Despite being well over a year-deep into the COVID-19 pandemic, there still is plenty of room for improvement in terms of everyday consumer face masks. With that in mind, U.S. government agencies have partnered to host an open innovation challenge to build a better face mask—and they are backing winning ideas with $500,000 in prize money.
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Artists and scientists alike find inspiration in nature. But two recent scientific studies found inspiration in the same creature: the mantis shrimp. The creature’s incredibly tough materials and complex eyes inspired innovations that could lead to fracture-resistant biocomposites and highly advanced optical sensors.
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Face masks are everywhere today—yet despite the vast array of choices, there is a disappointing lack of information about how effective each of those choices are. A newly released ASTM International standard finally provides a validated set of consensus metrics to evaluate the efficiency of consumer face masks.
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After a long and interesting journey, bioactive glass toothpaste is set to soon be available in the United States. U.K.-based company BioMin received FDA premarket clearance for its Restore Plus toothpaste under the Dr.Collins brand.
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Challenges with recycling systems have resulted in a dead end for many materials. But a new robotic kitchen concept called Lasso has a solution—the appliance can clean, sort, process, and store recyclable materials, generating highly pure recyclable waste streams right at their point of use.
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As we face dangerously rising carbon dioxide levels in the earth’s atmosphere, new strategies for carbon capture and storage that are not only effective but also scalable, affordable, and easy to implement are drastically needed. Could a simple green silicate mineral called olivine provide the solution?
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Ancient mummy portraits that were buried with mummies in Roman Egypt still hold many secrets about how and why they were created. A new study takes a deep dive into the materials secrets hiding in an ancient pigment particle and discovers some interesting insights into the people who created these unique works of art.
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The diabolical ironclad beetle can withstand crushing by forces up to 39,000-times its body weight. But what makes this little beetle so tough? A new study reveals some of the secrets the beetle stores in its tough exoskeleton, secrets that could aid in development of biomimetic materials and structures to join dissimilar materials in more robust ways.
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Although chocolate is a simple pleasure for many people around the world, the science behind chocolate as a food and as a material is deliciously complex. Now an industrial designer has re-engineered the chocolate chip to maximize taste and texture, giving it optimal surface area with angular features.
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A team of researchers in the U.K. and Germany developed a ceramic–metal composite that, despite being just 15% as dense as steel, is nearly uncuttable. The material harnesses the power of vibration to direct cutting tools’ destructive energy back upon themselves, wearing the tools down before they can inflict serious damage on the material.
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