Chemistry

New Hybrid Gel Is A Biodegradable Sensor

Your contact lenses of the future could be completely biodegradable. A soft contact lens is a hydrogel- a solid, gelatinous mass consisting of water incorporated in a polymer network. Now Berkeley researchers have developed a technique for the formation of ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 18 2008 - 10:37am

GNA: DNA's Chemical Cousin Is A Nanotechnology Building Block

In the rapid and fast-growing world of nanotechnology, researchers are continually on the lookout for new building blocks to push innovation and discovery to scales much smaller than the tiniest speck of dust. In the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State Un ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 29 2008 - 1:16am

New Fatty Acids Discovered- But For Mechanical Engineering

CSIRO researchers have discovered a new class of fatty acids-- alpha-hydroxy polyacetylenic fatty acids-- that they say could be used as sensors for detecting changes in temperature and mechanical stress loads. CSIRO Entomology business manager, Cameron Be ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 29 2008 - 6:22pm

Practical Science- Measuring Chili Hotness With Nanotubes

Nano-whatever is all the rage. They're a big deal because they can make a blacker version of black and lots of other things but what does that even mean? Richard Compton and his team at Oxford University are here to help make carbon nanotubes understa ...

Article - News Staff - May 6 2008 - 11:50pm

Conducting Polymers- Get Ready For Plastic Nerves

A type of plastic that exhibits metallic and semi-conductor-like properties will be described in an inaugural doctoral lecture at the University of Leicester on Wednesday June 4th(*). In his lecture, Dr. M. A. Mohamoud will discuss a novel class of materia ...

Article - News Staff - May 13 2008 - 9:44am

New Titanium Process Could Make Death Proofing Your Car Cheaper

Titanium is the lightweight metal of choice for many applications and a non-melt consolidation process being developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory may make it cheap enough to bulletproof your Prius. Or a military vehicle, if you want to be predictable ...

Article - News Staff - May 20 2008 - 9:39am

The Amino Acid Reason Spider Silk Is Sometimes Stretchy And Sometimes Springy

It’s stronger than steel and nylon, and more extensible than Kevlar. What is this super-tough material? Spider silk; and learning how to spin it is one of the materials industries’ Holy Grails. John Gosline has been fascinated by spider silks and their rem ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 1 2008 - 8:30am

Graphene- Science's Voodoo Material Of The Decade

The familiar pencil-lead form of carbon, graphite, consists of layers of carbon atoms tightly bonded in the plane but only loosely bonded between planes; because the layers move easily over one another, graphite is a good lubricant. In fact these graphite ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 8 2008 - 5:05pm

What If Sand Flowed Like Water?

How do grains flow out of an emptying silo? And what about sugar poured out by a pastry chef? Researchers at Centre de Physique Moléculaire Optique et Hertzienne (CPMOH) of CNRS/ Université Bordeaux 1 have just demonstrated that even without an attractive ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 9 2008 - 11:28pm

No More Etching- Nano-Glassblowing Can Happen At The Molecular Level

While the results may not rival the artistry of glassblowers in Europe and Latin America, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Cornell University have found beauty in a new fabrication technique called "nanoglas ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 12 2008 - 9:21am