American Chemical Society

While we've seen antibacterial wound dressings before, Italian scientists have taken the idea to new extremes. They've created a material that kills multiple types of harmful bacteria, and it does so using tiny flowers.

Geckos are able to maintain a grip on wet surfaces not because their toe pads repel water, but because they attract it. A new polymer, which was inspired by this phenomenon, could find use in shoe soles that keep people from slipping on ice.

Although sunscreen does help protect our skin from the sun's harmful UV rays, it isn't designed to keep that skin cool. An experimental new sunscreen does that very thing, however, while maintaining an SPF rating of about 50.

When it comes to keeping cool on hot days, it's not so much a matter of wearing less clothing as it is a matter of wearing the right clothing. A new fabric coating could help in that regard, and it's essentially made of chalk.

For babies born with a certain heart defect, implantation of a "shunt" is essential to their survival. A new type of shunt can be expanded using light after it's been implanted, potentially eliminating the need for more heart surgeries down the road.

Human-machine interfaces such as phone screens would be a lot cleaner and longer-lasting if we didn't have to touch them. Scientists have now created a proximity-sensing film which makes such a scenario more possible and practical than ever before.

When it comes to the treatment of Parkinson's disease, electrical deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a commonly used technique. It does have some drawbacks, however, which is why scientists are now looking to tiny wirelessly activated magnets instead.

While renewable energy sources certainly are eco-friendly, most of them only produce electricity in one way, such as using sunlight … which isn't always available. A new system, that has been built into an artificial plant, uses both wind and rain.

Thanks to online shopping, an increasing number of goods are being shipped to buyers in cardboard boxes filled with eco-unfriendly EPS (expanded polystyrene) foam. Soon, however, such boxes could be upcycled into a greener alternative to EPS.

It was just this August that we heard about a super-slippery 3D-printed toilet bowl, which bacteria slide right off of. Well, if you want that same sort of functionality in your existing toilet, a special coating may do the trick.

Blueberries and other fruits are quite prone to fungi such as gray mold, whereas sunflowers are resistant to them. With that fact in mind, scientists have now used an extract from waste sunflower stems to keep such fruits from molding.

The desert-dwelling Namaqua chameleon has a pretty neat trick – it changes skin color to stay cool when outdoor temperatures rise, and stay warm when they drop. An experimental new coating could one day do the same thing for our homes.