Exploring an easy way to spin nanofibers, inspired by silkworms

Did you know that silk fabric is made from … well, worm spit? The way that silkworms wind their cocoons from fibers in their slimy saliva is now helping scientists more easily make new biomedical materials. Researchers ...

Sustainable leather, yarn and paper—from bread-eating fungi

Your next trendy handbag could be fashioned from "leather" made from a fungus. Today, researchers will describe how they have harnessed this organism to convert food waste into sustainable faux leather, as well as paper products ...

Turning streetwear into solar power plants

Researchers at Empa and ETH Zurich succeeded in developing a material that works like a luminescent solar concentrator and can even be applied to textiles. This opens up numerous possibilities for producing energy directly ...

Researchers discover unique multifibrillar fibres

Strong and tough yet as light as a feather—materials with this exceptional combination of properties are urgently needed in many industrial sectors and in medicine, as well as being of great interest for scientific research. ...

Spray painting fiber bandages onto wounds

With newly developed technology, medical personnel can manufacture a bandage with drug-delivery capabilities directly onto a wound.

Researchers use 3-D printing to make glass optical fiber preform

Researchers have developed a way to use 3-D printing to create a preform that can be drawn into silica glass optical fibers, which form the backbone of the global telecommunications network. This new fabrication method could ...

A sustainable and recyclable thermoelectric paper

Thermoelectric materials, capable of transforming heat into electricity, are very promising for converting residual heat into electrical energy, as they convert hardly usable or nearly lost thermal energy in an efficient ...

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