Soft Matter is a peer-reviewed scientific journal publishing original (primary) research and review articles on the generic science underpinning the properties and applications of soft matter. Soft Matter is published 48 times a year by the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Cramming multiple pairs of shoes into a vacation suitcase, twisting and flipping them into different arrangements to fit every pair needed, is a familiar optimization problem faced by harried travelers. This same problem ...
Soft Matter
Aug 19, 2022
0
58
Bacteria and other unicellular organisms developed sophisticated ways to actively navigate their way, despite being comparably simple structures. To reveal these mechanisms, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics ...
Cell & Microbiology
Aug 1, 2022
0
18
As someone who has extensively studied what nature has produced, Associate Professor Guy German likes to tell his students: You think you're a good engineer, but evolution is a better one.
Biochemistry
Apr 25, 2022
0
116
We like some foods, and dislike others. Of course, the way food tastes is important, but mouthfeel, and even the sound that food makes when we bite it, also determine whether we enjoy the eating experience. Is it possible ...
Soft Matter
Apr 21, 2022
0
102
As anyone who has ever had to brush long hair knows, knots are a nightmare. But with enough experience, most learn the tricks of detangling with the least amount of pain—start at the bottom, work your way up to the scalp ...
Mathematics
Apr 13, 2022
0
98
Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have uncovered a unique mechanism by which foams on walls drain and slip over time. They showed how a foam can lose liquid via "pinch-off," like droplets from a faucet, finding ...
Soft Matter
Mar 14, 2022
0
31
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Columbia Engineering have discovered a new method to improve the toughness of materials that could lead to stronger versions of body armor, bulletproof ...
Condensed Matter
Dec 13, 2021
0
249
A phenomenon where microbe-generated gas bubbles create granular fluctuations at the wet sandy floors of rivers, oceans, and lakes has revealed more about the distribution of materials at the bottom of waterbodies.
Soft Matter
Dec 8, 2021
1
96
Liquid crystals are not solid, but some of their physical properties are directional—like in a crystal. This is because their molecules can arrange themselves into certain patterns. The best-known applications include flat ...
Soft Matter
Dec 6, 2021
0
33
In the Namib desert—one of the driest places in the world—a tiny species of beetle climbs the dunes, leans its body toward the wind, and catches the only source of water it can: passing droplets of fog.
General Physics
Nov 10, 2021
0
19
