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MIT chemists have determined the structure of a bacterial enzyme that can produce biodegradable plastics, an advance that could help chemical engineers tweak the enzyme to make it even more industrially useful.
One of the impediments to developing miniaturized, "squishy" robots is the need for an internal power source that overcomes the power-to-weight ratio for efficient movement. An international group involving Inha University, ...
A multi-institutional research team has developed a new electroactive polymer material that can change shape and size when exposed to a relatively small electric field. The advance overcomes two longstanding challenges regarding ...
An A*STAR-led discovery could lead to improvements in the way drugs are delivered to the right parts of the body by uncovering the mechanisms that help oil, water, and free radicals mix in tiny droplets.
Polymer surface coatings are important in numerous applications for producing surfaces with desired properties such as wettability, low friction, and biocompatibility. Surfaces are usually modified with polymers through grafting ...
Polymers are very large molecules consisting of thousands, even millions, of atoms bonded together in a repeating pattern similar to a chain. They make up many of the things around us we consider part of our everyday lives, ...
Medicine, mobile phones, computers and clothes could all be enhanced using the process for making paint, according to research by the University of Warwick.
The advanced phase of acute kidney injury can be fatal in up to half of patients. Researchers say it is now possible to detect the disease in its initial stages, when treatment is still relatively simple and the prognosis ...
Methane, a primary component of natural gas, has emerged recently as an important energy source, largely owing to its abundance and relatively clean nature compared with other fossil fuels. In order to use natural gas as ...
The Biomat research group of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) is studying marine waste on the Basque coast (squid, fish and algae waste) to obtain new materials. This line of research is offering a fresh take ...
It may appear to be a nondescript, transparent, viscous liquid, but all you have to do is irradiate any part of it briefly with UV light and it changes completely. The new special resin formulation developed at TU Wien solidifies ...
Antimicrobial cutting boards. Flame-retardant carpets. Friction-resistant bearings. Engineered surfaces add value to the things we use, providing extra layers of safety, easing their operation, preserving their quality or ...
All polymers have a distinctive degree of elasticity—how much they will stretch when a force is applied. However, for the past 100 years, polymer scientists have been stymied in their efforts to predict polymers' elasticity, ...
A new technique developed by biomedical engineers could help to unlock the full potential of a promising treatment for bone regeneration, creating better therapies for spinal injuries, bone grafts and other orthopaedic surgeries.
Engineers from MIT and Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) are using light to print three-dimensional structures that "remember" their original shapes. Even after being stretched, twisted, and bent at extreme ...
Soft electronic devices, such as a smartphone on your wrist and a folding screen in your pocket, are looking to much improve your lifestyle in the not-too-distant future. That is, if we could find ways to make electronic ...
Polylactic acid, or PLA, is a biodegradable polymer commonly used to make a variety of products from disposable cups to medical implants to drug delivery systems. A team of Brown University researchers has shown that by treating ...
Researchers at MIT are making fluorescent polymer gels that change color when they're shaken, heated, exposed to acid, or otherwise disrupted. Given such a response, these novel materials could be effective sensors for detecting ...
Robotic devices are usually composed of hard components such as aluminum and steel, in contrast to the soft tissues that power biological organisms. A study conducted by A*STAR researchers now makes it easier to turn squishy, ...
A novel synthetic membrane produced by researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia, is stronger and more stable than previous examples made by the same technique. The new material ...
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists have combined biology and 3-D printing to create the first reactor that can continuously produce methanol from methane at room temperature and pressure.
A simple and inexpensive method to make a range of cyclic monomers has been developed by A*STAR researchers. These new monomers were used to make biodegradable polymers with potential applications from drug or gene delivery ...
Purdue University researchers have developed tough, flexible, biodegradable films from cellulose, the main component of plant cell walls. The films could be used for products such as food packaging, agricultural groundcovers, ...
Physicists from the Lomonosov Moscow State University have advanced the development of new polymer gels for targeted drug delivery. They have published their results in the Journal of Chemical Physics.
DNA-based straight and branched polymers or nanomaterials that can be created and dissolved using biocompatible methods are now possible thanks to the work of Penn State biomedical engineers.
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(Phys.org)—Animal muscle needs to be strong enough to endure strain; it must also be flexible and elastic; and it is self-healing. Finding a polymer that has all of these properties has proved challenging. However, researchers ...
You might not be aware of it, but invisible carpets of polymers are keeping things from being sticky right now. The lenses of your glasses might be coated with them to stave off smudges. They're keeping the underbellies of ...
Richard Wool was a pioneer in green engineering and author of the first book to systematically describe the chemistry and manufacture of bio-based polymers and composites derived from plants.
For most of human history, the discovery of new materials has been a crapshoot. But now, UConn researchers have systematized the search with machine learning that can scan millions of theoretical compounds for qualities that ...
Most plastic and polymer materials around are poorly sustainable, as they are petroleum-based, their preparation needs metal catalysis, and they persist in the environment and cannot be effectively recycled. Seeking for true ...
Purdue University researchers have shown that a synthetic version of a high-strength adhesive produced by mussels is non-toxic to living cells, suggesting its potential suitability for surgical and other biomedical applications.
Polymers that visibly change shape when exposed to temperature changes are nothing new. But a research team led by Chemical Engineering Professor Mitch Anthamatten at the University of Rochester created a material that undergoes ...
A polymer film coating with the ability to turn contact lenses into computer screens is set to transform the wearable visual aids into the next generation of consumer electronics.
Imagine a polymer with removable parts that can deliver something to the environment and then be chemically regenerated to function again. Or a polymer that can lift weights, contracting and expanding the way muscles do.
A research team at Umeå University in Sweden has showed, for the first time, that a very efficient vertical charge transport in semiconducting polymers is possible by controlled chain and crystallite orientation. These pioneering ...
Energy harvesting is emerging as a viable method for electronic devices to pull ambient energy from their surrounding environment and convert it into electrical energy for stored power. This coveted technology has the potential ...
(Phys.org)—A team of researchers with Zhejiang University in China has developed a new type of polymer that can be caused to revert to multiple different forms on demand. In their paper published in the journal Science ...
We've all seen the Febreze air fresheners, which employ a derivative of corn starch to trap invisible air pollutants in the home and remove unwanted odors.
The textbooks and journals said it couldn't be done.
Before embarking on a transcontinental journey, jet airplanes fill up with tens of thousands of gallons of fuel. In the event of a crash, such large quantities of fuel increase the severity of an explosion upon impact. Researchers ...
Griffith University scientists have made a remarkable breakthrough in the field of fluorescence enhancement via a discovery they believe could drive the next advances in sensor technology, energy saving and harvesting, lasers ...
The precise link between concussions and debilitating conditions like chronic traumatic encephalopathy is still being explored, but as the name suggests, repeated head injuries are a main culprit. Unfortunately, unlike a ...
Scientists have deciphered the genetic code that instructs proteins to either self-assemble or disassemble in response to environmental stimuli, such as changes in temperature, salinity or acidity. The discovery provides ...
When you've got to go, but you're out there in space, zipped up in a spacesuit, with no toilet in sight and a crew of other astronauts around, what do you do?
We all know that when it rains, plants grow. When it doesn't, they don't.
In science, sometimes the best discoveries come when you're exploring something else entirely. That's the case with recent findings from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where a research team has ...
Graphene, a two-dimensional form of carbon in sheets just one atom in thick, has been the subject of widespread research, in large part because of its unique combination of strength, electrical conductivity, and chemical ...
Every year, trade winds over the Sahara Desert sweep up huge plumes of mineral dust, transporting hundreds of teragrams—enough to fill 10 million dump trucks—across North Africa and over the Atlantic Ocean. This dust ...
The claws of coconut crabs have the strongest pinching force of any crustacean, according to a study published November 23, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Shin-ichiro Oka from Okinawa Churashima Foundation, Japan, ...
People have a remarkable ability to remember and recall events from the past, even when those events didn't hold any particular importance at the time they occurred. Now, researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology ...
"Mood ring materials" could play an important role in minimizing and mitigating damage to the nation's failing infrastructure.
A groundbreaking study of the virosphere of the most populous animals - those without backbones such as insects, spiders and worms and that live around our houses - has uncovered 1445 viruses, revealing people have only scratched ...
Reporting this week (Wednesday Nov. 23) in the journal Nature an international team led by British Antarctic Survey (BAS) explains that present-day thinning and retreat of Pine Island Glacier, one of the largest and fastest ...
A naturally occurring predatory bacterium is able to work with the immune system to clear multi-drug resistant Shigella infections in zebrafish, according to a study published today in Current Biology.
Piezoelectric sensors measure changes in pressure, acceleration, temperature, strain or force and are used in a vast array of devices important to everyday life. However, these sensors often can be limited by the "white noise" ...
The government wants smartphone makers to lock out most apps when the phone is being used by someone driving a car.
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have developed a vaccine that blocks the pain-numbing effects of the opioid drugs oxycodone (oxy) and hydrocodone (hydro) in animal models. The vaccine also appears to decrease ...
In the age of WikiLeaks, Russian hacks and increased government surveillance, many computer users are feeling increasingly worried about how best to protect their personal information—even if they aren't guarding state ...
Researchers have revealed new atomic-scale details about pesky deposits that can stop or slow chemical reactions vital to fuel production and other processes. This disruption to reactions is known as deactivation or poisoning.
A study co-led by the University of East Anglia (UEA) has found that people with genes for high educational achievement tend to marry, and have children with, people with similar DNA.
The study, published as the cover article in BioMed Central's Avian Research, led by the Earlham Institute and the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, explores the phylogenetic relationship between ...
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory are being credited with creating the first intermetallic double salt with platinum.
(Phys.org)—A team of researchers from France, the U.S. and Italy has found evidence from the Tohoku-Oki earthquake that sensors that measure changes in gravity might offer a way to warn people of impending disaster faster ...
A new analysis of subsistence data collected in three Arctic communities underscores the importance of social ties and sharing among households.
Despite what you might think, evolution rarely happens because something is good for a species. Instead, natural selection favours genetic variants that are good for the individuals that possess them. This leads to a much ...
(Phys.org)—A team of researchers with the Universities of Roehampton and Birmingham in the U.K. has found a unique way to measure the energy spent by tree-dwelling apes when faced with gaps in a jungle canopy. In their ...
Although recent election coverage may suggest otherwise, research shows that people are more likely to use positive words than negative words on the whole in their communications. Behavioral scientists have extensively documented ...
How can quantum information be stored as long as possible? An important step forward in the development of quantum memories has been achieved by a research team of TU Wien.
An enterprising researcher from The University of Manchester has developed a prototype tool that could help transform the lives of the blind and visually impaired.
It only takes a few seconds for an employee of one of the world's leading hacking companies to take a locked smartphone and pull the data from it.
Men and women don't communicate much differently from each other, at least when they get the same training and are working on the same type of written assignment. The findings come amid frequent studies that have discovered ...
Black light does more than make posters glow. Cornell researchers have developed a chemical tool to control inflammation that is activated by ultraviolet (UV) light.
Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis isolated an enzyme that controls the levels of two plant hormones simultaneously, linking the molecular pathways for growth and defense.
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