Certain carbon nitride compounds are predicted to rival or surpass diamond in terms of hardness, but attempts to experimentally synthesize these compounds in the past 30 years have failed. Now, in a recent groundbreaking study, researchers report successful synthesis of four covalent carbon nitrides that can all be recovered at ambient conditions.
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What gives colored glass its brilliant hues? Since the early days of alchemy, our understanding of and control over the design of colored glasses has improved enormously, opening the door to a host of practical applications.
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Though the tradition of creating grand stained-glass windows is less common than it was before, the artform remains an important part of our culture today. In April 2024, CTT is running a special three-part series on stained glass. Part 2 provides an overview of the early history of colored glass and details the rise and fall of stained-glass windows between the 11th and 16th centuries.
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Archaeologists have repeatedly shown that dairy products were an essential part of late Stone Age diets despite virtually all Neolithic Europeans being lactose intolerant. University of York researchers led a study that suggests early farmers used dairy products from multiple different animals and reduced the lactose content in milk by making it into cheese.
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Though the tradition of creating grand stained-glass windows is less common than it was before, the artform remains an important part of our culture today. In April 2024, CTT is running a special three-part series on stained glass. Part 1 overviews the techniques used to create stained glass.
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The Great Depression in the United States (1929–1939) led glassmakers to pivot from producing fine crystal to manufacturing glassware pieces that could be pressed in large quantities with machines. The MacBeth–Evans Glass Company in Pittsburgh was one of many companies producing these so-called “Depression” glasses, and its history is covered in today’s CTT.
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In a recent paper, researchers from various universities in the Republic of Korea developed a low-temperature process for synthesizing mesoporous metal oxides, which unlocks the possibility of integrating these materials onto flexible electronics.
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Researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences developed a method for creating 100-millimeter-diameter metalenses. Scaling up metalenses to this size makes applications in astronomy and free-space optical communications possible.
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The inherent brittleness of bioceramics makes them difficult to shape using traditional subtractive manufacturing methods. Electrospinning has emerged as an alternative to additive manufacturing to produce nanoscale, composite bioceramic parts.
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To date, efforts to develop retinal prostheses have achieved limited success. But the turn toward flexible rather than rigid platforms for these devices is leading to significant advances in the research community.
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