Chemistry and Materials Science

One of the most conventional ways of creating fusion energy is using high-power lasers to heat material. However, this process is slow because the energy from the laser targets and heats up the electrons, which in turn heat up the ions. Now theoretical physicists from Imperial College London have developed a method by which certain metals can be heated to ten million degrees, which is hotter than the Sun’s core, in less than a million millionth of a second. Read more about their research here.

Why do snowy winters seem peaceful? According to David Herrin, an associate professor in the UK College of Engineering who studies acoustics, snow is capable of absorbing sound just like any commercial sound absorbing materials. The porosity of snow and its low density enables it to soak noise. Read more about this here.

Can a printer print out human skin? A team of researchers belonging to the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), CIEMAT (Center for Energy, Environmental and Technological Research), Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, in collaboration with the firm BioDan Group have designed a prototype for a 3D printer that would be able to print out human skin that can be used for cosmetic, chemical, or pharmacological purposes. Read more about their research here.

A collaborative effort by Professor Neil Thomas from the School of Chemistry and Dr. Sara Goodacre from the School of Life Sciences and their teams has led to the development of antibiotic synthetic spider silk. The two teams worked for five years to produce functionalized spider silk synthesized by E.coli bacteria that can be used for a wide range of applications such as wound healing, drug delivery, etc. Read more about their research here.

Can you imagine 3-D printed ovaries that can produce offspring? Researchers at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and McCormick School of Engineering have made this possible by replacing a female mouse’s ovary with a bioprosthetic ovary. Read more about their research here. 

A team of researchers at The University of Manchester led by Professor David Leigh in Manchester's School of Chemistry have been successful in producing the most complex regular woven molecule. Read more about their research here.