Some of the most innovative and useful inventions have been inspired by nature. Take the Shinkansen bullet train in Japan, whose aerodynamic design is modeled after the kingfisher bird. Or Velcro, which a Swiss engineer invented ...
Imagine being tasked with baking a soufflé, except the only instruction provided is an ingredient list without any measurements or temperatures.
Blood vessels are like big-city highways; full of curves, branches, merges, and congestion. Yet for years, lab models replicated vessels like straight, simple roads.
Wouldn't it be amazing if we could continuously monitor the molecular state of our body? Consider the solutions that could enable, from optimized drug delivery to early detection of deadly diseases like cancer.
On a wave-battered rock in the northern Pacific Ocean, a fish called the sculpin grips the surface firmly to maintain stability in its harsh environment. Unlike sea urchins, which use their glue-secreting tube feet to adhere ...
Associate Professor Konstantinos Vogiatzis' lab in the Department of Chemistry is leveraging computational chemistry to address excess carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. The work is published in the journal ChemPhysChem.
From smartphones to wind turbines, rare earth elements (REEs) are an essential part of the hardware in many advanced technologies. These elements, which include the lanthanides along with scandium and yttrium, are the backbone ...
When spiders spin their webs, they use their hind legs to pull silk threads from their spinnerets. This pulling action doesn't just help the spider release the silk, it's also a crucial step in strengthening the silk fibers ...
Within the animal kingdom, mussels are masters of underwater adhesion. The marine mollusks cluster atop rocks and along the bottoms of ships, and hold fast against the ocean's waves thanks to a gluey plaque they secrete through ...
Researchers have been trying to find new ways to produce and replicate the various useful features observed in nature. Fine hairs and fibers, which are ubiquitous in nature, are useful for various applications ranging from ...
