A team of scientists has developed a method for creating a new class of plastic materials that are potentially more recyclable than single-use plastics.
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.
Plastic is made from oil and natural gas, which started out as fossilized plant and animal material. But buried deep underground for millions of years, those materials changed in important ways.
De-icing salts help us get around in winter, but they corrode cars, crack roads and contaminate rivers and lakes. Scientists are working to develop better options by imitating natural antifreezes.
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.
Right now, you’re living in a kind of industrial revolution – where biotechnology, information technology, manufacturing and automation all come together to form synthetic biology.
Research is yielding strategies for making plastics greener and more sustainable. But without support as they scale up, new versions will struggle to compete with well-established synthetic plastics.
Silicon is cheap and a good semiconductor, but it’s bulky and rigid. Using organic polymers as semiconductors could yield solar panels with the physical characteristics of plastics.
Research on molecular machines won last year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry. Now scientists have figured out a way to get these tiny molecules to join forces and collaborate on real work on a macro scale.
The orange juice industry throws away a half of the fruit needed to make juice. Could this be used as an alternative to chemicals derived from crude oil?
The New York World’s Fair of 1939-40 was one of the greatest expos the world had ever seen. Visitors to Flushing Meadow Park in Queens were invited to see the “world of tomorrow” giving them a first glimpse…
Welcome to CSIRO Inventions, a series looking at the discoveries and innovations borne from Australia’s national science agency. In this first instalment, we outline the story behind the plastic money…
A unique cutting-edge carbon fibre research facility Carbon Nexus officially opened at Deakin University in Geelong last week. It houses laboratories, a pilot scale carbon fibre line and a smaller single-tow…