Wood
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Wood is becoming an increasingly popular building material, but the timber is harvested mainly just from the long, straight trunks of trees. Aiming to reduce waste, an MIT team has developed a method of also using a tree's load-bearing junctions.
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While there's nothing quite as cozy as a wood cabin, pulling one behind your car could be a bit … challenging. That's where the Glamper comes in, as it's a wood-cabin-style trailer that folds flat for transit, and goes up in about 10 minutes.
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This intricate, lightweight "Greenaxe" electric guitar by Olaf Diegel shows off a new 3D printing technique that turns waste products like sawdust into high-strength, production-grade wood parts that cost virtually nothing in materials.
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Not only are most thermoset resins made from non-renewable sources, but they're also hard to recycle. Scientists have set about addressing those problems, by developing a new lignin-based, thermoset-like material that can be reused several times.
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Scientists have come up with a new hardened form of wood that can be fashioned into sturdy nails or knives that are almost three times sharper than a standard dinner table knife ... and they're dishwasher safe, too.
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The idea of using human movement to generate electricity is something we've seen applied to many areas, and scientists have now developed a highly efficient form of wooden flooring that leverages this technology to power a lamp with footsteps.
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Although stand-up paddleboards are eco-friendly to use, they're typically made of not-so-green substances. German scientists are trying to change that, with a board made of sustainable materials – obtained partially from old wind turbine blades.
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We currently rear animals for meat and dairy, cut down forests for wood, harvest organs from the deceased and mine the earth for diamonds. But what if all these things, and more, could be grown in a lab?
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A first-of-a-kind spacecraft is set to make history later this year, but will do so using materials you could find at your local hardware store. The world's first wooden satellite is set to enter orbit as a box made largely of birch plywood.
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Scientists at Sweden's KTH Royal Institute of Technology have produced a completely renewable version of see-through wood thanks to the addition of a fruit peel extract, which also happens to make it more translucent than previous versions.
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Researchers at Yale University have developed a bioplastic made using wood byproducts. The material boasts high strength and durability, but also has the ability to degrade completely in the space of just three months.
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It's a sad fact that many of the people who most need water filters are those who are least able to afford them. A newly demonstrated MIT technology could help, in that it uses locally sourced wood to inexpensively purify contaminated water.
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