Ghent University

Hydrogel is something that most of us are familiar with from it being used in contact lenses, burn dressings, and hair gel. In future, it might also be used to shield astronauts from the hazard of deadly cosmic radiation on long space voyages.

If you were a bird, chances are that you'd want to minimize the number of times you had to land on the treacherous ocean. A new study now suggests that multiple seabird species have thus evolved dark-colored wings, in order to stay aloft longer.

With an ability to stiffen up under a certain type of light and go soft in the dark, a new dynamic material shows particular promise for the world of 3D printing, where it could be used as a temporary support for complex structures that melts away when the job is done.

After nearly a decade in development, Belgian startup Magnax claims it has developed an ultra-high power, lightweight, compact axial flux electric motor with performance figures that blow away everything in the conventional world. Crucially, it says it's worked out how to manufacture them, too.

Global efforts to extract energy from sewage in forms such as heat, biogas and even electricity may get a boost thanks to the work of a team of biochemists and microbiologists from Ghent University, Belgium, who are collaborating on a pilot project with DC Water in Washington DC.

If flexible electronic devices are ever going to become practical for real-world use, the circuitry incorporated into them will have to be tough and resilient. With that in mind, scientists have created optical circuits utilizing the world's first stretchable optical interconnections.