Related papers: Fungal architecture
Improving building energy performance requires the development of new highly insulative materials. An affordable retrofitting solution comprising a thin film could improve the resistance to heat flow in both residential and commercial…
Urban growth sometimes leads to rigid infrastructure that struggles to adapt to changing demand. This paper introduces a novel approach, aiming to enable cities to evolve and respond more effectively to such dynamic demand. It identifies…
Controlling the self-assembly of supramolecular structures is vital for living cells, and a central challenge for engineering at the nano- and microscales. Nevertheless, even particles without optimized shapes can robustly form well-defined…
Bacteria frequently colonize natural microcavities such as gut crypts, plant apoplasts, and soil pores. Recent studies have shown that the physical structure of these spaces plays a crucial role in shaping the stability and resilience of…
The need to reduce the environmental impact of inorganic electronic systems is pressing. Although the field of organic electronics provides a potential solution to this issue, research and optimization is still majorly carried out on glass…
Colloidal particles are considered ideal building blocks to produce materials with enhanced physical properties. The state-of-the-art techniques for synthesizing these particles provide control over shape, size, and directionality of the…
New materials have long marked the civilization level, serving as an impetus for technological progress and societal transformation. The classic structure-property correlations were key of materials science and engineering. However, the…
Mycelium is a promising biomaterial based on fungal mycelium, a highly porous, nanofibrous structure. Scanning electron micrographs are used to characterize its network, but the currently available tools for nanofibrous microstructures do…
The colonisation of a soft passive material by motile cells such as bacteria is common in biology. The resulting colonies of the invading cells are often observed to exhibit intricate patterns whose morphology and dynamics can depend on a…
Functional amyloid fibrils, once primarily associated with amyloidosis, are now recognized for their exceptional potential as biomaterials due to their unique structural features, including remarkable mechanical strength, high stability,…
Biological systems exhibit large-scale self-organized dynamics and structures which enable organisms to perform the functions of life. The field of active matter strives to develop and understand microscopically-driven nonequilibrium…
Imagine a world where beauty and technology move in perfect harmony, revealing tiny masterpieces hidden in the water. This world is Nature, and diatoms are the stars. Masters of assembling complex hierarchical glass structures, these…
Plant scientists use Functional Structural Plant Models (FSPMs) to model plant systems within a limited space-time range. To allow FSPMs to abstract complex plant systems beyond a single model's limitation, an integration that compounds…
From multicellular tissues to bacterial colonies, three dimensional cellular structures arise through the interaction of cellular activities and mechanical forces. Simple bacterial communities provide model systems for analyzing such…
Plant factory with artificial light (PFAL) is a promising technology for relieving the food crisis, especially in urban areas or arid regions endowed with abundant resources. However, lighting and HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air…
Recent experimental utilization of liquid substrate in the production of two-dimensional crystals, such as graphene, together with a general interest in amorphous materials, raises the following question: is it beneficial to use a liquid…
Storage, organizing, and decorating are an important part of home design. While one can buy commercial items for many of these tasks, this can be costly, and re-use is more sustainable. An alternative is a "home hack", a functional assembly…
When pursuing sustainable approaches to fabricate photonic structures, nature can be used as a source of inspiration for both the nanoarchitecture and the constituent materials. Although several biomaterials have been promised as suitable…
The advent of the 5G era means that the concepts of robot, VR/AR, UAV, smart home, smart healthcare based on IoT (Internet of Things) have gradually entered human life. Since then, intelligent life has become the dominant direction of…
Synthetic biologists have made great progress over the past decade in developing methods for modular assembly of genetic sequences and in engineering biological systems with a wide variety of functions in various contexts and organisms.…