Science for the lazy

Gone are the days of lugging your laundry down the block to the local laundromat, only to find that you are short on quarters. Thanks to the hard-working scientists at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, tech-savvy shoppers may soon be strutting their stuff in self-cleaning pants.

Using nanotechnology, researchers developed a process for treating fabric with a titanium dioxide coating that, when triggered by sunlight, breaks down bacteria, dirt and pollutants. So rather than washing clothes with soap and water, one would simply need to lie out in the sun to get clothes fresh and clean. It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.

Along the basis of science fiction dreams of the future, nanotech has become much more real for the general public in the last few years. Forbes even named its top ten nanotech products of 2003, including a high-performance ski wax and tennis balls with double the life span of natural rubber balls.

I guess it was only a matter of time before people stopped talking about how nanotech might save the world and turned their focus to how it can be marketed.