Archive
Author: Erkam Narinç
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How mussels glue underwater, and why adhesives engineers keep studying them
Water defeats most adhesives. Mussels bond to wet rock in seconds using a single modified amino acid that both binds surfaces and cross-links protein, provided the chemistry is sequenced correctly.
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The pine cone: a material that opens and closes without energy
A pine cone opens when dry and closes when damp, using no cells, no energy and no moving parts. How the bilayer mechanism works, why the microfibril angle explains it,…
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Molecular Velcro: how the wood cell wall yields without weakening
A tree bends far past the point where an engineering material would be permanently damaged, then stands up again. The explanation is a stick–slip mechanism inside the cell wall: weak…
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Was packaging invented in the twentieth century? Ask a Roman glassblower
Standardised volumes, inert food-contact surfaces, branded containers and a recycling trade: all present in the Roman world. How glassblowing turned a luxury material into everyday packaging, and what that history…
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Lignin: the polymer built without a blueprint
Lignin is the second most abundant biopolymer on Earth and the matrix that allows trees to stand upright. Unusually among biological macromolecules, it is assembled without a genetic template, and…
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Bio-based, biodegradable, compostable: three terms that are not interchangeable
Bio-based describes where a material comes from. Biodegradable describes what can happen to it. Compostable describes what has been verified to happen, under defined conditions. An explanation of the distinctions,…
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Material identification codes: what they mean, what they do not, and how the PPWR changes them
Material identification codes such as PET 1, PAP 21 and ALU 41 state what packaging is made from: not whether it is recyclable. An explanation of the system under Commission…