When a droplet of liquid the size of a grain of icing sugar hits a water-repelling surface, like plastics or certain plant leaves, it can meet one of two fates: stick or bounce. Until now, scientists thought bouncing depended ...
Atoms slip against one another, eventually sticking in various combinations. Tectonic plates do the same, sliding across each other until they stick in a stationary state. Everything from the tiniest particles to unfathomably ...
Earthworms often form a cluster, from which they can barely free themselves. A similarly active, writhing structure forms when the tentacles of lion's mane jellyfish become entangled. Robotic grippers utilize this principle ...
Pounding on the bottom of a glass bottle of ketchup is one of life's small annoyances. Getting that sweet, red concoction from its solid phase to a liquid takes too long when you're hungry and could even require messy strategies ...
An international research collaboration led by Rutgers University-New Brunswick scientists that examined microscopic blobs of protein found in human cells has discovered that some morph from an almost honey-like substance ...
The melting of crystals is the process by which an increase in temperature induces the disruption of the ordered crystalline lattice, leading to the disordered structure and highly fluctuating dynamic behavior of liquids. ...
Soft viscoelastic solids are flexible materials that can return to their original shape after being stretched. Due to the unique properties driving their deformation, these materials can sometimes behave and change shape ...
A new method based on optical tweezers can measure viscoelasticity of biological materials in a simpler and more versatile way. In an article published in Nature Nanotechnology, the researchers report three novel results ...
Currently employed computational methods to simulate materials and their mechanical behavior are based on molecular dynamics (MD) with atomistic force-fields. These methods provide an excellent description of the thermodynamically ...
With the flick of a light, researchers have found a way to rearrange life's basic tapestry, bending DNA strands back on themselves to reveal the material nature of the genome.
