As a material, bacteria’s ability to rapidly multiply and adapt to different conditions is an asset.
Gschmeissner/Science Photo Library via Getty Images
The walls of your house could someday be built with living bacteria. Synthetic biologists are engineering microbes into living materials that are cheap and sustainable.
Click chemistry joins molecules together by reacting an azide with a cyclooctyne.
Boris Zhitkov/Moment via Getty Images
Click and bioorthogonal chemistry has enabled researchers to closely study how molecules work in their natural state in living organisms, with applications that span from cancer treatment to polymers.
While pills are more practical than injections or infusions, digestion in the stomach prevents many drugs from being taken orally. Better drug design could change this.
A close-up of the head of a leafcutter ant, Atta cephalotes, showing the metal-infused teeth on its mandibles.
Ryan Garrett
Many small animals make their teeth and claws from a smooth blend of proteins and heavy elements. These materials can form very sharp tools that make it possible to cut tough substances using tiny muscles.
A block of sand particles held together by living cells.
The University of Colorado Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Science
Researchers are turning microbes into microscopic construction crews by altering their DNA to make them produce building materials. The work could lead to more sustainable buildings.
Spider silk is strong stuff and could be used to manufacture ultra tough ropes and cables, and better sutures in medicine. If only we could find a way to make the stuff.
Much of the current research in quantum computing involves work at close to absolute zero. A simple breakthough with an everyday material could see them work at more acceptable temperatures.
You’ll be amazed how much nanotechnology is found in the average house.
Pexels/Binyamin Mellish
Silicon isn’t the perfect semiconductor, it’s just the one we’re using. How can we ensure our electronics keep get getting faster in the face of silicon’s natural physical limits?
Scientists have figured out how to make this…with graphene.
McEuen Group, Cornell University
There is much excitement about graphene, a material only a single carbon-atom thick, but finding ways to do something with it that’s affordable have always been a challenge.
Before Pilkingtons invented plate glass in the mid-19th century, flat panes could not be made. Old windows are uneven. Some once thought this was because glass is a liquid that flows down slowly over the…