Industrial waste is reused to produce alternatives to plastic

In Brazil, researchers at São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Ilha Solteira have developed a film that can replace plastic in food packaging. The film is made from hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) and bacterial cellulose ...

Science of building sandcastles finally understood

Water vapor from ambient air will spontaneously condense inside porous materials or between touching surfaces. But with the liquid layer being only a few molecules thick, this phenomenon has lacked understanding, until now.

K9 chemistry: A safer way to train detection dogs

Trained dogs are incredible chemical sensors, far better at detecting explosives, narcotics and other substances than even the most advanced technological device. But one challenge is that dogs have to be trained, and training ...

Best region for life on Mars was far below surface

The most habitable region for life on Mars would have been up to several miles below its surface, likely due to subsurface melting of thick ice sheets fueled by geothermal heat, a Rutgers-led study concludes.

Field geology at Mars' equator points to ancient megaflood

Floods of unimaginable magnitude once washed through Gale Crater on Mars' equator around 4 billion years ago—a finding that hints at the possibility that life may have existed there, according to data collected by NASA's ...

Nano coatings with many functions

Materials that simultaneously have contrasting properties—for example, they are soft on the one hand and hard on the other, with a gradual transition between the two properties—could enable completely new applications ...

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 ...

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