Growing 'metallic wood' to new heights

Natural wood remains a ubiquitous building material because of its high strength-to-density ratio; trees are strong enough to grow hundreds of feet tall but remain light enough to float down a river after being logged.

Invisible plastics in water

A Washington State University research team has found that nanoscale particles of the most commonly used plastics tend to move through the water supply, especially in fresh water, or settle out in wastewater treatment plants, ...

Could US wildfires be contributing to heart disease?

The destructive force of wildfires in the U.S. is well documented. Every year, on both the east and west coasts of the country, and due to both environmental and man-made factors, fires rage, and homes and habitats are destroyed. ...

Applying precious metal catalysts economically

Researchers at Ruhr-Universität Bochum and the Fritz Haber Institute Berlin have developed a new method of to conserve rare and expensive catalysts and use them sparingly. They enclosed a precious metal salt in tiny micelles, ...

Multistep self-assembly opens door to new reconfigurable materials

Self-assembling synthetic materials come together when tiny, uniform building blocks interact and form a structure. However, nature lets materials like proteins of varying size and shape assemble, allowing for complex architectures ...

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