Japanese innovation will never cease to impress me

Why can't American corporations invent something as cool as beta gel. This gel is such an amazing shock absorber that you can drop an egg on it from 22m high, heck, you can even throw an egg at it from up close, and the egg will not break. Watch it in action:



So why aren't American corporations inventing these things? Because they're busy funding creation museums and designing the next best war machine (saw this two mornings ago on the local channel 8 morning news show). Who's got the money to R&D these frivolous toys? (That's right, I verbed R&D)