Biomaterials

Holes help shed light on novel medical devices

Materials Today: Holes help to make sponges and English muffins useful (and in the case of the latter, delicious). Without holes, sponges wouldn’t be flexible enough to bend into small crevices, and muffins wouldn’t be able to sop up the perfect…

Plastic-eating worms offer solution to waste crisis

E&T Magazine: University of Queensland researchers discovered the common Zophobas morio ‘superworm’ can eat through polystyrene, thanks to a bacterial enzyme in their gut. They fed superworms different diets over a three-week period, with some given polystyrene foam, some bran and…

This Company Is Reinventing the Heart Valve

MDDI: There are generally two types of heart valves on the market today: mechanical, and tissue-based prosthetic heart valves. If you get a mechanical heart valve it will probably last you the rest of your life, but you’ll also be…

Chiral gold nanoparticles increase vaccine efficacy by more than 25%, study suggests

PhysOrg: Vaccines can be made over 25% more effective by adding left-handed chiral gold nanoparticles as adjuvants, according to a study by an international collaboration in which Brazilian researchers…