Polymers

Fitness Fads and Their Environmental Price Tag

Tamzin Preece: The ‘home gym’ didn’t feature in many UK homes before the pandemic, but it’s now much more commonplace to own various bits of kit for home workouts. Within the first three months of lockdown alone, exercise bike sales rose…

A Novel Solution To Plastic Pollution

Forbes: In the previous article, I outlined the growing global problem of plastic pollution. Global treaties and new technologies that address the manufacture, use, and reuse of plastics are needed to tackle this problem. Some companies are already working on the problem. Researchers have tried several different reuse approaches…

Faster Microfiber Actuators Mimic Human Muscle

IEEE Spectrum: Robotics, prosthetics, and other engineering applications routinely use actuators that imitate the contraction of animal muscles. However, the speed and efficiency of natural muscle fibers is a demanding benchmark. Despite new developments in actuation technologies, for the most past…