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It looks like an alien city on the edge of a canal. But this is actually just a few microns across — it's a scanning electron microscope image by Fatih Buyukserin. What you're seeing are polymers stuck to a silicon mold full of beehive-like cells. This nano-city even has its own flowers made of wire.
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sci fashion
Rayon and polyester better step aside. There's a new synthetic fabric in town, and it's softer, lighter, and more flexible than any of its predecessors. Designers Yvonne Laurysen and Erik Mantel collaborated to create furore, a porous material reminiscent of expanded metal. It comes long and bushy or short and smooth, and can be dyed a variety of different colors. What does this mean for the future of fashion? For one thing, it means you can now dress like a furry alien mermaid without having to hunt down, kill, and skin a furry alien mermaid.
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This mind-bendingly cute thorny devil lizard is one of the most sought-after creatures in the engineering world because it has a special talent: drinking through its foot. Using cracks in its scales, this little guy can wick water up through its foot into its body. Materials scientists hope that by studying how the lizard does this, they can invent substances that absorb water in a similar fashion. And bioengineers might go further.
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Ever wanted to create luminescent designs or safety arrows in your floor, but weren't too crazy about those crappy, glow-in-the-dark stickers? Now a company in the Netherlands called Hidden Safety is marketing luminescent gravel, which can be mixed into concrete floors to create beautiful patterns or just point people the right direction in the dark. The gravel looks ordinary in light, but it is actually absorbing photons (hence, the material is often called photoluminescent). When darkness falls, photons zoom out of the gravel and create a glow.
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invisibility
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