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The case for robotaxis on the water.
With the right material at the right temperature and a magnetic track, physics really does allow perpetual motion without energy loss.
For millennia, diamonds were the hardest known material, but they only rank at #7 on the current list. Can you guess which material is #1?
How has tennis changed in recent decades? The wear and tear on Wimbledon’s Centre Court may tell the tale.
It’s 50% stronger than comparable materials used in aerospace.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s airship startup hits a major milestone.
Chemists could replace bubbling flasks with tumbling ball mills.
A unique combination of DNA and silica is the strongest known material for its density (but you’ll need a lot of it before you can build a suit from it).
You can’t farm spiders — but putting spider genes into silkworms works even better.
The intensely white coloration of the shrimp is a remarkable feat of bioengineering.
The authors call it "wildly theoretical" — but let's take a look, anyway.
Vanadium dioxide is a strange material that "remembers" information and when it was stored. This is akin to biological memory.
The synthetic cartilage was made from cellulose fibers — the stuff found in wood — mixed with a goo called polyvinyl alcohol.
Scientists turn to nature to improve a ubiquitous building material.
A two-dimensional material made entirely of carbon called graphene won the Nobel Prize in 2010. Graphyne might be even better.
Two types of nanotechnology, metalenses and metamaterials, could soon make Harry Potter's invisibility cloak a reality.
Using cellulose from trees and a synthetic polymer, MIT researchers have created a material that "is stronger and tougher than some types of bone, and harder than typical aluminum alloys."
Outfitted with wheels and rotors, the bot can morph from a land drone into a quadcopter in seconds.
If you thought that diamonds were the hardest things of all, this will have you thinking again. Carbon is one of the most fascinating elements in all of nature, with chemical […]
And if we did, what would happen if you fell in? Out in the countryside of rural America, you can find all sorts of attractions that are too-good-to-be-true. One of the […]