Polymer science has made possible rubber tires, Teflon and Kevlar, plastic water bottles, nylon jackets among many other ubiquitous features of daily life. Elastic polymers, known as elastomers, can be stretched and released ...
For the first time, researchers have been able capture images providing unprecedented details of how particles behave in a liquid suspension when the phenomenon known as shear thickening takes place. The work allows us to ...
Space exploration requires all kinds of interesting solutions to complex problems. There is a branch of NASA designed to support the innovators trying to solve those problems—the Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC). ...
Researchers have developed a highly accurate way to assemble multiple micron-scale optical devices extremely close together on a single chip. The new approach could one day allow high-volume manufacturing of chip-based optical ...
Medical sensing technology has taken great strides in recent years, with the development of wearable devices that can track pulse, brain function, biomarkers in sweat and more. However, there is one big problem with existing ...
When stretched or deformed, shape memory polymers return to their original shapes after heat or light is applied. These materials show great promise for soft robotics, smart biomedical devices and deployable space structures, ...
Some electronics can bend, twist and stretch in wearable displays, biomedical applications and soft robots. While these devices' circuits have become increasingly pliable, the batteries and supercapacitors that power them ...
Walking with coffee is something most of us do every day without considering the balancing act it requires. In fact, there's a lot of physics preventing the coffee from spilling over.
University of Houston researchers are reporting a breakthrough in the field of materials science and engineering with the development of an electrochemical actuator that uses specialized organic semiconductor nanotubes (OSNTs).
A gecko's tail is a wondrous and versatile thing.
