Materials news, February 2015

Announcing Engineering Advances

A new initiative involving Elsevier’s engineering journals, editors, authors and referees – titled Engineering Advances.

Special issue on Progress in Polymer Hybrid Materials

We are pleased to bring to your attention the Special Issue on Progress in Polymer Hybrid Materials, published in Progress in Polymer Science.

Magnesium boosts artificial bone performance

Adding MgO nanoparticles to polymer composite scaffolds helps bone-forming cells stick.

Thin Solid Films: Freely available articles online

Thin Solid Films, Freely Available Online: Collection of invited critical review papers published in 2014.

Nanogel for drug delivery

Scientists are interested in using gels to deliver drugs designed to release their payload over a specified time period.

New technique for making molybdenum disulphide

University of Pennsylvania researchers have made an advance in manufacturing one such material, molybdenum disulphide.

New research helps understanding of sintered steel fractures

Scientists from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Chemical Engineering at the Carlos III University of Madrid have carried out resear

Perfect colors, captured with one ultra-thin lens

New cover and a new title: Nuclear and Particle Physics Proceedings

Amount of plastic ending up in oceans measured for first time

Modeling the amount of plastic waste that ends up in the world's oceans.

Using biology to improve lithium ion batteries

Specialized peptides binds with nanoparticles to help improve lithium-ion batteries.

New transistor switches superconductivity using light

New type of superconducting transistor that can be switched reversibly between on and off positions using light irradiation.

Improved plasmonic devices using the mid-infrared range

Novel material for efficient plasmonic devices in mid-IR range.

Symmetric solution

Hidden order revealed, cracking a cryo puzzle.

Wiggling carbon nanotube bugs evolve

Wiggling and evolving carbon nanotube bugs.

Biological chain mail armor

Biomimetic nanosheets based on microbial armor.

Revealing a new class of materials

Scientists used supercomputers to find a new class of materials that possess an exotic state of matter known as the quantum spin Hall effect.

Gold nanotubes launch a three-pronged attack on cancer cells

Scientists have shown that gold nanotubes have many applications in fighting cancer.

Prof. David Srolovitz elected to the National Academy of Engineering

Content innovation: the Virtual Microscope

Welcome to the Virtual Microscope, the integrated browser based slide viewer that provides access to high resolution whole slide images.

The statement of significance: A new addition to Acta Biomaterialia

From now on, when you submit an manuscript to Acta Biomaterialia, we request that you include a short statement of significance.

Visionary chemical engineer Robert Langer wins the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering

The 2015 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering has been awarded to the ground-breaking chemical engineer Dr Robert Langer.

Unlocking materials science data to support the materials genome initiative

Materials Today lead the way to make it simple for authors to publicly share peer-reviewed, curated, formatted, indexed, citable raw research data.

Elsevier lightens your research contest

We’re celebrating the International Year of Light with a video contest where we ask you to tell us what light means to you.

The economics of solar photovoltaic systems

Examining two new report by NREL into trade-offs of owning of leasing photovoltaic systems.

Easy to use technology compresses laser pulses for research

Using a medium to compress and shorten intense laser pulses.

Into the quantum valley

Valleytronics offers an alternative approach to spintronics.

Top 10 Materials News from January 2015

What was the most popular in Materials Science so far this year?

Moondust: a building material for a lunar base?

Researchers have created ceramics from lunar dust that could be used for structural applications on the moon.

Listen to your dentist: the effects of liquids on dental porcelain

Dentists and engineers find that that soft drinks really do damage your teeth.