Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have been working on a flexible packaging material comprised of alternating layers of chitin, the primary component of crustacean shells, and cellulose, the main fiber found in green plants.
The use of cardboard means the whole shell will be gone in a few months, but the team at Otherlab wants this stuff to go away even quicker – it's working on using a material created using mushrooms called "mycelium" that will biodegrade completely in just a few days.
For founder and CEO James Rogers, who was working on a PhD in materials engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara when he was inspired to create Apeel Sciences, the solution to the problem of quickly spoiled food could be found by looking to a problem science had already solved: rust.
The team is already working on a version of the material that works at lower temperatures.
Researchers in Germany and Japan are working on a flexible polymer-based material called PEDOT, which when doped with various chemicals becomes more transparent and a better conductor.
Another group of researchers at Texas Tech has been working on a similar oil-absorbing material we mentioned before as a solution to oil spill cleanup.
And while theming is the highlight of this release, Google also today announced that it's working on a number of new Material Components, that is, a set of pre-built design components.
In August 2013, Timbaland revealed that he is working on a project featuring unreleased material by Michael Jackson, with a lead single called "Love Never Felt So Good".
In 2013 Beck began playing special Song Reader concerts with a variety of guests and announced he was working on a record of Song Reader material with other musicians as well as possibly a compilation of fan versions.
Ms. Jeffers is working on a mini-encyclopedia of materials, which is to be published by Thames & Hudson of London.
