Lenticular printing, or a method to produce printed images that change or move depending on viewing angle, typically uses plastic as the medium. Artist Rufus Butler Seder developed a way to create glass-based lenticular images, and his murals appear in public places around the world.
Read More
Like Roman concrete, plasters from the ancient Maya civilization are another historical building material that researchers are trying to understand and replicate. In a recent open-access paper, University of Granada researchers used advanced imaging techniques to reveal that the addition of organic molecules to the Maya plasters induced the formation of biomimetic structures, which are likely key to the plaster’s durability.
Read More
How can we preserve our knowledge for people living thousands of years in the future? Austrian ceramicist Martin Kunze launched the Memory of Mankind project to record information on ceramic tablets, which will be stored deep within a salt mine to preserve today’s knowledge for future generations.
Read More
The expansive Wari civilization was the first political structure to unify the south-central and north-central Andes. A new study used ceramic geochemical analysis to learn more about this ancient civilization.
Read More
Antibacterial ceramic coatings that inactivate or destroy pathogens typically suffer from poor durability. Instead, antibacterial coatings based on hydrophobicity, which inhibits bacterial adhesion, may be more durable. Researchers in South Korea demonstrated the potential of copper-glazed ceramic tiles to maintain long-lasting antibacterial efficiency through a combination of hydrophobicity and bacterial killing via ion dissolution.
Read More
Advanced applications are not the only use for advanced materials. A graduate engineering student at Drexel University discovered he could create bleed-free inks for calligraphy using MXenes, a novel 2D material family comprising transition metal carbides and nitrides.
Read More
Following World War II, how did Japan and the United States repair their relationship and become as close as they are today? A new exhibition at the University of Michigan Museum of Art examines how Shigaraki ware may have helped transform the U.S. public’s image of Japan.
Read More
Traditionally, researchers have considered aggregate-scale lime clasts in Roman concretes to be relicts of the concrete fabrication process. Researchers led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology instead argue that these clasts were purposefully included to provide the concretes with self-healing properties.
Read More
Implementing new sustainable materials and technologies into designated historical sites is complicated by the need to preserve the area’s historical nature. In Italy, managers of a project to improve the safety of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii worked with the owners of a small family-run business to install solar panels that blend into the ancient city’s traditional buildings.
Read More
The Animal Locomotion series by Eadweard Muybridge is a set of glass photographic plates that are widely regarded as the immediate predecessor to the development of motion pictures. Researchers from the Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute investigated how formation of an amorphous surface layer on the glass plates due to water exposure can impact delamination of the image-containing gelatin layer.
Read More