The materials that would change the world
Source: NewScientist
Leaner, faster, greener – technological revolutions require incredible new materials. So what's the stuff about to transform our lives?MEMORY GLASS
Glass that will store your info for ever
Hard drives can be wiped. DVDs degrade. So let's do like Superman
and record our most precious memories in shards of data-hungry glassSHRILK
Shrimp plus spider kills plastic
Combine the hard stuff in shrimp shells with a spider silk protein
and you get shrilk, a tough, biodegradable replacement for
world-choking plastics STANENE
Electron freeway for cool gadgets
Wish your smartphone could keep its cool? Then discard its wasteful silicon chip and get on the stanene superhighway instead
AEROGELS
Frozen smoke to clean the world
Almost as light as air, aerogels are a heavyweight solution for everything from heat-bleeding windows to carbon emissionsSELF-HEALING POLYMERS
Things that repair themselves
Scratch-free cars and chip-free nail varnish are only the start of
dreams for "Terminator" materials that can regenerate themselvesSKUTTERUDITES
Heat scavengers promise energy bonanza
A new breed of structures called skutterudites could finally tap the floods of energy our machines waste as heatWOOD
Amazing material that does grow on trees
Wood could hold up the skyscrapers of the future – now that it's stronger and more versatile than ever before
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