/ en-us �鶹��Ժ internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: �鶹��Ժics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Researchers at McGill University, in collaboration with Polytechnique Montréal, pioneered a new way to create hydrogels using ultrasound, eliminating the need for toxic chemical initiators. This breakthrough offers a faster, cleaner and more sustainable approach to hydrogel fabrication, and produces hydrogels that are stronger, more flexible and highly resistant to freezing and dehydration. /news/2025-05-ultrasound-safer-greener-hydrogels.html Polymers Materials Science Thu, 08 May 2025 13:20:07 EDT news665928650 A new study uncovers how fine-tuning the interactions between two distinct network-forming species within a soft gel enables programmable control over its structure and mechanical properties. The findings reveal a powerful framework for engineering next-generation soft materials with customizable behaviors, inspired by the complexity of biological tissues. /news/2025-05-programmable-network-gels-interspecies-interactions.html Soft Matter Tue, 06 May 2025 16:56:02 EDT news665769361 A bioreactor that mimics a circulatory system can deliver nutrients and oxygen to artificial tissue, enabling the production of over 10 grams of chicken muscle for cultured meat applications. These results are published in Trends in Biotechnology. /news/2025-04-sized-chunks-chicken-texture-meat.html Biotechnology Agriculture Wed, 16 Apr 2025 11:00:01 EDT news663924601 In the quest to design the next generation of materials for modern devices—ones that are lightweight, flexible and excellent at dissipating heat—a team of researchers led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst made a discovery: imperfection has its upsides. /news/2025-04-polymers-flawed-fillers-boost-plastics.html Polymers Analytical Chemistry Fri, 04 Apr 2025 11:39:04 EDT news662985541 Researchers from Hanyang University have developed an innovative micropillar array capable of collective and rapid magnetic oscillations, demonstrating strong potential for advanced applications in robotics, fluid transport, and dynamic surface control. /news/2025-04-synchronized-magnetic-oscillations-enable-micropillar.html Nanomaterials Wed, 02 Apr 2025 12:07:04 EDT news662814421 Plants don't just grow, they build. From towering trees to delicate flowers, complex plant shapes are sculpted with remarkable precision. Now a study by biologists and biophysicists at Université de Montréal reveals how plants build their organs in three dimensions. /news/2025-04-physical-generate-complex-3d.html Plants & Animals Molecular & Computational biology Tue, 01 Apr 2025 17:10:12 EDT news662746201 In a leap forward for materials science, a multi-institutional team of researchers has developed a pioneering method of 3D printing cholesteric liquid crystal elastomers (CLCEs), enabling complex, color-changing responsive materials and paving the way for novel applications like smart textiles and advanced robotics. /news/2025-03-3d-method-materials-smart-textiles.html Materials Science Mon, 31 Mar 2025 14:53:04 EDT news662651581 Scientists have revealed how tiny swimming cells—such as sperm and bacteria—are able to move faster when traveling as a group, and the research could accelerate the development of microscopic robots that deliver drugs to specific regions of the body. /news/2025-03-scientists-uncover-microswimmers-faster-groups.html Bio & Medicine Nanophysics Fri, 28 Mar 2025 11:43:04 EDT news662380981 Interconnected materials containing networks are ubiquitous in the world around us—rubber, car tires, human and engineered tissues, woven sheets and chain mail armor. Engineers often want these networks to be as strong as possible and to resist mechanical fracture and failure. /news/2025-03-law-energy-fracture-stretchable-networks.html General �鶹��Ժics Mon, 17 Mar 2025 10:34:57 EDT news661426491 We all encounter gels in daily life—from the soft, sticky substances you put in your hair to the jelly-like components in various foodstuffs. While human skin shares gel-like characteristics, it has unique qualities that are very hard to replicate. It combines high stiffness with flexibility, and it has remarkable self-healing capabilities, often healing completely within 24 hours of an injury. /news/2025-03-entangled-polymers-nanosheets-skin-hydrogel.html Polymers Materials Science Fri, 07 Mar 2025 05:00:01 EST news660495721 Plastics, which are polymeric materials composed of long chains of small molecules called monomers, are widely used in everyday life and industry due to their lightweight, good strength and flexibility. However, with approximately 52 million tons of plastic waste generated annually, plastic pollution has become a major environmental concern. /news/2025-03-sustainable-smart-polymers.html Polymers Analytical Chemistry Thu, 06 Mar 2025 11:57:04 EST news660484622 Sometimes scientists must dig and work and sweat to make scientific discoveries. And sometimes a robot rolls over a rock that turns out to be a revelation. /news/2025-03-unburied-treasure-rover-unexpected-minerals.html Astrobiology Planetary Sciences Wed, 05 Mar 2025 09:29:59 EST news660389395 A US company is aiming for its second lunar touchdown after a lander carrying a suite of unique experiments successfully launched aboard a SpaceX rocket on Wednesday. /news/2025-02-private-company-blasts-moon.html Space Exploration Thu, 27 Feb 2025 04:12:48 EST news659851937 Researchers at Hokkaido University and Duke University have developed a hydrogel that heals and strengthens itself as it is overloaded and damaged. The proof-of-concept demonstration could lead to improved performance for situations where soft but durable materials are required, such as load-bearing connections and joints within machines, robots and even people. /news/2025-02-network-hydrogel-polymers-feature-rapid.html Polymers Materials Science Wed, 26 Feb 2025 12:51:49 EST news659796697 A team led by researchers at UNC-Chapel Hill have made an extraordinary discovery that is reshaping our understanding of bubbles and their movement. Picture tiny air bubbles inside a container filled with liquid. When the container is shaken up and down, these bubbles engage in an unexpected, rhythmic "galloping" motion—bouncing like playful horses and moving horizontally, even though the shaking occurs vertically. /news/2025-02-fluid-discovery-defies-logic.html General �鶹��Ժics Soft Matter Tue, 25 Feb 2025 12:25:04 EST news659708701 The practice of purposely looping thread to create intricate knit garments and blankets has existed for millennia. Though its precise origins have been lost to history, artifacts like a pair of wool socks from ancient Egypt suggest it dates back as early as the third to fifth century CE. Yet, for all its long-standing ubiquity, the physics behind knitting remains surprisingly elusive. /news/2025-02-theoretical-physics.html General �鶹��Ժics Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:19:13 EST news659355547 Imagine microscopic robots that can navigate the body, delivering medicine precisely to damaged tissues while avoiding side effects. Engineers at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa have discovered a new breakthrough that brings this vision closer to reality. /news/2025-01-microscopic-robots-chemical-precise-drug.html Bio & Medicine Mon, 13 Jan 2025 10:33:03 EST news655986781 Princeton engineers have developed an easily scalable 3D printing technique to manufacture soft plastics with programmed stretchiness and flexibility that are also recyclable and inexpensive—qualities not typically combined in commercially manufactured materials. /news/2024-12-stretchable-flexible-recyclable-3d-method.html Polymers Materials Science Fri, 13 Dec 2024 14:18:31 EST news653321905 For plants, cleaning the air, providing food and medicines, and preserving our ecosystem is just another day's work. In the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, however, plants are being studied in new ways to inspire future biohybrid soft robotic designs. /news/2024-08-defense-future-soft-robotic.html Biotechnology Thu, 29 Aug 2024 13:08:59 EDT news644155736 A team of researchers led by the University of California San Diego has developed a soft, stretchy electronic device capable of simulating the feeling of pressure or vibration when worn on the skin. This device, reported in a paper published in Science Robotics, represents a step towards creating haptic technologies that can reproduce a more varied and realistic range of touch sensations. /news/2024-06-soft-stretchy-electrode-simulates-sensations.html Nanomaterials Fri, 28 Jun 2024 11:28:20 EDT news638792874 In a May 15 paper released in the journal �鶹��Ժical Review Letters, Virginia Tech physicists revealed a microscopic phenomenon that could greatly improve the performance of soft devices, such as agile flexible robots or microscopic capsules for drug delivery. /news/2024-05-physicists-path-faster-flexible-robots.html Condensed Matter Sat, 18 May 2024 02:25:37 EDT news635217931 Researchers at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT-Italian Institute of Technology) in collaboration with the University of Freiburg have developed a biohybrid robot, which consists of a flour-based capsule created using 3D microfabrication techniques, and two natural appendages from oat fruit capable of moving in response to air humidity. /news/2024-05-biohybrid-robot-flour-oats-biodegradable.html Ecology Biotechnology Mon, 13 May 2024 12:53:28 EDT news634823606 Tagging marine animals with sensors to track and study their movements can provide researchers with important environmental and behavioral information, including energy usage, habitat changes, and migration patterns. But existing techniques to attach sensors currently largely rely on invasive physical anchors, suction cups, and rigid glues. While these techniques can be effective for marine animals with hard exoskeletons and large animals such as sharks, the traditional tag attachment methods are not ideal for more fragile species, such as squid and jellyfish. /news/2024-04-tagging-method-bioadhesive-interface-marine.html Ecology Biotechnology Tue, 16 Apr 2024 11:40:04 EDT news632486401 Researchers led by the University of Oxford have developed a new test to assess how dangerous robotic lawnmowers are to hedgehogs. They hope this will lead to a certification scheme that will allow consumers to choose 'hedgehog-friendly' mowers to help protect these lovable mammals. /news/2024-01-hedgehog-safety-robotic-lawnmowers.html Plants & Animals Biotechnology Tue, 16 Jan 2024 11:05:54 EST news624625549 Most people can relate to having a laptop charger break right where the flexible cable meets the solid adapter. This is just one example of how difficult it is to effectively interface hard and soft materials. Using a unique 3D printing process, TU Delft researchers produced hybrid multi-material interfaces that reached a remarkable closeness to nature's design of bone–tendon connections. Their research findings, recently published in Nature Communications, have numerous potential applications. /news/2023-12-optimization-hardsoft-material-interfaces-3d.html Polymers Materials Science Tue, 12 Dec 2023 10:59:42 EST news621601180 Researchers have invented a new kind of artificial seed to sense environmental parameters without impacting the health of the environment. /news/2023-11-eco-friendly-fluorescent-artificial-seed-soil.html Biotechnology Agriculture Tue, 21 Nov 2023 17:11:29 EST news619809085 Researchers in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, in collaboration with paleontologists from Spain and Poland, have used fossil evidence to engineer a soft robotic replica of pleurocystitid, a marine organism that existed nearly 450 million years ago and is believed to be one of the first echinoderms capable of movement using a muscular stem. /news/2023-11-paleobionics-million-year-old-life-softbotics.html Biotechnology Paleontology & Fossils Mon, 06 Nov 2023 15:41:54 EST news618507705 Conical structures can have advantageous applications in a variety of fields, ranging from robotics to civil engineering. Studies have found that conical shells made of liquid crystal elastomer films can be effective lifters; devices that can generate thrust for robots and other vehicles. /news/2023-10-formula-strength-thin-conical.html General �鶹��Ժics Soft Matter Wed, 25 Oct 2023 10:20:02 EDT news617447451 A team of University of Waterloo researchers has created smart, advanced materials that will be the building blocks for a future generation of soft medical microrobots. They published their results in Nature Communications. /news/2023-10-scientists-cargo-tethered-untethered-soft.html Nanomaterials Mon, 23 Oct 2023 07:43:00 EDT news617265771 A team of researchers led by the University of California San Diego has developed soft yet durable materials that glow in response to mechanical stress, such as compression, stretching or twisting. The materials derive their luminescence from single-celled algae known as dinoflagellates. /news/2023-10-soft-materials-algae-stress.html Biochemistry Materials Science Fri, 20 Oct 2023 14:16:34 EDT news617030189