Materials

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.

A team from Stanford has shown that graphene arranged in a specific way can generate a magnetic field. That’s surprising enough, but it turns out this particular form of magnetism has previously only been theorized.

The closest thing we have to magnetic liquids are ferrofluids. But now, Berkeley Lab has managed to create the first permanently magnetic liquids, which could open up new avenues for electronics and robotics.

Graphene is incredibly thin, flexible, strong and electrically conductive, but it’s tricky to manufacture on large scales. Now researchers at the University of Rochester have recruited bacteria to make the stuff, which is cheaper and faster than current methods and doesn’t require harsh chemicals.

It's not enough to just reduce our carbon dioxide emissions now – we need to remove some of what’s already in the atmosphere. Now, researchers at KIT have developed a simple way to turn the troublesome gas into a useful resource: by converting it into the “wonder” material graphene.

​How do you stop bullets using the lightest material possible? Researchers working on this problem have developed a new type of bulletproof material comparable in performance to conventional armor, but with just half the weight. ​