A table tennis table that will up your game
Zhong Lin Wang started playing table tennis only four years ago. But last year, he and other researchers came up…
Category: materials science
The Energy Scavengers
By harvesting the everyday energy of static electricity, scientists may have found the world's most plentiful source of renewable, sustainable…
What’s the best way to build a molecular machine?
Some of the smallest, most useful machines known to science are the biological molecules that keep living things living. The…
What powers these electronics? We do!
Inspiration often comes from unusual sources. Nelson Sepúlveda knows this firsthand. He got his big idea for a new source…
All about quantum dots
In September 2015, Philips, an electronics company based in The Netherlands, unveiled a computer monitor that achieved a brilliant color…
Charting the history of western art with math
For more than a century, researchers have used statistics to study writing style in a sort of literary forensics…
Perovskite’s solar promise
In the last few years, the sun-to-power efficiency of perovskites has surged at an unprecedented rate. This material is easier…
Mathematics in Metal
A mathematical surface known as the Klein bottle is like a mischievous, mathematical cousin of the Moebius…
‘Print’ almost anything
Imagine having a printer hooked up to your computer that could make anything. Tired of your toothbrush? No problem. Print…
How to stop a speeding bullet
A bullet fired into a disk of polyurethane — a type of plastic — may not burst out the other…