Reversible shape change is a highly desirable property for many biomedical applications, including mechanical actuators, soft robotics and artificial muscles. Some materials can change size or shape when irradiated with light, ...
As living organisms eat, grow, and self-regenerate, all the while they are slowly dying. Chemically speaking, this is because life is thermodynamically unstable, while its ultimate waste products are in a state of thermal ...
Nested structures are commonly found throughout nature and art, whether they be in the form of tree rings, Russian dolls, or Wassily Kandinsky's famous 1913 abstract painting Color Study: Squares with Concentric Circles. ...
When trying to understand the origins of life on Earth, researchers run into a paradox: while water is an indispensable solvent for all known life forms that exist today, water also inhibits the formation of string-like chains ...
By designing a solid electrolyte that is rigid on one side and soft on the other, researchers have fabricated a lithium-metal battery that completely suppresses dendrite formation—a major safety hazard that can cause fires ...
(Phys.org)—Currently one of the most efficient ways to store solar energy is to transfer the energy to catalysts that split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Then the hydrogen can either be used as a fuel or later recombined ...
(Phys.org)—Researchers have built the first robot made of soft, deployable materials that is capable of moving itself without the use of motors or any additional mechanical components. The robot "walks" when an electric current ...
(Phys.org)—One of the greatest challenges in generating energy from renewable sources is finding a way to store the continuously fluctuating energy being produced. Batteries, supercapacitors, and most other energy-storage ...
(Phys.org)—Scientists have used sugar cubes as a template for synthesizing stretchable battery electrodes, which serve as a key component in newly designed stretchable yet mechanically robust sodium-ion batteries. Although ...
(Phys.org)—Scientists from Taiwan have made interlocking daisy-chain-like molecular structures that can switch from an expanded and contracted position based on the removal and addition of zinc, mimicking muscle behavior. ...
