Double helical covalent polymers—which are spiraling collections of nature's building blocks—are fundamental to life itself, and yet, despite decades of research, scientists have never been able to synthesize them in ...
Biochemistry
May 17, 2021
1
229
A lobster's underbelly is lined with a thin, translucent membrane that is both stretchy and surprisingly tough. This marine under-armor, as MIT engineers reported in 2019, is made from the toughest known hydrogel in nature, ...
Materials Science
Apr 23, 2021
1
186
Five years ago, scientists created a single-celled synthetic organism that, with only 473 genes, was the simplest living cell ever known. However, this bacteria-like organism behaved strangely when growing and dividing, producing ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 29, 2021
7
1745
In synthetic organic chemistry, Z-olefins are a challenging synthetic target to produce in the lab due to their relative thermodynamic instability. The Z-olefins form an unsaturated compound with a CnH2n formula that can ...
Living organisms have evolved mechanisms of biomineralization to build structurally ordered and environmentally adaptive composite materials. While research teams have significantly improved biomimetic mineralization research ...
With their ability to harness the strange powers of quantum mechanics, qubits are the basis for potentially world-changing technologies—like powerful new types of computers or ultra-precise sensors.
Quantum Physics
Nov 13, 2020
10
944
DNA and RNA have been compared to "instruction manuals" containing the information needed for living "machines" to operate. But while electronic machines like computers and robots are designed from the ground up to serve ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Oct 7, 2020
0
42
If you've eaten vegan burgers that taste like meat or used synthetic collagen in your beauty routine—both products that are "grown" in the lab—then you've benefited from synthetic biology. It's a field rife with potential, ...
Biotechnology
Sep 25, 2020
0
477
Repeated activity wears on soft robotic actuators, but these machine's moving parts need to be reliable and easily fixed. Now a team of researchers has a biosynthetic polymer, patterned after squid ring teeth, that is self-healing ...
Polymers
Jul 27, 2020
0
261
A new platform technology can assess water safety and quality with just a single drop and a few minutes.
Biotechnology
Jul 6, 2020
0
328
