Inspired by living things from trees to shellfish, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin set out to create a plastic much like many life forms that are hard and rigid in some places and soft and stretchy in others. Their success—a first, using only light and a catalyst to change properties such as hardness and elasticity in molecules of the same type—has brought about a new material that is 10 times as tough as natural rubber and could lead to more flexible electronics and robotics.
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Source: Phys.org