Wednesday, April 16, 2008 In an article in Newsweek magazine
titled "Stronger than Steel" , Lily Hunag writes about how
"bamboo may be the most useful raw material ever to be
overlooked.The talks about the bicycle built by Nick Frey a
junior at Princeton out of Bamboo. "...Although a common
building material in many tropical countries, it's considered
"the poor man's timber," and in the West it's mainly decorative.
As the world goes green, however, bamboo's essential qualities
are beginning to win converts. Environmental organizations are
promoting its use as a building material, architects are putting
it into green homes, and makers of flooring, furniture and now
bikes are quietly setting up their industries for a bamboo
revolution. Despite its lowly reputation, bamboo may be the
strongest stuff on the planet. It has greater tensile strength
(or resistance to being pulled apart) than steel, and it
withstands compression better than concrete. Both qualities are
essential to keeping the plant, which grows to n