Materials Science

Materials Science

Self-Sutures: New material knots up on its own

Researchers have used a new biodegradable material to make surgical sutures that knot and tighten themselves as they warm to body temperature.

Materials Science

Membrane Mastery: Nanosize silica speeds up sieve

A novel modification to polymer membranes gives researchers a means to tune certain filters so they separate molecules more quickly and more selectively.

Materials Science

Steely Glaze: Layered electrolytes control corrosion

Experiments with ultrathin organic coatings applied to steel suggest a new technique for slowing corrosion.

Materials Science

A Field of Diminutive Daisies

Researchers have created tiny daisies as a demonstration of a new technique that creates three-dimensional structures from carbon nanotubes.

Materials Science

Osmium is Forever: Rare metal’s strength humbles mighty diamond’s

A new route to materials harder than diamond may have opened with the surprising finding that the rare metal osmium resists compression better than diamond does.

Materials Science

Thin Jet Flies Two for One: Double streams yield sheathed nanoballs, fibers

Researchers have used powerful electric fields to stretch liquids into ultrathin jets in which a stream of one liquid encloses the stream of another.

Materials Science

Materials Take Wing

Materials scientists are finding new uses for the billions of pounds of feathers produced each year by the poultry industry.

Materials Science

Better Stainless: Analysis could bring pits out of the steel

The key to developing pit-resistant stainless steel is to correct the dearth of chromium atoms around inclusions in the alloy.

Materials Science

Scientists make nanothermometer

A carbon nanotube filled with gallium can be used to measure temperatures in microscopic environments.

Materials Science

Carbon pods are more than a pack of peas

Researchers have found that they can manipulate the electronic properties of nanoscopic carbon structures.

Materials Science

Metallic materials made to order

A new process for creating specifically patterned, three-dimensional microstructures could lead to new catalysts or optoelectronic devices.

Materials Science

Mammal cells make fake spider silk better

Using long and abundant water-soluble proteins secreted by bioengineered mammal cells, scientists have spun the first artificial spider silk demonstrated to have some of the remarkable mechanical properties of the real thing.