Materials stories that didn’t make the cut this week

At the end of each week, I end up with a list of a bunch of stories I started to write about, or started to investigate or didn’t even get that far even though the topic looked intriguing, but, I had a meeting to go to . . .

Anyway, it’s Friday, and rather than have these stories evaporate into the ether, I’ve decided to close out each week by providing some raw links to some of these orphan tales. Check ’em out:

• DOE Study: Whitening Cities’ Roofs Is Environmental Equivalent of Taking 300 Million Cars Off the Road
• Reversible twisting in crystal growth
  
• China rejects world’s number one energy user title
  
• Nanotech coatings offer possibility of ‘brown’ electricity from sewage
  
• New ‘Smart’ Metal Could Mean Cool Cash for Consumers, Less CO₂