Researchers have drawn inspiration from armadillos to create a protective structure that responds to external threats by curling into a protective ball to protect electronic devices or other payloads. The structure is designed to automatically respond when it detects strain and can be tuned to respond to anything from a delicate touch to a significant impact.

The Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPIP) welcomes the first group of participants in the new Poly-ABROAD Visiting Student Program—an international collaboration with the Macromolecules Innovation Institute at Virginia Tech. From May through August, six doctoral candidates and students from the U.S. will complete a three-month research stay in Mainz, working on interdisciplinary projects related to biologically inspired and sustainable polymer materials and networking with other doctoral candidates from both Max Planck Institutes and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz at the “Max Planck Graduate Center with Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.” The goal of this initiative, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, is to strengthen scientific exchange in polymer and materials research and to integrate young talent into international networks.

Researchers at the University of Rochester’s Institute of Optics engineered a new desalination method that produces drinking water from seawater without chemical additives. In a study in Light: Science & Applications, Professor Chunlei Guo and his collaborators describe how their solar-powered system uses specially engineered black metal to absorb sunlight. Its self-cleaning surface separates and collects salts, instead of dumping them as harmful brine waste, and from the salts, the system can extract lithium, a key material for rechargeable batteries. The approach could help address global water shortages and growing mineral demand.

Researchers have discovered how acids on the surface of bacteria give these microscopic organisms their characteristic “rod” shape—by keeping an enzyme at bay that would otherwise turn the cylindrical cells into shape-shifting blobs.

The findings, published in Nature Microbiology, provide a new understanding of how bacteria control their growth and offer insights into the nature of Earth’s earliest life forms. The study also points to a strategy for overcoming antibiotic resistance by targeting wall teichoic acids, the enigmatic molecules that coat the surface of certain bacteria.

Every summer for nearly three decades, a team at Michigan State University has made their way to Manistee National Forest to look for new trees that have sprouted. At less than a year old, the youngest seedlings aren’t much taller than their toes. But now, the team’s annual counts of 10 tree species are starting to reveal clues to what the region’s forests might look like in the 20, 40 or 100 years to come.

A new chip-making technique pioneered by Rice scientists exploits a material’s crystal structure to create nanoscale patterns at room temperature directly onto hard materials used in devices, including silica.

Astronomers have developed a technique that allows them to detect cloud cycles on distant exoplanets. Using data from the James Webb Sapce Telescope (JWST), the astronomers found that mornings and evenings on the gas giant WASP-94A b have extremely different weather patterns: mornings are riddled with sand clouds, while the skies are clear in the early evenings. By isolating the clouds, researchers can more accurately measure a planet’s atmosphere and provide a clearer picture of the planet’s composition. WASP-94A b, for example, has much less oxygen and carbon than astronomers perviously calculated, making its atmosphere much more like Jupiter than they had originally thought.