Spider silk, already known as one of the strongest materials for its weight, turns out to have another unusual property that might lead to new kinds of artificial muscles or robotic actuators, researchers have found.
The resilient fibers, the team...
Many natural organisms have the ability to repair themselves. Now, manufactured machines will be able to mimic this property. In findings published this week in Nature Materials, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have created a self-healing material that spontaneously...
Researchers at Duke University and the University of California, Los Angeles, have developed a biomaterial that significantly reduces scar formation after wounding, leading to more effective skin healing. This new material, which quickly degrades once the wound has closed,...
Inside a cell, tentacled vesicles shuttle cargo for sorting. DNA rearranges in the nucleus as stem cells differentiate into neurons. Neighboring neurons cling to one another through a web-like interface. And a new microscopy technique shows it all, in...
Risky alcohol consumption can increase at time of retirement
Credit: © Photographee.eu / Fotolia
Of retiring employees, 12 percent increased their risky drinking at the time of retirement. However, for most people, there was no change in risky level alcohol consumption...
Scientists have found that drugs are now so prevalent that 13 per cent of those taking part in a test were found to have traces of class A drugs on their fingerprints - despite never using them.
But there is...
Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a super-hydrophobic surface that can be used to generate electrical voltage. When salt water flows over this specially patterned surface, it can produce at least 50 millivolts. The proof-of-concept...
In high school chemistry, we all learned about chemical reactions. But what brings two reacting molecules together? As explained to us by Einstein, it is the random motion of inert molecules driven by the bombardment of solvent molecules. If...
MIT chemists have devised a way to rapidly synthesize and screen millions of novel proteins that could be used as drugs against Ebola and other viruses.
All proteins produced by living cells are made from the 20 amino acids that...
Researchers have fused living and non-living cells for the first time in a way that allows them to work together, paving the way for new applications.
The system, created by a team from Imperial College London, encapsulates biological cells within...
Variations of a new blue pigment were developed by chemists at Oregon State University, based on manganese.Credit: University of Oregon
A brilliant new blue pigment – discovered serendipitously by Oregon State University chemists in 2009 – is now reaching the...
