It was ‘imported’ from space via a meteorite impact.
Researcher devise ‘metallic wood’ that’s stronger than titanium but could float on water
“The reason we call it metallic wood is not just its density, which is about that of wood, but its cellular nature,” says lead author James Pikul.
Thawing Canadian Arctic permafrost is releasing “substantial amounts” of mercury into waterways
In the Canadian Arctic, mercury isn’t rising only in thermometers.
New material harvests water from thin air without using energy — even in dry, arid Arizona
Not a bad trick!
First metal pollution event in Europe suggests Europeans were smelting metal 5,600 years ago
The metal ages may have started in the Balkans.
Ugly Unicorn: Metal-tipped prehistoric ant drank the blood of its victims for dinner
Stabby stabby!
These are the most metal words in the English language, data scientist says
Rock on, brothers.
This machine 3-D prints metal objects in mid-air
Harvard researchers have demonstrated an all new 3-D printing technique that creates metals objects with complex shapes right in mid-air. This is fundamentally different from the approach of traditional 3-D printers which ooze polymer material layer by layer.
Composite metal foam better at stopping bullets than solid plates
Composite metal foam (CMF) is light, but strong — it can even stop bullets!
How the Copper Age changed humanity
In a time where virtually all labor was muscle-driven, having access to a material that can make your tools bend a bit instead of breaking or make your sword shatter an enemy’s weapon was like playing life with cheat codes.
Foamy gold is mostly empty, floats on coffee
Imagine a nugget of real, 20 carat gold floating merrily on the milk foam of your cup of warm cappuccino — scientists from ETH Zurich have found a way to do it. It’s not super-cappuccino, or diamond-strong foam — scientists led by Raffaele Mezzenga, Professor of Food and Soft Materials at ETH have produced a novel foam of gold, a three-dimensional material that is actually mostly…empty.
Everything about Aluminium: facts, recycling, importance
The next time you throw away an aluminium can, picture the can half full of gasoline. That’s how much energy goes into making it, and how much energy will have to be spent to produce a new one rather than recycle.
Scientists make recipes for metal glass, the wonder material you’ve never heard of
What happens when you mix the physical properties of glass (brittle and flowing) and metal (stiff and tough)? You get metal glass, of course. Since the 1960s, scientists showed you can make certain alloys into metal glass by rapidly cooling them. Really, really fast. Hundreds of degrees in a fraction of a second. Eventually you end up with an alloy that both behaves like a metal and glass. Some are three times stronger than titanium and have the elastic modulus of bone, all while being extremely lightweight. They’re also a lot more easy to machine than metals. All in all, metal glass is amazing and has the possibility to transform the world, just like another wonder material: graphene. So, why aren’t we seeing more of it? Part of the problem is that research is moving painfully slow, but this may set to change after a team of researchers in Sydney reported a model for the atomic structure of metal glass. If until now scientists were testing various alloys and technique in the dark, by trial and error, now they have a cook book for metal glass.
Scientists Turn Pure Metal into Glass
A team of researchers has managed to make metallic glasses from pure, monoatomic metals. These metals are amorphous like glass, but they retain some of the properties of metals – like ultrafast cooling and solid state reaction.
Taking 3D printing into the metal age, and into outer space
We’ve already written novels on how much 3D printing has evolved and what magnificent things we can accomplish through it: from printing bacteria to printing baroc rooms, from saving babies’ lives to rocket engines and from ears and cartilages to nanoscale objects, 3D printing promises to revolutionize the world we live in. Now, the European Space Agency (ESA, the “European
Cracked metal fuses itself – pulling apart only makes it stronger
It was a result so unexpected that MIT researchers first thought there was some kind of mistake – under certain conditions, putting a cracked piece of metal under tension (pulling it apart) has the reverse effect – causing the edge of the cracks to fuse together. The surprising, counterintuitive find paves the way towards self healing metals that repair incipient
Scientists change the colour of gold and other metals using nanotech
No, this isn’t some kind of reinvented alchemy or optical illusion. Scientists at University of Southampton have changed the colour of gold, silver and other metals without coating, by using a nanotechnology patterning technique. Applications may include harder to forge currency or encryption of valuable documents, among other. The team of researchers embossed the surface of metals with tiny raised or indented
Scientists turn hydrogen into metal
For years and years scientists have tried to make hydrogen exhibit metal properties, by experimentally proving what’s already been more or less acknowledged in theory. Hydrogen is an alkali metal, and under the right circumstances it can be fooled into becoming a metal. These “right” circumstances have yet to be found, until recently when a pair of scientists from the Max-Planck
You know that smell metal has ? Well… that’s actually human smell
Whenever you catch the scent of a coin, a piece of iron or anything else metallica, it always seems to have pretty much the same smell. So what’s up with that? I’ve asked myself that a dozen times, but fortunately, so did Dietmar Glindemann of the University of Leipzig, Germany, and his co-workers. Their conclusion? It’s not the metal you’re
Head banging can hammer the brain
If you’ve ever been to a rock concert, you know that unique feeling when you leave the arena, and the whole world is in your pocket; that feeling appears whether you’re a headbanger or not, no difference there. But the difference, it seems, appears in your head. When I first heard what inspired Associate Professor Andrew McIntosh, co-author and professor
