Biological materials, as physical systems, comprise substances produced by or derived from living organisms, characterized by hierarchical organization from molecular to macroscopic scales and emergent structure–property relationships. They include tissues, extracellular matrices, biominerals, and biopolymers such as collagen, chitin, cellulose, and elastin. Their properties arise from complex architectures combining organic and often inorganic phases, enabling functions such as load bearing, protection, adhesion, and signal transduction. Biological materials exhibit viscoelasticity, anisotropy, self-healing, and adaptive remodeling under mechanical or biochemical stimuli, making them central model systems for biomechanics, biomimetics, and the design of advanced bioinspired and biomedical materials.
Researchers at the Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI), Kanazawa University, report in ACS Applied Nano Materials a new method to precisely measure nuclear elasticity—the stiffness or softness of the cell nucleus—in ...
Bio & Medicine
Nov 6, 2025
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30
Wearable or implantable devices to monitor biological activities, such as heart rate, are useful, but they are typically made of metals, silicon, plastic and glass and must be surgically implanted. A research team in the ...
Bio & Medicine
Oct 24, 2025
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2
Lignins—the complex molecules that make plants sturdy and allow them to grow tall—are not as random as once thought. A new international study led by Prof. Edouard Pesquet at Stockholm University uncovers how lignins' ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 21, 2025
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0
Before cells can divide, they first need to replicate all of their chromosomes, so that each of the daughter cells can receive a full set of genetic material. Until now, scientists had believed that as division occurs, the ...
Cell & Microbiology
Oct 17, 2025
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81
In the hunt for new therapeutics for cancer and infectious diseases, lasso peptides prove to be a catch. Their knot-like structures afford these molecules high stability and diverse biological activities, making them a promising ...
Biotechnology
Oct 16, 2025
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1
In a groundbreaking new study, researchers led by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth have shown that players of the online citizen science game Foldit can successfully refine and improve previously solved protein structures—enhancing ...
Biotechnology
Oct 15, 2025
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0
For the first time, researchers have successfully fabricated and characterized a fully functional mirror-image nanopore—a molecular gateway built entirely from D-amino acids, the mirror-image forms of the natural building ...
Bio & Medicine
Oct 11, 2025
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106
Electron microscopy is an exceptional tool for peering deep into the structure of isolated molecules. But when it comes to imaging thicker biological samples to understand how those molecules function in their cellular environments, ...
Biotechnology
Oct 6, 2025
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41
In nature, random fiber networks such as some of the tissues in the human body, are strong and tough with the ability to hold together but also stretch a lot before they fail. Studying this structural randomness—that nature ...
Nanomaterials
Oct 2, 2025
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24
To explore possible treatments for various diseases, either animal models or human cell cultures are usually used first; however, animal models do not always mimic human diseases well, and cultures are far removed from tissue ...
Bio & Medicine
Sep 29, 2025
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