After several months of work behind the scenes, Materials Today is happy to announce the launch of our new Channels, which you can find at http://www.materialstoday.com/channels. These pages bring together the latest developments in biomaterials, energy, nanotechnology, and materials characterization in a range of media formats. Each month, you'll find a range of new content for visitors to explore – not just the news, interviews and webinars you're already familiar with, but more personal comments and opinions in the form of blogs, streams of related twitter comments, and perhaps most importantly, specially selected articles from our sister journals for you to download, free of charge.
These papers will be selected by the Materials Today editorial team, including myself and members of our Editorial Board. And so I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the latest members of our Editorial Board; who will each be overseeing the Channel related to their specialism:
Prof. Dan Luo | Cornell University, USA
Biomaterials
Prof. Valeria Nicolosi | Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland Materials Characterization
Prof. Frederik Krebs | Technical University of Denmark Energy
Dr. Yugang Sun | Argonne National Laboratory, USA Nanotechnology
With four Channels to start off with, we're hoping to grow by adding new pages. Let us know what you think the next section should be. These pages represent a dynamic home for the sharing of content amongst the materials science community – so do get in touch if you're interested in getting involved by contributing to our blog, or elsewhere.
The addition of the new Channels, incorporating blogs, webinars, podcasts, as well as tweets and news collected from around the world, marks another step forward for MaterialsToday.com - and we hope the pages will find a valuable home in your browser's bookmark tab!
And so while the online world continues to advance, so too does the physical world of materials. In this issue we take a look at several types of advanced material: First up, Wu and Chou discuss carbon nanotube fibers for advanced composites, which leads on to Stout and Webster's review of the applications of carbon nanotubes in the control of stem cells. Ramesh and colleagues look at oxide interfaces, and explore how the interface can influence the bulk of materials. Liao and Duan review the application of the wonder material graphene in real world applications – specifically, in radio frequency electronics – while Sariciftci and co-workers consider what can be done to make technology greener, in a review of biodegradable electronics.
Until next time, we hope you enjoy this issue of Materials Today.