SciPak

3-D Printed Materials Resemble Biological Tissues

A three-dimensional material could one day mimic the behavior of cells in tissues, new research shows. The tissue-like materials developed by Gabriel Villar and colleagues have the consistency of soft rubber, and physically resemble brain and fat tissues. The researchers aim to eventually build materials that can be used for medical applications like controlled drug release. In the long-term, they hope to integrate the technology with living tissues to potentially repair or augment failing organs.

Read more about this research from the 5 April issue of Science here.

[Video courtesy of Gabriel Villar, Alexander D. Graham and Hagan Bayley (University of Oxford). Click here for caption information.]

Polymers Powered by Water

Researchers have created specialized polymer films that respond to moisture in their environments and produce electrical energy that can be stored by small generators. This narrated video explains how the polymer films — combinations of rigid polypyrrole matrices and dynamic polyol-borate networks — work as actuators, or artificial muscles, to generate small amounts of electricity.

Read more about this research from the 11 January issue of Science here.

[Video courtesy of Dr. Mingming Ma]

“DNA Bricks” Act as Tiny Legos

Building upon the fields of DNA origami and DNA tiles, researchers have come up with a way to coax single-stranded DNA into a wide variety of shapes for possible applications in biophysics, medicine and nano-electronics. These “DNA bricks,” reported by Yonggang Ke and colleagues, assemble themselves into complex, three-dimensional nano-structures, and they might be ideal for hosting and delivering certain proteins or nanoparticles.

Read more about this research from the 30 November issue of Science here.

[Image courtesy of Yonggang Ke; click the image for more information.]

Spinning a Yarn: Twisting Motion Makes Artificial Muscles

Yarns made of carbon nanotubes and infused with wax can form the basis for artificial “muscles” that are capable of moving larger objects with great power and speed, researchers report. These types of materials are actuators, which can convert heat, light or electricity into a twisting or tensile motion. In this video, Dr. Ray Baughman, University of Texas at Dallas, describes carbon nanotube yarn.

[Video courtesy of University of Texas at Dallas]

Read more about this research from the 15 November issue of Science here.

Vanishing Electronic Medical Implants

Scientists have developed a new class of electronics capable of degrading into their environment. Unlike today’s electronic devices, which are designed to last forever, the transient circuits developed by Suk-Won Hwang at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and colleagues disappear after a programmed amount of time. The technology could be useful in biomedical implants to help treat surgical infections or stimulate bone growth.

Read more about this research from the 28 September issue of Science here.

[Click here for more information on the video. Video courtesy of the Beckman Institute, University of Illinois]

Self-Assembled, Complex Nano-Objects in 3D

For two decades, researchers have been questing after a “nano-assembler” that could construct tiny, complex three-dimensional objects one atom or molecule at a time. Now, Edgar González, of Institut Català de Nanotecnologia (ICN) in Bellaterra, Spain, and colleagues, have taken a page from colloidal chemistry to produce hollow nano-particles with unique geometries and compositions, and they suggest that it should give researchers more control over the self-assembly process at the nano-scale.

Read more about this research from the 9 December issue of Science here.

[Image courtesy of Victor Puntes, Jordi Arbiol and Edgar Gonzales; click the image for caption information.]