Now that it’s spring, we’re seeing more people riding bikes through neighborhoods.
And where there are bikes, there are usually bike helmets.
Those helmets have been more or less the same for many years, but there’s a new effort to make safer and more responsive headgear with 3D printing.
These helmets come from an international team of researchers.
The main change is in the shock-absorbing material.
Standard helmets use liners that are designed to move the force of an impact through its foam rather than through your skull.
This helmet has what are called auxetic metastructures, complex geometric forms that can contract on impact.
They more thoroughly absorb the force than the honeycomb-shaped structures in regular foam.
And because the material is 3D printed out of hyperelastic polymers, the helmets can be lighter, and they can be customized for specific heads.
Those are bonuses for comfort as well as safety.
There’s still a lot of testing to do, of course, and eventually the team wants to find ways to bring down the cost so that these helmets are cheaper than the ones we can buy now in stores.
But those new innovations could be powering the bike helmets we buy and wear a little ways… down the road.
The first Thursday in April is National Burrito Day.
One place you might mark the occasion is Santa Fe, New Mexico.
That’s where you’ll find Tia Sophia’s, known for being the first restaurant to put a breakfast burrito on the menu.
Only In Your State reports that in its earliest form, Tia Sophia’s breakfast burrito did not always come with eggs.
The main ingredients were ground beef and potato, though customers could request egg if they wanted.
The breakfast burrito isn’t this restaurant’s only signature item; Tia Sophia’s is also known for the Christmas Burrito, named because it’s covered in red and green chiles.
Breakfast, Christmas… is there ever a bad time to have a burrito?
Safer bike helmet with new design of material (University of Gothenburg)
The Breakfast Burrito Was Invented At This Restaurant In New Mexico In The 1970s (Only In New Mexico)
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Photo by Mohammad Hossein Zamani, via University of Gothenburg