Materials/​Biomaterials

Most materials swell when they warm, and shrink when they cool. A University of Connecticut physicist, however, has been investigating a substance that responds in reverse. Scandium trifluoride, a material with negative thermal expansion, may be used to create more durable electronics.

A team of fiber scientists at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, have created cotton fabric that, they say, can kill bacteria, conduct electricity, ward off malaria, capture harmful gas, and weave transistors into clothing. They explain that cotton, a cellulose-based material, can be controlled one atom at a...

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have created thin, flexible electronic devices that efficiently harvest the mechanical energy from natural motions of the human body. In addition to advances in materials processing to enable fabrication of these thin film devices, accurate analytical models...

A team of scientists from the University of Twente in The Netherlands has discovered a way to 3D print structures of copper and gold, by stacking microscopically small metal droplets. These droplets are made by melting a thin metal film using a pulsed laser. They say that this technology would allow...

Researchers at Michigan Technological University, Houghton, recently acquired a 3D bioprinter with which they plan to “print” synthesized nerve tissue. The key, they say, is developing the right “bioink” or printable tissue. One of the team member’s research on cellulose nanocrystals as...

Implanted biomedical devices used for drug delivery, tissue engineering, or sensing can help improve disease treatment. But, often these devices are susceptible to attack by the immune system. To help reduce that immune-system rejection, a team of scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology,...

Surgeons at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles say that three-dimensional printing technology can make surgery safer for children with congenital heart disease, and reduce the duration and number of invasive procedures required. Richard Kim, MD, a cardiac surgeon recently used a 3D printed...