Whitesides

Professor George M. Whitesides, Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor, has been selected as one the recipients of the 2022 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience, which honors the "pioneers that created molecular scale coatings for surfaces which enable...

Vollmer-Snarr teaches chemistry students to see how small reactions can help solve global problems like COVID-19 COVID-19 is illuminating disparities too often overlooked—from access to computers and reliable internet, to economic stability, and, most...

A new smart fabric that can be inflated and deflated by temperature-dependent liquid-vapor phase changes could enable a new range of mechanotherapeutic and industrial applications By Benjamin Boettner Soft robots are on the rise largely because of their...

From gut microbes to ultracold atoms, here are the stories that got the most attention in 2019 With the year's end in sight, we're taking one more look back. Below is the top ten list of the department's most read stories from 2019. But wait! Now's your...

New technology could help law enforcement detect smaller amounts of fentanyl with a higher degree of accuracy than any other field-testing tool By Caitlin McDermott-Murphy Two years ago, Cambridge Police Detective Sgt. Louis Cherubino got a call from a...

Science and style collide for this fashion-designer-turned-engineer By Adam Zewe As a young child, Vanessa Sanchez had a habit of taking things apart and trying, often unsuccessfully, to put them back together. Seeking to channel her daughter’s unbridled...

The first soft ring oscillator gets plushy robots to roll, undulate, sort, meter liquids, and swallow By Caitlin McDermott-Murphy Soft robots can’t always compete with the hard. Their rigid brethren dominate assembly lines, perform backflips, dance to...

The fashion designer/engineer earns a coveted ACS honor This year, the American Chemical Society (ACS) celebrated the 10th annual CAS Future Leaders program, which awards early-career scientists with essential scientific, business and leadership training...

With molecular data storage, cat videos could outlast us all By Caitlin McDermott-Murphy From books to floppy disks to magnetic memory, technologies to store information continue to improve. Yet threats as simple as water and as complex as cyberattacks...

Soft digital logic emulates the thought process of an electronic computer and the feel of a human hand By Caitlin McDermott-Murphy A soft robot, attached to a balloon and submerged in a transparent column of water, dives and surfaces, then dives and...