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Magazine
In the April 14 SN: Killer heat, mass insect migrations, the latest Saturn updates, rethinking the Nobel Prize, tectonics on Venus, the science of mass shootings, ancient tool trends and more.
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Teaser
A new plastic film glows to flag food contaminated with dangerous microbes
04/17/2018 - 07:00 Materials, Microbes, HealthPathogen detectors built into plastic patches could someday spare you food poisoning.
Carlos Filipe, a chemical engineer at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, and colleagues have developed a new kind of flexible film that’s coated in molecules that glow when they touch E. coli cells. This type of sensor also glows in the presence of molecules secreted by E. coli, so the material...
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News in Brief
This material uses energy from ambient light to kill hospital superbugs
04/10/2018 - 07:00 Microbes, Materials, TechnologyPHOENIX — A new material that harnesses the power of ambient light to produce bacteria-killing molecules could help stem the spread of hospital infections, including those with drug-resistant bacteria.
About 1 in 10 patients worldwide get an infection while receiving treatment at a hospital or other health care facility, according to the World Health Organization. “Contaminated hospital...
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News in Brief
Toxic chemicals turn a new material from porous to protective
04/05/2018 - 08:00 Materials, ChemistryPHOENIX — A new, breathable material that can also block biological or chemical threats could offer comfortable protection for people working in contaminated environments or dangerous military zones.
The bottom layer of the material, described April 3 at the Materials Research Society spring meeting, features carbon nanotube pores embedded within a flexible synthetic polymer film. These...
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News
Eggshell nanostructure protects a chick and helps it hatch
03/30/2018 - 14:00 MaterialsA chicken eggshell has a tricky job: It must protect a developing chick, but then ultimately let the chick break free. The secret to its success lies in its complex nanostructure — and how that structure changes as the egg incubates.
Chicken eggshells are about 95 percent calcium carbonate by mass. But they also contain hundreds of different kinds of proteins that influence how that...
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News in Brief
Live heart cells make this material shift color like a chameleon
03/28/2018 - 14:00 Materials, Biophysics, TechnologyTo craft a new color-switching material, scientists have again taken inspiration from one of nature’s masters of disguise: the chameleon.
Thin films made of heart cells and hydrogel change hues when the films shrink or stretch, much like chameleon skin. This material, described online March 28 in Science Robotics, could be used to test new medications or possibly to build camouflaging...
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News
Earwigs take origami to extremes to fold their wings
03/22/2018 - 14:10 Biophysics, Animals, Materials, RoboticsTo quickly unfurl and refold their wings, earwigs stretch the rules of origami.
Yes, those garden pests that scurry out from under overturned flowerpots can also fly. Because earwigs spend most of their time underground and only occasionally take to the air, they pack their wings into packages with a surface area more than 10 times smaller than when unfurled, using an origami-like series...
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News in Brief
Give double-layer graphene a twist and it superconducts
03/08/2018 - 16:10 Condensed Matter, MaterialsLOS ANGELES — Give a graphene layer cake a twist and it superconducts — electrons flow freely through it without resistance. Made up of two layers of graphene, a form of carbon arranged in single-atom-thick sheets, the structure’s weird behavior suggests it may provide a fruitful playground for testing how certain unusual types of superconductors work, physicist Pablo Jarillo-Herrero of MIT...
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News
Extreme cold is no match for a new battery
03/02/2018 - 07:00 Chemistry, Materials, TechnologyA new type of battery can stand being left out in the cold.
This rechargeable battery churns out charge even at –70° Celsius, a temperature where the typical lithium-ion batteries that power many of today’s cell phones, electric cars and other devices don’t work. Batteries that withstand such frigid conditions could help build electronics that function in some of the coldest places on...
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Science Ticker
Watch an experimental space shield shred a speeding bullet
02/27/2018 - 15:45 Astronomy, MaterialsView the video
Engineers are taking a counterintuitive approach to protecting future spacecraft: shooting at their experiments. The image above and high-speed video below capture a 2.8-millimeter aluminum bullet plowing through a test material for a space shield at 7 kilometers per second. The work is an effort to find structures that could stand up to the impact of space debris.
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News
New technique shows how 2-D thin films take the heat
02/13/2018 - 11:26 Materials, Physics, TechnologyHigh-energy particle beams can reveal how 2-D thin sheets behave when the heat is cranked up.
Researchers have devised a way to track how these materials, such as the supermaterial graphene, expand or contract as temperatures rise (SN: 10/3/15, p. 7). This technique, described in the Feb. 2 Physical Review Letters, showed that 2-D semiconductors arranged in single-atom-thick sheets...