Silk protein boosts e-book efficiency: scientists

Tougher than a bullet-proof vest yet synonymous with beauty and luxury, silk fibers are a masterpiece of nature whose remarkable properties have yet to be fully replicated in the laboratory.

There is a growing need for biocompatible photonic components for biomedical applications - from in vivo glucose monitoring to detecting harmful viruses or the telltale markers of Alzheimer's. Optical waveguides are of ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- A research and development effort by the University of Notre Dame, the University of Wyoming, and Kraig Biocraft Laboratories, Inc. has succeeded in producing transgenic silkworms capable ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- CSIRO scientist Dr Tara Sutherland and her team have achieved another important milestone in the international quest to artificially produce insect silk.

A University of Wyoming molecular biologist will use the renewal of a half million dollar Air Force grant to develop spider silk for military and medical applications.

Researchers have long envied spiders' ability to manufacture silk that is light-weighted while as strong and tough as steel or Kevlar. Indeed, finer than human hair, five times stronger by weight than steel, and three times ...

Industrial palladium-copper catalysts change their structures before they get to work, already during the activation process. As a result, the reaction is catalysed by a catalyst that is different from the ...

(Phys.org) —Chemical researchers D K Abdullah and Ahmad Shamsuri of University Putra Malaysia have found a way to synthesize vanillin from sawdust in an environmentally friendly way. In their paper they've ...

The mystery of how pearls form into the most perfectly spherical large objects in nature may have an unlikely explanation, scientists are proposing in a new study. It appears in ACS' journal Langmuir, named ...

(Phys.org) —In adding steam to benzene, C6H6, to generate hydrogen, the step that determines the reaction's speed is not the benzene's absorption onto the catalyst, but rather the first benzene bond th ...

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have found an effective solution for collecting sunlight for artificial photosynthesis. By combining self-assembling DNA molecules with simple dye molecules, ...

A process known as ethanol steam reforming is creating opportunities for fuel cell researchers, thanks to the recent rise of the bioethanol industry. This technique generates hydrogen gas (H2) directly w ...