Engineers at MIT have developed a polymer thermal conductor — a plastic material that, however counterintuitively, works as a heat conductor, dissipating heat rather than insulating it. Image: Chelsea Turner/MIT

Technique could prevent overheating of laptops, mobile phones, and other electronics. Plastics are excellent insulators, meaning they can efficiently trap heat – a quality that can be an advantage in something like a coffee cup sleeve. But this insulating property is less desirable in products such as plastic casings for laptops and mobile phones, which can overheat, in part because the coverings trap the heat that the devices produce.

Now a team of engineers at MIT has developed a polymer thermal conductor – a plastic material that, however counterintuitively, works as a heat co...

A molecular model of a peptoid nanosheet that shows loop structures in sugars (orange) that bind to Shiga toxin (shown as a five-color bound structure at upper right). Credit: Berkeley Lab

Molecular foundry-designed 2D sheets mimic the surface of cells. Researchers have developed a process for creating ultrathin, self-assembling sheets of synthetic materials that can function like designer flypaper in selectively binding with viruses, bacteria, and other pathogens. In this way the new platform, developed by a team led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), could potentially be used to inactivate or detect pathogens.

The team, which also included researchers from New York University, created the synthesized nanosheets at Berkel...

This is a composite image of the planet Venus as seen by the Japanese probe Akatsuki. The clouds of Venus could have environmental conditions conducive to microbial life. Credit: Image from the Akatsuki Orbiter, built by Institute of Space and Astronautical Science/Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

In the search for extraterrestrial life, scientists have turned over all sorts of rocks. Mars, for example, has geological features that suggest it once had – and still has – subsurface liquid water, an almost sure prerequisite for life. Scientists have also eyed Saturn’s moons Titan and Enceladus as well as Jupiter’s moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto as possible havens for life in the oceans under their icy crusts.

Now, however, scientists are dusting off an old idea that promises a new vist...