dimensions of a shirt can be changed to tailor fit a certain size or shape.
And what may seem a downside — taking away jobs from humans — can be turned into a positive because without the need of cheap labor in third world countries the factories can be returned stateside.
This is what progress looks like — and there’s no turning back.
— Susan Lynn
