Paper

It's an unfortunate fact that many "cold chain" items such as food or medicine are shipped in single-use Styrofoam packaging, which is non-biodegradable and difficult to recycle. Such is not the case with a new material, however, which is made from discarded paper.

When plants perform movements such as curling their leaves, they do so by drawing water into the cellulose fibers in that part of their "body." Scientists have now replicated that technique to produce self-folding paper structures.

A typical sheet of paper or cardboard is neither waterproof, interactive or able to harvest energy, but an innovative new printing technology developed at Purdue University can make it all of the above.

When you think of papier-mâché, school art projects and carnival floats may come to mind, but a team of architects has used strips of recycled paper and non-toxic glue to create pair of simple prototype shelters in rural Texas.

The first PowerUp kit added an electric propeller to paper planes. Well, the latest version reportedly allows all sorts of things to fly.

Throughout the densely-populated country of Bangladesh, a lack of access to clean drinking water is responsible for a variety of debilitating and often-lethal infections. Soon, however, residents could filter virtually all harmful microbes out of their water, using paper derived from algae.

​Although many people do send paper off to be recycled, the recycling process isn't entirely eco-friendly – it requires a lot of power, and incorporates toxic chemicals. Now, however, scientists have developed a method of simply removing the printed text from sheets of paper, so they can be reused.

​Despite predictions that writing paper may soon "go extinct," people are still using an awful lot of the stuff. That's why a number of groups have developed rewritable paper, with an interesting example of the technology recently being created by scientists in China.

​With a few notable exceptions, the majority of objects removed from a 3D printer bed are fashioned with plastic. But plastic has a nasty habit of ruining our environment at the end of its useful life. Beer Holthuis has built a 3D printer that extrudes paper pulp to build three-dimensional objects.​

Scientists have developed an inexpensive new paper-based blood test kit that quickly determines if patients have infectious diseases. Among other things, it could be of great help to clinicians in developing nations who don't have access to traditional lab equipment.

​Scientists from Carnegie Mellon University have done something interesting to plain ol' paper. They've coated it with patterns of a conductive thermoplastic, which causes the paper to bend, fold or flatten in response to an electrical current.

​Paper is typically made from cellulose fibers derived from wood, and wood isn't plentiful in places where there aren't many trees. In the near future, however, that may not be a problem, as scientists have devised a method of making paper from cow and even elephant manure.