truss

Sea sponges resist buckling by building optimally engineered glass toothpicks

By April Gocha / January 24, 2017

Researchers at Brown University have taken a closer look at the orange puffball sea sponge’s silica spicules and found that they, too, have evolved a precisely engineered design that provides the structures with maximal strength.

Read More

Making ceramics perfect—and perfectly bendable—with air

By April Gocha / September 16, 2014

Researchers from California Institute of Technology say that bendable ceramics are more than possible—they report the fabrication of alumina nanostructures that are 99.9% air and can bend and deform with the best of them, springing back to shape after compressions of over 50% strain.

Read More

Building stronger, lighter ceramic microstructures sans the diffraction limit

By April Gocha / June 27, 2014

Researchers from MIT and LLNL have busted the diffraction limit to development a new class of materials with unprecedented high strength and low density.

Read More