Self-repairing materials

Material scientists from the University of Southern Mississippi have created a new polymer that can fix its own scratches under regular sunlight. Source

A technique pioneered at Bristol University in England and funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council allows aircraft built with fiber-reinforced polymer (or FRP), which most commercial planes use, to automatically repair minor wear and tear during flight. Source

Fracture Putty - bone-healing wonder materials

Two teams of Rice University bioengineers and colleagues at the Texas Medical Center have been asked to create a putty-like wonder material that can be packed around broken bones on the battlefield to reduce complications from compound fractures.

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Worms help find cure for muscle-wasting diseases

Dr Nathaniel Szewczyk, from the Institute of Clinical Research in Derby, will study the signals that control muscle protein degradation in worms.

His work centres on the microscopic worm, Caenorhabditis elegans.

These worms are the perfect substitute for studying long term changes in human physiology because they suffer from muscle atrophy - muscle loss - under many of the same conditions that people do.

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Bone Marrow Stem Cells Used To Regenerate Skin

A new study suggests that adult bone marrow stem cells can be used in the construction of artificial skin. The findings mark an advancement in wound healing and may be used to pioneer a method of organ reconstruction.

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Restoring organs and body parts

From giving sight to the blind to creating a tongue more accurate than any human taste bud, we are creating the technology.

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Regrowing Teeth

In a few years dentists will treat periodontal disease with regeneration by using stem cells to create hard and soft tissue; they will take out a tooth that is about to fall, and reconnect it firmly to the regenerated tissue. Although nobody is predicting when it will be possible to grow teeth on demand, in adults, to replace missing ones, a common guess is five to ten years.

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