Materials

Clean water is all around us – it's floating around in the air most of the time. Of course, it’s not particularly drinkable in that form, but now researchers have found materials that can collect huge amounts of water from the air.

Researchers have incorporated living microbes into 3D printed objects. The resin material is embedded with chemical “instructions” that tell a layer of microbes to fluoresce in particular colors, producing a stunning array of patterns and designs.

One of humanity’s biggest threats is also the smallest – bacteria. But now, researchers at RMIT in Australia have found a new method for killing these superbugs that they can’t resist – magnetic nanoparticles that physically tear them to shreds.

With gold, beauty and weight are two sides of the same coin. Now, by mixing it with plastic instead of other metals, researchers have created a new form of gold with as little as one-10th the usual weight, but retaining the same purity.

Graphene is already known for being incredibly strong, so how can it be made even stronger? By turning it into sheets of diamond, of course. Researchers in South Korea have developed a new method to convert graphene into ultrathin diamond films.

We're used to thinking of fakes and forgeries with disdain, but a new innovation from the University of Oxford looks set to buck that trend: fake rhinoceros horn. Rhino populations have been devastated by poaching due to demand for their horn.

A team of scientists has discovered a new, stable form of plutonium – and done so by accident. The famously unstable element is tricky to transport, store and dispose of, but the find could lead to new ways to tackle those problems.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University have found a superconducting material naturally stable in two states at once, which is useful for quantum computers.

Researchers from the University of California Berkeley have developed a device that can wring drinkable amounts of water out of even the driest air.

New MIT and Harvard research shows how versatile CRISPR is, putting the genetic scissors to work in diagnostic tools and timed drug delivery systems.

Researchers have developed a new way to weld ceramics together at room temperature, using ultrafast laser pulses.

Since electronics are always shrinking, engineers need to find ways to make smaller components too. Now, scientists from the University of Leeds have managed to make the thinnest gold ever created, measuring just two atoms thick. That makes it functionally two-dimensional, joining graphene.