Tiny cracks can actually be a big deal when they're forming inside parts of your car or, say, a metal shell that's flying into space. University of Illinois research, led by Professors Nancy Sottos ...

Researchers have used a three-dimensional printer to create polymer structures that change color when stretched (ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2014, DOI: 10.1021/am506745m). The 3-D printing approach ...

Some of the most vividly colored materials in nature, including things like butterfly wings, don’t obtain their color from pigment. Instead, their internal structure reflects light at a given ...

Plastics, which are polymeric materials composed of long chains of small molecules called monomers, are widely used in ...

A fascinating and crucial ability of biological tissue, such as muscle, is self-healing and self-strengthening in response to damage caused by external forces. Most human-made polymers, on the other ...

Polymer gels are three-dimensional cross-linked polymer networks swollen in solvents. They are soft and capable of large deformations, with the network of long polymer molecules holding the solvent in ...

Learn more about the polymer film that can change color and texture when electron beams are applied. Octopuses have the incredible ability to quickly change and adapt their skin to camouflage ...

Philips researchers make an electroluminescent switch that could simplify the manufacture of color displays. Scientists in The Netherlands have fabricated an electroluminescent device that can ...