Concrete is everywhere — a ubiquity owed to its strength as a building material. Despite its strength, however, it has a pernicious but inescapable tendency to ‘creep,’ or deform progressively under mechanical stress, which leads to crumbling bridges and cracked roads. Despite the obvious relevance this holds for the safety of infrastructure, however, the physical origin of the mechanism has remained poorly understood, and even scientifically contested.

Bulk metallic glasses are metallic alloys whose neatly ordered atomic structure can be altered into an amorphous, non-crystalline structure — giving metal the malleability of plastic, while maintaining its durability and conductivity. However, these alloys are complex, often containing five or six different elements, including expensive noble metals like gold or palladium and scientists have no clue which combinations of elements will form them. Now, researchers have developed a method to predict which alloys may form a bulk metallic glass.

A new company will commercialize sensing technology that can perform instant, in-field characterization of the chemical make-up and material properties of unknown liquids. Validere aims to develop the licensed technology, called Watermark Ink (W-INK), into a pocket-sized device that could be used by first responders to quickly identify chemical spills, or by officials to verify the fuel grade of gasoline right at the pump.

Researchers say their discovery of a type of fire tornado they call a ‘blue whirl’ could lead to beneficial new approaches for reduced carbon emissions and improved oil spill cleanup.

A research team has created a high-power simulation and design process to print free-standing 3-D structures on the nanoscale using focused electron beam induced deposition. The simulation-guided nanomanufacturing method allows researchers to design and construct complex high-fidelity nanostructures with less guesswork.

Soft materials are great at damping energy — that’s why rubber tires are so good at absorbing the shock of bumps and potholes. But if researchers are going to build autonomous soft systems, like soft robots, they’ll need a way to transmit energy through soft materials.

On a technological behemoth like a ship, in many cases the crew, or ‘human element” get little attention when planning the design and operations – a mistake, as statistics show: most accidents at sea can be traced back to human error, not technical error. The CyClaDes project brought the industry together and showed how more consideration can be given to the human operators and their contexts in the shipbuilding and operational process.

With half of the world’s population now living in urban areas, the latest data show that the future’s smart, sustainable cities will have to shelter around 6 billion people by 2050. This is already changing the way urban areas are designed and built.