Everything from electronics to concrete is getting the self-healing treatment nowadays, but the technology rarely seems to make it to commercial products. Now, Imperial Motion is pitching a self-healing tent, made out of a proprietary material it calls Nano Cure Technology (NCT).
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Harvard scientists have led an international team to develop a new surface that can reconfigure its shape, stickiness or slipperiness on demand, through the application of a magnetic field.
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You don’t want to be staring down the barrel of the mantis shrimp's immensely-powerful club. Now researchers have discovered the mechanism behind just how the creature wields this weapon without permanently damaging itself, and the design strategy could inspire a new class of super-tough materials.
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Metamaterials that cloak people and objects from radar, visible light or infrared are usually thick and heavy, but now engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed an ultrathin, lightweight sheet that absorbs heat signatures and can even present false ones.
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To make ships and submarines slippier, Anish Tuteja, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Michigan, is working on an "omniphobic" coating that not only repels water, but many other substances, like oil, alcohol, and even peanut butter.
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To make concrete more environmentally friendly, the industry has been adding by-products from coal-fired power plants, but doing so had its own problems. Now, Rice researchers have developed a new composite binder that requires no cement, and reduce waste from power plants at the same time.
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Most batteries have a cathode on one side and an anode on the other, with a separator between them. Engineers at Cornell University have developed an unusual new structure that intertwines the components together in a swirling shape, which they say lets the device recharge in a matter of seconds.
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Hydrogels could make for robots that are more flexible, safer to be around and simpler to build and use. Now researchers at Rutgers University have developed a smart gel that can be 3D printed into a variety of shapes, and electrically-activated to make it “walk” underwater, grab and move objects.
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Engineers at Caltech and ETH Zurich have created a swimming robot that’s powered by material deformation. That means that it’s made using materials that change shape in response to temperature swings, and that deformation pushes the device through water.
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Spider silk has long held the title of strongest natural biomaterial. Now, researchers at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology have developed a new biomaterial out of wood nanofibers that steals the strength record.
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