Why plastic bags are so hard to get rid of

In June, Canada joined a growing list of countries frustrated with the inability of market forces to shrink our plastics dependency and announced a plan to ban single-use plastics as early as 2021.

Synthetic materials that behave like mollusk shells

Nacre, commonly known as mother-of-pearl, is the iridescent material lining many mollusk shells. It is part of a two-layer armor system that protects the animal from predators. The brittle outer layer of the shell absorbs ...

Researchers aim to solve the rare earths crisis

During a time of immense global uncertainty, managing supply chains for critical materials has been a top priority for many governments and large organizations. But what happens when certain materials are concentrated in ...

Are coal-fired power plants affecting your drinking water?

When you get a drink of water from your fridge or sink, do you think about where that water came from? It has traveled through pipes from a water treatment plant where it underwent chemical processes to make it safe to drink. ...

How plantains and carbon nanotubes can improve cars

A luxury automobile is not really a place to look for something like sisal, hemp, or wood. Yet automakers have been using natural fibers for decades. Some high-end sedans and coupes use these in composite materials for interior ...

A path to graphene topological qubits

In the quantum realm, electrons can group together to behave in interesting ways. Magnetism is one of these behaviors that we see in our day-to-day life, as is the rarer phenomena of superconductivity. Intriguingly, these ...

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