But these stretchy playoff calendars seem gratuitous, especially after regular seasons that are too long to begin with.
The new idea in Nature Communications uses small "islands" of energy-storing materials dotted on a stretchy polymer.
While flexible and stretchable electronics have been on the rise, powering them with equally stretchy energy sources has been problematic.
Researchers have demonstrated a flat, "stretchy" battery that can be pulled to three times its size without a loss in performance.
Takao Someya of the University of Tokyo has built for himself a stretchy, flexible conducting material using carbon nanotubes mixed with a polymer.
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In recent years, Prof Rogers worked with colleagues at Northwestern University, focusing on stretchy electronics of various sorts made using what they termed a "pop-up" architecture.
Lululemon, the Vancouver-based purveyor of pretty togs for yoga, just recalled a about 17 percent of its stock of stretchy bottoms because they are too sheer.
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The idea uses tiny, widely spaced tiny circuit elements embedded within a stretchy polymer and connected with wires that "popped up" as the polymer was stretched.
DuPont predicts demand for Sorona, which turns out a soft and stretchy fabric like a cross between nylon and polyester, reaching 1 billion pounds or more by 2010.
But consumer products that fit the bendy, stretchy description are still very few - in part, because there have been no equally stretchy, rechargeable power sources for them.
By the '90s, flat-front pants had returned, catching on more fully in 1999, when the broader use of stretchy material in men's clothes attracted more men to the style.
Since representing Brazil at the Venice Biennale in 2001, the 42-year-old artist has shot to success for creating globular, amorphous environments called Naves (ships), made out of stretchy, translucent stocking material.
The lone 58-inch model's focus remains on that 2560 x 1080p screen, whose stretchy 21:9 aspect ratio fits what you often see at the movie theater without having to crop or adjust like you would with a typical 16:9 set.
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Its creator (and MC10 co-founder), John Rogers has refined that design so that it's no longer an elastomer sticker -- now he can apply the biostamp's thin, stretchy electronics directly on human skin, and bond it with commercially available spray-on bandage material.
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