DNA design brings predictability to polymer gels

Scientists in Japan have made a tuneable, elastic and temperature-sensitive gel by using complementary DNA strands to connect star-shaped polymer molecules together. The gel, and the method used to develop it, could lead ...

A new way of looking at the Earth's interior

Current understanding is that the chemical composition of the Earth's mantle is relatively homogeneous. But experiments conducted by ETH researchers now show that this view is too simplistic. Their results solve a key problem ...

Bending diamond is possible, at the nanoscale

Diamond is prized by scientists and jewelers alike, largely for a range of extraordinary properties including exceptional hardness. Now a team of Australian scientists has discovered diamond can be bent and deformed, at the ...

Industrial bread dough kneaders could use physics-based redesign

Bakers have been crafting bread for more than 6,000 years with four simple ingredients: flour, salt, water and yeast. Apart from using high-quality ingredients, the kneading process and amount of time the dough is given to ...

The science of knitting, unpicked

Dating back more than 3,000 years, knitting is an ancient form of manufacturing, but Elisabetta Matsumoto of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta believes that understanding how stitch types govern shape and stretchiness ...

Bioceramics power the mantis shrimp's famous punch

Researchers in Singapore can now explain what gives the mantis shrimp, a marine crustacean that hunts by battering its prey with its club-like appendages, the most powerful punch in the animal kingdom. In a paper publishing ...

page 2 from 5