A research team comprising computer scientists and engineers from the MIT, the Wyss Institute, and Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) used Shrinky dinks™ and paper to design an autonomous robot.
Spider silk is an impressive material; lightweight and stretchy yet stronger than steel. But the challenge that spiders face to produce this substance is even more formidable. Silk proteins, called spidroins, must convert from a soluble form to solid fibers at ambient temperatures, with water as a solvent, and at high speed.
MIT engineers have fabricated a new elastic material coated with microscopic, hairlike structures that tilt in response to a magnetic field. Depending on the field's orientation, the microhairs can tilt to form a path through which fluid can flow; the material can even direct water upward, against gravity.
Metamaterials -- artificial materials with unusual properties not typically found in natural materials -- will soon be turning up in niche commercial applications, and are poised to enter the mainstream in 10 years, according to Lux Research.
Materials that are firmly bonded together with epoxy and other tough adhesives are ubiquitous in modern life — from crowns on teeth to modern composites used in construction. Yet it has proved remarkably difficult to study how these bonds fracture and fail, and how to make them more resistant to such failures.
A hidden hazard lurks beneath many of the roughly 156,000 gas stations across the United States.
Molybdenum disulfide is a compound often used in dry lubricants and in petroleum refining. Its semiconducting ability and similarity to the carbon-based graphene makes molybdenum disulfide of interest to scientists as a possible candidate for use in the manufacture of electronics, particularly photoelectronics.
Scientists from the University of Illinois at Chicago have synthesized a catalyst that improves their system for converting waste carbon dioxide into syngas, a precursor of gasoline and other energy-rich products, bringing the process closer to commercial viability.
Some 2,500 scientists and experts from around the world will gather next month in Montreal for the largest international meeting of the year devoted to crystallography -- a discipline that draws researchers from fields as far flung as genomics and geology who help solve problems as diverse as designing new manufacturing processes to creating life-saving drugs.
Reactions among minerals and organic compounds in hydrothermal environments are critical components of the Earth's deep carbon cycle, they provide energy for the deep biosphere, and may have implications for the origins of life. However, very little is known about how minerals influence organic reactions.
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