Core77

Greasy plastic. That doesn't sound pleasant, but it may be the future; researchers at Carnegie-Mellon have discovered that adding grease to certain plastics greatly increases conductivity, paving the way for things like roll-up newspapers that use electric ink, debit cards that shock you when you try to overdraw, and whatever else you crazy kids can think of.

Please note that the grease is chemically embedded in the plastic, not slathered over it like it is on the wax paper at KFC. The scientific description of how it actually works made our eyes glaze over--we're designers and dreamers over here--but science hounds who know what copolymers are can drool over the details here.