New printing technique and materials could be used to develop intelligent materials and self-adaptive infrastructures and transducers. The piezoelectric materials that inhabit everything from our cell phones to musical greeting cards may be getting an upgrade thanks to work discussed in the journal Nature Materials released online Jan 21.

Xiaoyu ‘Rayne’ Zheng, assistant professor of mechanical engineering in the College of Engineering, and a member of the Macromolecules Innovation Institute, and his team have developed methods to 3D print piezoelectric materials that can be custom-designed to convert movement, impact and stress from any directions to electrical energy...

An image from the international Cassini spacecraft provides evidence of rainfall on the north pole of Titan, the largest of Saturn’s moons. The rainfall would be the first indication of the start of a summer season in the moon’s northern hemisphere.

“The whole Titan community has been looking forward to seeing clouds and rains on Titan’s north pole, indicating the start of the northern summer, but despite what the climate models had predicted, we weren’t even seeing any clouds,” said Rajani Dh...

Scientists at Newcastle University have developed a biological system which lets cells form a desired shape by moulding their surrounding material – in the first instance creating a self-curving cornea...

New technology can clean water twice as fast as commercially available ultrafiltration membranes. Engineers have created a bacteria-filtering membrane using graphene oxide and bacterial nanocellulose. It’s highly efficient, long-lasting and environmentally friendly – and could provide clean water for those in need.

More than 1 in 10 people in the world lack basic drinking water access, and by 2025, half of the world’s population will be living in water-stressed areas, which is why access to clean water is one of the National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges. Engineers at Washington University in St...