For a child's toy, Silly Putty has some downright crazy physical properties. The mixture of boric acid and silicon oil, originally developed as a synthetic replacement for rubber, is a non-Newtonian fluid. Its viscosity isn't affected by temperature,...
By Cat DiStasio
Graphene is a super-strong, ultra-lightweight material that's led to scores of technological innovations in recent years. It consists of bonded carbon atoms formed into sheets that measure just one atom thick. The material's strength...
I’d bet at some point a scientist for Oscorp thought feeding a special spider something cool would be a great idea. Instead, we ended up with Spider-Man and a host of villains. I can’t help but think that a group of scientists at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China might have inadvertently created the origin story for a C-grade Marvel comic book.
These researchers took silkworms and the mulberry leaves they love to eat, and dipped the leaves in a solution that contained graphene. The worms ate the leaves and were able to incorporate the graphene into the silk they spun.
The result was silk that is two times stronger than normal. The material could be used in clothing, medical devices, and other items in the future. Let’s just hope a spider doesn’t eat one of these silkworms, incorporate the graphene into its own webs and start capturing humans for spider feasts.
[via NANOLetters via Newsweek]
Turns out graphene, the wonder material with so many potential applications, is also the secret sauce to making tougher silk. A team of scientists from Tsinghua University in Beijing successfully created silk that's twice as tough simply by feeding t...
By Cat DiStasio
We all love our battery-powered gadgets, but portable power cells can be devastating to the environment. Fortunately, recent developments have proven that greener batteries are coming in the not-too-distant future. Engineers are repl...