All Stories by Jessica Gorman
- Chemistry
Researchers stretch for improved surfaces
A surprisingly simple, new technique could create better coatings for everything from medical implants to ship hulls.
- Materials Science
New lithium battery design charges up
Researchers have developed a new, safer type of electrode for lithium batteries.
- Materials Science
A hard new material with a soft touch
Adding exotic substances called quasicrystals to polymers creates nonabrasive hard materials, which could soon serve as coatings in machine parts.
- Materials Science
Nanotubes: Knot just for miniature work
A new technique can spin individual nanotubes into durable ribbons and threads visible to the naked eye.
- Materials Science
Nanotubes get as small as they can
Two research teams have created stable carbon nanotubes with the smallest diameter that scientists believe is physically possible, at just 0.4 nanometer across.
- Materials Science
Making Stuff Last
Chemistry and materials science step up to preserve history, old and new.
- Tech
Tiny tubes could ease eavesdropping
A team of researchers is developing highly sensitive acoustic sensors using ordered arrays of carbon nanotubes, which act much like the rodlike stereocilia of the inner ear.
- Materials Science
One-Upping Nature’s Materials
Striving for designer substances that build themselves from individual molecules.
- Tech
Novel sensing system catches the dud spud
A new device can detect a single potato that's infected with bacterial soft rot while buried deep in a storage crate with hundreds of healthy tubers.
- Chemistry
Chemistry Catches Cocaine at Source
Scientists have devised a method for identifying cocaine's geographical origin by determining the chemical signatures of five distinct coca-growing regions in the Andes.
- Chemistry
Detailed yellow-bud research blossoms
In identifying the chemical responsible for the color of many yellow flowers, scientists have moved one step closer to engineering sunny-colored designer buds.
- Chemistry
King Midas’ Modern Mourners
Chemistry resurrects—in Philadelphia—an ancient funeral banquet.
