A new material not only heals itself, but it also stretches up to 50 times its usual size; these properties could fix your phone’s battery if it cracks or prevent it from breaking in the first place. Credit: Wang lab

Taking a cue from the Marvel Universe, researchers report that they have developed a self-healing polymeric material with an eye toward electronics and soft robotics that can repair themselves. The material is stretchable and transparent, conducts ions to generate current and could one day help your broken smartphone go back together again.

“When I was young, my idol was Wolverine from the X-Men,” Chao Wang, Ph.D., says. “He could save the world, but only because he could heal himself...

Artist’s conception of a loosely tethered binary planetoid pair like those studied by Fraser et al. in this work which led to the conclusion that Neptune’s shepherding of them to the Kuiper Belt as gradual and gentle in nature. Credit: Gemini Observatory/AURA, artwork by Joy Pollard

Dr Wes Fraser from Queen’s led an international project ‘Colours of the Outer Solar Systems Origins Survey’ Col-OSSOS, which uses data collected from the Frederick C. Gillett Gemini North Telescope and Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) both on Maunakea in Hawaii. By simultaneously using two world class telescopes, Dr Fraser’s team was able to produce unique research with a global impact.

The study focused on the Kuiper Belt – a region of space beyond the gas giant Neptune...

The distribution of galaxies in the proto-supercluster region 11.5 billion years ago (top left), and the Subaru Telescope Suprime-Cam image used in this work (right, larger image). Neutral hydrogen gas distribution is superposed on the Subaru image. The red color indicates denser regions of the neutral hydrogen gas. Cyan squares correspond to member galaxies in the proto-supercluster, while objects without cyan squares are foreground galaxies and stars. The distribution of neutral hydrogen gas does not align perfectly with the galaxies. Credit: Osaka Sangyo University / NAOJ

Suprime-Cam on the Subaru Telescope to create the most-extensive map of neutral hydrogen gas in the early universe...

Charles Gersbach, the Rooney Family Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University. Credit: Duke University

Researchers have developed a method to swiftly the non-coding DNA of the human genome for links to diseases that are driven by changes in gene regulation. The technique could revolutionize modern medicine’s understanding of the genetically inherited risks of developing heart disease, diabetes, cancer, neurological disorders and others, and lead to new treatments.

“Identifying single mutations that cause rare, devastating diseases like muscular dystrophy has become relatively straightforward,” said Charles Gersbach, the Rooney Family Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University...