A Call to Ban Sex Robots

Science fiction has long toyed with the idea of robot companions that provide romance or sex for humans. Modern robotic technology capable has not yet caught up with such fantasies, but the mere possibility has already inspired a new campaign to ban the creation of such robots. Advocates of the ban argue that sex robots would “contribute to gender inequalities in society” by reinforcing attitudes that objectify women in particular.

The Campaign Against Sex Robots directly compares the idea of sex robots with human prostitution by suggesting that the sellers of sex are “reduced to a thing” in the minds of the buyers. A position paper for the campaign by Kathleen Richardson, senior research fellow in the ethics of robotics at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK, argues that sex robots would not have a positive impact on society by replacing human prostitution, as some people have envisioned. Instead, the campaign’s advocates suggests that sex robots would build on the perceived inferiority of women and children to justify them as sex objects:

We propose that the development of sex robots will further reduce human empathy that can only be developed by an experience of mutual relationship. We challenge the view that the development of adults and child sex robots will have a positive benefit to society, but instead further reinforce power relations of inequality and violence. We take issue with those arguments that propose that sex robots could help reduce sexual exploitation and violence towards prostituted persons, pointing to all the evidence that shows how technology and the sex trade coexist and reinforce each other creating more demand for human bodies.

To prevent that future, the campaign wants to discourage development of hardware or software code meant for sex robots. Today’s closest counterparts to “sex robots” are either realistic sex dolls or sex simulation games that provide a virtual girlfriend (or boyfriend) for the user’s romantic or sexual interests. Crude humanoid robots that look like humans exist, but still have a long ways to go before they can move and speak in a realistic way — or have the artificial intelligence to interact in a believable way with humans.

A Problem Beyond Sex Robots?

I doubt many people would quibble with the campaign’s interest in spurring discussions about gender inequalities and sexual exploitation of humans. It makes sense to consider the potential impact of sex robots on societal mindsets and the development of empathy. Unexpected progress in robotics and artificial intelligence could potentially lead to a not-so-distant future with realistic humanoid robots being casually used by humans.

But the call for a blanket ban on the development of sex robots raises several questions. First, it’s unclear why robotic technology should be singled out for a ban when many other existing technologies already contribute to the reinforcement of gender inequality in society. The same argument about technology leading to objectification and reinforcement of gender inequality could be made for pornography, dating apps or online services, and sex or romance simulation games.

Some emerging virtual reality games and applications also continue the objectification of women in particular, even if they make the users look rather silly in the process. (Somewhat NSFW: hat tip to Boing Boing.) The problems of gender inequality and sexual exploitation seem to go well beyond any single technology.

The Question of Robot Progress

Second, many of the technological advances in robotics or AI required for realistic sex robots would overlap with the hardware and software development needed to create social robots in general. Computer scientists and roboticists would indirectly advance development of sex robots just by making progress in the artificial intelligence needed for social robots and building more realistic humanoid robots. (See: “Making Sure AI’s Rapid Rise Is No Surprise.”)

In that sense, singling out the specific sex application of such technologies for a ban might prove impractical to enforce. Would advocates push for the ban to cover a subservient humanoid robot that wasn’t specifically made as a sex robot? It’s almost certain some human customers would end up seeking such robots as companions to fulfill emotional needs, or use such robots for their own sexual gratification.

The Campaign Against Sex Robots may still succeed in generating some beneficial discussions about gender inequality and sexual exploitation. Such discussions will likely be worthwhile in a world where new mediums and technologies continue shaping societal attitudes toward sex, romance and gender equality. But a call for a blanket ban on sex robot technology seems much less likely to succeed.

Your BS Detector for Warp Drives, Double Moons, and Other Implausible Claims

Today is the day when, according to a widely circulated email/Facebook hoax, Mars will appear as large in the sky as the full moon. In reality, nothing short of the catastrophic disruption of the entire solar system could allow such a thing to happen (and if that were happening, you probably would have heard the news). Still, I have sympathy for those who were taken in by the hoax. We live in an age of amazing space imagery: snapshots of nitrogen glaciers on Pluto, a robot bouncing off a comet, ice moons hovering over the rings of Saturn. If you don’t think too hard about it, one more wild view doesn’t seem so implausible.

The barrage of genuine scientific amazement surely also explains why so many people credulously accept other erroneous or at least misleading stories, such as the ongoing reports that NASA has validated an “impossible space drive”–or, in some variations, that NASA “accidentally created a warp drive.” I’m sympathetic again. After all, NASA really did send an ion-poweredspacecraft to the dwarf planet Ceres. That’s pretty wild. Again, if you don’t think too hard about it, why not accept another, even more staggering technological breakthrough?

Some quick online research will usually separate the serious stuff from the hoaxes and the hype, but many people lack the time or even the inclination. What would be truly helpful is a set of basic reality-check tests that anyone can apply: an all-purpose science BS-detector kit that requires little more than getting past that first hurdle of thinking. I’m going to attempt to build one right here. I’d love to hear your ideas as well.

Rule #1: Follow your intuition. I realize that this piece of advice actually, um, goes against intuition. After all, scientific findings often run contrary to our naive everyday ideas about how the world works–especially when you get to findings that take place entirely outside the realm of human experience. Still, people generally have a pretty good instinct for reading other humans, and science is ultimately a human endeavor. Does the claim sound too breathless, too credulous, too hyperbolic? Does it run strongly contrary to things you’ve heard before? If so, that certainly does not mean that it is wrong, but it means that you should activate your skepticism and press on further through the BS triage process before accepting it as right. Intuition is a very useful first filter.

Rule #2: Recast the claim in familiar terms. This is a way to make your intuition work better by negating the power of jargon and by connecting things you know to things you don’t know. “For one day Mars will appear as large as the moon.” You’ve certainly never seen that before, and it’s weird that it would happen for one day only. If someone emailed you a note claiming, “For one day, fireflies will appear as large as eagles in the sky,” I’ll bet you’d simply laugh and delete. “NASA created a space drive that could reach Mars in 10 weeks and uses no fuel.” OK, if someone told you, “General Motors invented a car that goes 1,000 mph and uses no gasoline,” your skepticism would be rightly activated. In each case, the style of the claim is the same.

Yes, some genuine discoveries may fail the smell test here, too, but the point is to keep going through the finer gradations of BS detection. As you go deeper, the legitimate science will separate out.

Rule #3: Look at the source of the story. We’re getting to the more advanced levels of triage. There is an inevitable appeal to authority at these stages. Some publications and some web sites are more trustworthy than others; some links on Facebook have more established trust than others. Does the story track back to a journalistic source? If so, is that source an attention-seeking tabloid or an enthusiast site with a clear interest in hype? Stories with no links or quoted sources are automatically more suspect. That said, some seemingly reputable publications such as WiredUK or theTelegraph have published misleading or outright irresponsible articles about the alleged “NASA space drive.” (See examples here and here.) Which brings us to…

Rule #4: Consider the authority of the claim. Now we’re at the more active-investigation type of BS detection. This requires some active investigation on the part of the reader–but honestly, not that much. Is the person making the claim someone who has plausible credentials? In the case of the Mars stories, you will never see a real astronomer cited in any of the emails–because no astronomer would endorse such nonsense. In the case of the space drive, the claims trace back to independent inventors and one small team of NASA-affiliated researchers. That one is tougher to parse, but when the stories declare that a lone inventor stands against the whole of mainstream science, your BS needle should swing instantly into the red zone.

Just for the record: Galileo was not the only one looking through a telescope in the 17th century. The Wright Brothers were not the only ones attempting heavier than air flight. Einstein was building on existing physics ideas, and he was sharing and publishing his insights openly. Anyone who cites these examples as proof that one person might be right while the whole rest of the world is wrong is being neither honest nor historically accurate.

When the claim and the evidence are wildly out of balance, set your skepticism to “full.” One prominent news organization juxtaposed an unproven test model of the “space drive” (left) with the famous but entirely imaginary impulse engines of the Starship Enterprise. (Credit: Roger Shawyer, Paramount)

Rule #5: Ask, has it been demonstrated? As astrophysicist Katie Macknoted on Twitter, it’s deceptive to claim that a space drive “works” (as many news stories did) unless it actually works as a space drive–that is, unless it actually propels a payload in the manner claimed. The Wright Brothers didn’t need to put their airplane through peer review because they flew it in front of a live audience. If someone tells you that Mars will look giant today even though that has never happened before, you should immediately ask–why not? And if a writer claims a space drive (or any novel device) has been demonstrated, you should ask–demonstrated how, by whom, and to whom?

Rule #6: Ask, has it been reviewed and published? There is a reason the peer-review system has proven so successful, despite all its flaws. Even well-meaning researchers can easily fool themselves if they get an interesting-looking error–especially if they have an emotional or financial attachment to a specific result. Peer review helps week out both deliberate and inadvertent errors, along with bad methodology and premature claims. People who spend a lifetime studying a topic tend to know more about it than those who do not! You wouldn’t hire a plumber who had no formally acknowledged training at fixing pipes. Likewise, you shouldn’t trust a self-proclaimed authority who has not been able to get his or her work past peer review. Common sense remains valuable even at this stage.

Rule #7: Check out what the skeptics say. Getting to this level requires some research, more than most casual readers will do. But in the Age of Google, a meaningful investigation of this kind need not take more than a few minutes. Just type in the basic claim along with the potent keywords: “hoax,” “skeptics,” “debunked.” These days there are self-styled skeptics ready to rebut just about everything, of course, from climate change to the Apollo program. Still, this is a powerful reality check. If the most intense skeptics are those who have spent the most time and energy studying something (see above), then the claim deserves your highest level of skepticism. This is not to say that experts cannot be wrong, or that new ideas cannot be right. But someone who does not know a field well is more likely to make an error or an unfounded assertion, and someone who does know a field is more likely to catch it.

In the case of Mars, a web search would tell you that the “as large as the moon” story has exactly zero credibility. In the more complicated case of the space drive, you would quickly find that there are fewer than 10 people in the world claiming that the drive works, while the entire rest of the physics community considers the concept dubious until proven otherwise.

That last point is important. In science, many strange-sounding ideas ultimately turn out to be supported by the evidence. General relativity and quantum mechanics come immediately to mind. Ultimately, the BS detector, like science itself, is about demanding credible, repeatable evidence. It is about applying the standard articulated by Pierre-Simon Laplace two centuries ago: “The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.” Or as it is often expressed in modern terms: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Penguins Find Each Other’s Beaks Sexy

If Tinder for penguins existed, birds with the best beak spots would get swiped right. King penguins are attracted to the colors on each other’s beaks, scientists have found—including colors we clueless humans can’t see.

King penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) live near the bottom of the world and are monogamous for about a year at a time. They’re a little smaller than emperor penguins, the ones you saw in March of the Penguins, and have a less arduous lifestyle. In the spring, they gather on the shore in massive breeding colonies. Individuals on the edges of the colony flirt with each other and form tentative pairs. Once two penguins have committed, they move farther into the colony and get down to business.

Earlier research suggested that the king penguin’s “beak spot” might be important to how it chooses mates. This is the vivid orange area on either side of the bottom of the beak. It’s really a vivid orange-and-ultraviolet area, if you have a penguin’s eyes. Penguins have cone cells that let them see UV, like many other birds, in addition to all the colors a human sees.

Ismaël Keddar of France’s Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive and his colleagues went to the Kerguelen Islands, also called the Desolation Islands, to learn more. There, about 200,000 king penguins had come together to breed.

The researchers observed penguins at the periphery of the group and selected 75 pairs* who were in the flirting stage. They gently captured both members of a pair so they could weigh the penguins, measure the colors of their beaks and chest patches with a spectrophotometer, and take other vital stats. Then they released the birds where they’d captured them. (Even at this early relationship stage, penguin partners can find each other by their voices.) Afterward, the researchers kept monitoring these penguin pairs. Some committed and laid eggs, while others broke apart to seek better prospects.

Even though humans can’t see a penguin beak in all its UV glory, the scientists could use information about the light-sensing cells in penguins’ eyes to model how their beak colors looked to other penguins. They saw thatrelationship success was tied to beak color. Penguins that formed committed pairs had similar beak colors to each other.

The other factors that researchers measured, including the orange patches on penguins’ chests and the sides of their heads, didn’t matter. Only beak color seemed important to penguins trying to choose a mate.

It’s more common in birds for males to be flashy, and for drab females to choose among them. But in king penguins, each sex may be judging the other. The authors say this makes sense because both partners need to contribute heavily to raising young. The parents take turns incubating the egg, then balancing the newly hatched chick on their feet, while the other parent looks for food. If either parent is a deadbeat, the chick won’t make it.

So both male and female king penguins have to be picky. And looking for a partner with a beak like theirs is apparently a system that works—at least until penguins hear about Match.com.

This Glass Lets You Enjoy Whiskey in Zero Gravity

When space tourism eventually takes off, you can guarantee the first travelers to shell out the money to get there will also want to partake in the finer things in life – like a good whiskey — while enjoying their place on top of the world.

But pouring a nicely aged whiskey is basically impossible without gravity there to lend a hand. Fortunately Ballantine’s, a maker of blended Scotch whiskey, has a solution: On Friday the company unveiled its Space Glass, which is the first vessel engineered specifically to deliver a distilled beverage to your lips while enjoying the weightlessness of space.

Capillary Creativity

The Space Glass, designed by space enthusiasts at the Open Space Agency, works by exploiting an age-old principle called capillary action, which was first discovered by Leonardo DaVinci. Capillary action is the ability of a liquid to defy gravity by clinging to the walls of narrow vessels. It’s the same process that allows water to travel from a plant’s roots to its flowers.

To fill Ballantine’s Space Glass, whiskey is injected through a valve at the bottom of the cup, which is made from 3-D-printed plastic, and into a reservoir. The whiskey then travels through a narrow channel that spirals up to a mouthpiece situated on the brim. All you need to do is then suck the beverage in and enjoy. By all appearances, it looks like a sleek sip cup for adults.

 

 The design team took their cup to a zero gravity testing laboratory in Bremen, Germany, called a drop tower. Here, objects are placed in a vacuum-sealed shaft and dropped from a height of 360 feet. As the capsule falls down the shaft, it creates zero-gravity conditions for a few seconds, allowing scientists to observe how objects behave in a weightless environment.

What a Robot ‘Cambrian Explosion’ Means

Half a billion years ago, Earth’s animal life rapidly evolved during the event known as the Cambrian explosion. In the future, growing swarms of robots all talking with one another could spark a similar “Cambrian explosion” for robotic evolution. A robotics expert who has worked for the U.S. military recently published a paper on the technological changes that could rapidly spawn the next generation of robots powered by advanced artificial intelligence. He also weighs the consequences of robots rapidly replacing huge numbers of human workers.

Two technologies could play the biggest roles in rapid robot and AI evolution, according to Gill Pratt, who has served as robotics program manager for the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). First, “Cloud Robotics” could allow robots to share experiences and knowledge through wireless connections and the Internet. Second, “Deep Learning” algorithms allow robots to learn from experience and apply those lessons to more general scenarios. Together, they could lead to more capable robots with the AI brains to handle many more jobs currently done by humans, according to Pratt’s paper published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

“While a Cambrian Explosion in robotics promises to improve the human condition dramatically, it also looms as a disruptive economic force, in part because of its much-discussed potential to make certain human jobs redundant,” Pratt writes. “Yet there is reason to embrace the pending robotics revolution despite such concerns.”

They Took Our Jobs

The Cambrian explosion of robotics could lead to swarms of capable robot workers replacing many human workers in a very short time. That rapid change could easily have a disruptive effect by leaving many people jobless and without much value to offer to the new economy. Eventually, a robot-driven economy might actually satisfy the traditional human demand for goods and services and eliminate the demand for additional labor. Such a world might end up looking like today’s music business; an economy that offers “superstar wages” to a few highly talented people and only pays low levels of income to the rest.

Still, Pratt points to a few possible ways out of humanity’s future dilemma. First, some human services and products will probably sell for higher prices than cheaper robotic alternatives. Today’s examples include hand-crafted goods and live music tickets that sell for higher prices than machine-made goods or music recordings.

What To Check When Your Engine Cranks And Refuses To Start

Your vehicle’s engine may refuse to operate as expected for several reasons. The culprit is always related to the three things your engine needs most: fuel for combustion, sufficient compression within the cylinders, and a spark. Without all three, the engine will not perform as it was designed. The problem is, each can be affected by other parts and systems, making it difficult to diagnose the root cause of a problem.

In this article, we’ll focus primarily on the factors that can cause your engine to crank (i.e. turn over), but not start. We’ll begin with the items that are easiest to troubleshoot, and advance to the more difficult items toward the end.

Inspect The Fuses First

This step sounds intuitive, but a lot of people neglect to do it. Whenever you’re experiencing issues with components that rely on your vehicle’s electronics, check the fuses before anything else. The reason cars have fuses is to protect the electrical circuits from an overload. If a particular fuse burns out, the part or assembly controlled by it will stop working. This includes your engine and parts that influence its operation.

Look in your owner’s manual to find out which fuses affect your engine. Then, open the main panel, remove the fuses, and inspect them. If the links inside are broken, the fuses are bad. If the links are intact, they are fine.

Pull The Trouble Codes

When your engine experiences any deviation from its normal performance, it will produce an OBD-II trouble code. This code is logged into your car’s computer. This allows a mechanic to retrieve it and have a better idea regarding where to start looking for the root cause of the deviation. If you have an OBD-II scanner, you can pull it yourself. You can purchase a scanner at many auto supply shops for less than $40.

Pulling codes from the computer is easy. A diagnostic connector is usually located in your vehicle’s cabin underneath the dashboard. You can plug the scanner into this connector in order to pull the codes from the computer. These OBD-II codes are alphanumeric (e.g. P1086, P1822, etc.). Once you have pulled them, look for their definitions online. This may provide helpful clues regarding why your engine refuses to start.

Examine And Test The Spark Plugs

Recall that one of the three things your engine needs is a spark. Hence, each cylinder has a spark plug (sometimes, two) that ignites the compressed air-fuel mixture within each cylinder’s combustion chamber. This results in a mini-explosion within the chamber. The explosion produces vapors that expand rapidly and push the piston downward, which turns the crankshaft.

Unfortunately, spark plugs become fouled over time. Deposits can accumulate on them and make it difficult to generate a sufficient spark. This can cause your engine to crank, but refuse to start properly. If the spark plugs appear fine, it’s time to test the pressure within the assembly.

Check The Combustion Chamber’s Compression

In order for the air-fuel mixture to ignite within the cylinder, it must be sufficiently compressed. This means the cylinder should be free of severe compression leaks. Often, the exhaust valve will fail to close properly, and thus allow air to escape during the combustion process. If a leak is severe, it can prevent your motor from starting.

You can purchase a compression gauge for less than $40. If the compression within the cylinders is fine, you’ll need to test your ignition system.

Is Your Ignition System Operating Properly?

There are several components that comprise your ignition system, and a failure that affects any of them can impair your engine’s performance. These include the spark plugs, distributor and distributor cap, rotor, ignition coil, and other pieces. Unless you’re experienced with automotive diagnostics, it’s a good idea to have a mechanic test these parts.

If your engine cranks, but will not start, follow the troubleshooting guide above. If you are able to isolate the problem to the fuses or spark plugs, you’ll be able to easily resolve it on your own.

Pakistani Traditional Dishes & Popular Food

Every country, region and even local regional people have their own taste and to cater to that everyone has their own style of food, dishes and own recipes. In sub-continent, while Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have hundreds of dishes related to rice and fishes alone, its the rich Pakistani and Indian culture that have thousands if not millions of recipes. In Pakistan, we have regional dishes and food and then there are dishes popular country wide. In KPK, food and recipes are inspired from neighbouring Afghanistan, Punjab has a rich culture, Sindh and Balochistan have their own traditional food. Some traditional and popular food throughout stand apart all and are equally liked by everyone.

Here is a full list of Pakistani Recipes, that also is categorized by type, cuisine, course and many other options. Here you can also get latest breakfast recipes, daal recipes, most popular dessert and sweets recipes, Kebabs recipes, a vast collection of chicken recipes, beef & mutton recipes, seafood & fish recipes, tandoori recipes. Also on some occasions parents are keen to prepare recipes of their kids, so for them here is kids recipes you can prepare at home. I am not forgetting to mention recipes and food for special occasions like Eid Recipes, Holiday Recipes, including Eid ul Fitr recipes, Eid ul Adha recipes and Iftari Recipes.

Biryani & Pulaos

Biryani and Pakistani foods are directly linked. No Pakistani feast is complete without its presence. It is basically a South Indian dish but it became a smashing hit in Pakistan for people here are crazy about it. It is made from rice and meat of any type. Biryani took many forms and shapes and even recipe variations here such as Mutton Biryani, Sindhi BIryani, Tikka Biryani, aalo Biryani etc.

Similarly, Pulao comes second after it. It has many forms and methods of cooking because of the variation of culture and differences of areas.

Makai Ki Roti & Sarsoon (mustard) ka Saag

Makai ki Roti with Sarsoon da saag is a famous Punjabi recipe. It involves mustard leaves, makai flour and that’s it. Whenever there is a need to represent village culture of Pakistan, it is shown to be eaten.

Kababs /Naan

Naan Kababs are not dishes actually but kind of essential add-ons or pop-ups of a Pakistani dining table. Kebab is made from minced meat and naan with flour dough. There is a wide variety of kababs in a Pakistani dinner table like Shami Kabab, Tikka Kabab, Gola Kabab, Seekh Kabab, Aalo kabab, Chapli Kabab, Chappli Kabab and many more.They are either used together or separately or with other dishes such as Pualo Kabab, Bun kabab or naan nehari etc.

Naan also has many forms like Qeema Nan, Aalo Nan, Roghni Nan and so on, especially Roghni naan is very popular among Pakistanis.

Korma & Nehari

Korma & Nehari are also yummy Pakistani food items. Meat is involved in cooking both the dishes. People enjoy eating them on special occasions such as weddings, dinners, parties and hangouts etc.

Haleem And Hareesa

Haleem and Hareesa involve a lot of food items like lentils; rice, meat, maze etc. but the amalgam of such product is surely is super-duper tasty in the form of Haleem or hareesa. They are majorly served with Naan.

Seeji & Dampukht

Seeji or Saji and Dumpakht are two especial Baluchi cuisine that have become so famous all over the country now. It is made out after skewing whole lamb that makes it unique and scrumptious for all. Dampukht is also made from meat but its cooking involves a lot of fats.

Halwa Puri

Halwa Puri is the last but not least especial breakfast item of Pakistan. It is originated from Punjab but famous all over the world for its yummy taste and halwa eye-catching color. Halwa is a sweet dish that involves Suji, a kind of flour and sugar majorly; while Puri is made out of gram-flour and then deep fried in the oil.

The History of Handmade Papers

When the paper had been formed, they were then placed between the felts and wool blankets. The texture for the felts was used in the drying process and it was an important part of the appearance of the paper. Some felts before were not woven while others were woven. Before the loft drying papers had been pack pressed and it had somewhat diminished the impression that was felt. 
 
 


The handmade papers were then put into groups or on the spurs so that they can stack to be matured. They were then gelatin sized and they are dipped in the groups and they were also dried once again. The papers were then burnished by using the hands and smooth stones. After sometime, they were hammer glazed. 
 
The paper that was made using such methods had some imperfection. They had swirly fiber, knots and clumps but they had a lively, complex surface, supple and strong texture. After sometime, the stampers were replaced by the mills and they speed up beating process. The beater was effective and was able to eliminate the fermentation process that was taking too long. The Hollander beater was capable to cut the papers and it resulted into short or less fibrillated fiber. It made papers with few clumps, fibers and more refined and weaker pulp. 
By the 18th century papermaking process was refined. The century papers were able to retain distinct surface texture with the laid and chain lines for the paper mould because the drying process was unchanged at the end of this century. The calendar roll that it used to glaze the surface papers started since 1720. 
 

After sometime, the papermakers had now applied too much pressure and to squeeze the moisture away of the paper so that the drying time may be produced by the flatter paper. This is capable to reduce surface textures which had been created by the use of the laid moulds. This made it easy to use the watercolor on the paper. 
 
Cotton was the important source for the pulp by the 19th century. The papers that were made in the cotton were looking opaque with less luster compared to the papers that were made in the linen. However, it was hard to distinguish the gelatin sized papers since it adds luster on its own. The papers that are handcrafted from cotton, they were softer compare to that of the linen papers but if linen is processed, the papers also became softer. 
 

The first paper making machines started in 19th century and it allowed the production of many papers. This also increased the demand for indigo and flax because they are favorite of many people in the art. Even machine papers were becoming popular, it does not mean that the handmade papermaking also stopped. The goal of makers of the handmade papers was to match the esthetics and smoothness of the machine papers. This is when the knotter started to be used and it was removing the foreign substance and clumps away from the pulp. Many hand papermakers in different environments are still using the same system.

How to Make Papers From Cotton

The cotton with Gossypium as a botanical name, it is a versatile and strong fiber, it is found in different forms. Its hair surrounds a seed found in a cotton ball. If the cotton has been grinned, the long staple fibers have to be separated from its seed with the fibers that are raw cotton. Most of the fibers are used in making the cloth and it is then cooked or cleaned. The cotton scraps are then turned into the cotton rag and the cotton rage is already ready to be beaten. After it is grinned, the remaining seed is covered by the fuzz and the cotton fiber. 

 
The cotton linters are cotton fibers that are found near its seed. It can make any kind of the handmade paper such as thin or thick papers. It is also the first fiber that it is found in the cotton content paper. The cotton linter is short and it has thick walls if it is compared to the linen or cotton rag. It is suited for opaque and thick papers that have bright colors. 
There are many types of the papers and some are more suitable to watercolor. Some linters are good for the casting and they are suitable for the sheet forming if the absorbent and soft papers are needed. You can also find some cut lingers that are made to make sheet, they also work well in the 3D media art. The cotton rag is staple cotton and it is called rag since it is made by the use of the new garment cutting. The staple cotton has longer fiber compared to the linters and they are made stronger. Harder sheet paper does shrink faster in the drying and it is well suited for the book paper or watercolor. 
 

The strongest and the longest fiber that it can be handcrafted is uncooked or unbleached fiber. It is put into the caustic solution so that it can remove the impurities. It makes a hard paper which shrinks well while being dried. It has cotton natural color since it is unbleached muslin. 
Black paper denim is a sheet form which is ready to be beaten in to the pulp by the use of the blender. It makes a good looking black paper at the same time it is wonderful when it is used to add a fleck on other pulp. There are also other types of fibers used to make papers. Abaca is the botanical name for plants made from the banana leaves and it is grown in Philippines and this is why it is known as Manila hemp. 
Flax plant is also known to be used in making the linen clothes. It is called the bast fiber and it is found from the inner bark of a plant. The raw fiber is also interesting and strong. The fiber makes a rattly, brittle and hard paper but it shrinks too much during drying process. Other papers that you can find from Indigo, are from Kozo and wheat straw and they are all found easily in the environment.