A car's crash components can spell the difference between life and death. Their job is to absorb energy in a collision in order to protect the driver inside. Researchers have now found a way for the automotive industry to mass-produce a particularly safe class of materials known as thermoplastic fiber composite components.
Researchers have developed an improved coating technique that could strengthen the connection between titanium joint-replacement implants and a patients' own bone. Implants coated with "flower bouquet" clusters of an engineered protein made 50 percent more contact with the surrounding bone than implants coated with protein pairs or individual strands. The cluster-coated implants were fixed in place more than twice as securely as uncoated plugs.
Chemical engineers, materials scientists and biologists have devised a synthetic surface that includes no foreign animal material and allows stem cells to stay alive and continue reproducing themselves for at least three months. It's also the first synthetic material that allows single cells to form colonies of identical cells, which is necessary to identify cells with desired traits and has been difficult to achieve with existing materials.
The protein Hsp90 plays a significant role in the survival of cells that are exposed to stress. Researchers in Germany uncovered this protein's mode of operation some time ago -- but now Hsp90 has surprised even the experts with an unexpected pattern of motion. The results may help researchers discover specific cancer medication.
In the war against infectious disease, identifying the culprit is half the battle. Now, researchers describe a new method for visualizing individual virus particles. Their research opens the door to a more detailed understanding of these minute pathogens, and may further the study of a broad range of micro- and nanoscale phenomena.
Researchers have discovered a new way to apply nanostructure coatings to make heat transfer far more efficient, with important potential applications to high-tech devices as well as the conventional heating and cooling industry.
Hydrogen is considered the fuel of the future. Yet this lightest of the chemical elements can embrittle the metals used in vehicle engineering. The result: components suddenly malfunction and break. A new special laboratory is aiding researchers' search for hydrogen-compatible metals.
Superconducting materials, which transmit power resistance-free, are found to perform optimally when high- and low-charge density varies on the nanoscale level, according to new research.
Despite growing awareness of the problem of plastic pollution in the world's oceans, little solid scientific information existed to illustrate the nature and scope of the issue. Now, a team of researchers has published a study of plastic marine debris based on data collected over 22 years by undergraduate students.
Harnessing darkness for practical use, researchers have developed a laser power detector coated with the world's darkest material -- a forest of carbon nanotubes that reflects almost no light across the visible and part of the infrared spectrum.
