Scientists have infused "life" into inanimate chemical compounds by flashing a blue-violet light that prompted them to assemble themselves into a crystal.
The feat, described in a study published online Thursday by the journal Science, marks an important step toward creating "active" materials that can repair themselves, such as a smartphone screen that fixes its own cracks or a Kevlar vest that fills a hole made by a bullet, experts said.
Showing that microscopic particles can be made to come together or break apart on their own "opens a new area for design and production of novel and moving structures," wrote the study authors, a team of physicists and chemists from New York University and Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass.
The researchers said they were inspired by the way flocks of birds and schools of fish are able to move as if they are a single living organism. The team wanted to see if they could duplicate — and control — that collective motion using non-living objects.
The astronauts aboard NASA's Artemis II have now traveled farther from Earth than any other humans...
Snow surveys taking place across the American west this week are offering a grim prognosis, after...
It has only been a couple days since NASA successfully launched astronauts to the moon for...
We have liftoff!NASA's long-awaited return trip to the moon's orbit launched on Wednesday, April 1 as...
