When we think about sponges, we tend to think of something soft and squishy. But researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) are using the glassy skeletons of marine sponges as inspiration...
A superhydrophilic filter produced at Rice University can remove more than 90 percent of contaminants from water used in hydraulic fracturing operations. In this image, 'produced' water from a Marcellus shale fracturing site is at left, the retentate (carbon...
As electronic devices saturate all corners of public and personal life, engineers are scrambling to find lightweight, mechanically stable, flexible, and easily manufactured materials that can shield humans from excessive electromagnetic radiation as well as prevent electronic devices from...
Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have developed a fascinating new theory for how life on Earth may have begun.
Their experiments, described today in the journal Nature Communications, demonstrate that key chemical reactions that support life today could...
Professor Fernando Uribe-Romo and his team of students created a way to trigger a chemical reaction in a synthetic material called metal-organic frameworks (MOF) that breaks down carbon dioxide into harmless organic materials. Think of it as an artificial...
Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed an energy-efficient recycling process that restores used cathodes from spent lithium ion batteries and makes them work just as good as new. The process involves harvesting the degraded cathode...
A new technique to spin starch fibers using Lego pieces could have future applications for lab-grown "clean" meat, according to a team of food scientists from Penn State and the University of Alabama.
"There's a lot of interest in natural fibers,"...
A research team from Brown University has made a major step toward improving the long-term reliability of perovskite solar cells, an emerging clean energy technology. In a study to be published on Friday, May 7 in the journal Science, the...
Some novel materials that sound too good to be true turn out to be true and good. An emergent class of semiconductors, which could affordably light up our future with nuanced colors emanating from lasers, lamps, and even window...
Since it was first introduced in 2016, transparent wood has been developed by researchers at KTH Royal Institute of Technology as an innovative structural material for building construction. It lets natural light through and can even store thermal energy.
The...
Chemical signals (shown in purple and orange) switch an artificial receptor (shown as a grey helix) on and off. Credit: University of Bristol
Researchers from the University of Bristol have found a way to mimic the way cells in living...
