Octopuses have the most flexible appendages known in nature, according to a new study in Scientific Reports. In addition to being soft and strong, each of the animal's eight arms can bend, twist, elongate and shorten in many ...
China launched an ambitious mission on Tuesday to bring back rocks and debris from the moon's surface for the first time in more than 40 years—an undertaking that could boost human understanding of the moon and of the solar ...
Chinese technicians were making final preparations Monday for a mission to bring back material from the moon's surface for the first time in more than four decades—an undertaking that could boost human understanding of ...
Natural materials like skin, cartilage and tendons are tough enough to support our bodyweight and movements, yet flexible enough that they don't crack easily. Although we take these properties for granted, replicating this ...
Researchers at MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms have created tiny building blocks that exhibit a variety of unique mechanical properties, such as the ability to produce a twisting motion when squeezed. These subunits could ...
A fish school is a striking demonstration of synchronicity. Yet centuries of study have left a basic question unanswered: Do fish save energy by swimming in schools? Now, scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Animal ...
ETH Zurich researchers have been able to show why biological cells can take on such an astonishing variety of shapes: it has to do with how the number and strength of local forces acting on the cell membrane from within. ...
A new 3-D-printing method will make it easier to manufacture and control the shape of soft robots, artificial muscles and wearable devices. Researchers at UC San Diego show that by controlling the printing temperature of ...
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a new method of 3-D-printing gels and other soft materials. Published in a new paper, it has the potential to create complex structures ...
Liquid metals (LMs) are promising for applications in flexible electronics and biomimetic functional composites. Nanometerization and surface modification of LMs are usually used to improve their substrate affinity and processing ...
