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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

A totally new type of polymer is designed to lift weights, contracting and expanding the way muscles do [futurity.org]. It has the potential to do lots of other stuff, too—like deliver drugs or even repair itself.

The new capabilities are the result of both rigid and soft compartments with extremely different properties that are organized in specific ways.

The hybrid polymer cleverly combines the two types of known polymers: those formed with strong covalent bonds and those formed with weak non-covalent bonds, well known as “supramolecular polymers.” The integrated polymer offers two distinct “compartments” with which chemists and materials scientists can work to provide useful features.

“Our discovery could transform the world of polymers and start a third chapter in their history: that of the ‘hybrid polymer,'” says Samuel I. Stupp, a professor and director of Northwestern University’s Simpson Querrey Institute for BioNanotechnology. “This would follow the first chapter of broadly useful covalent polymers, then the more recent emerging class of supramolecular polymers.

Original study [doi.org].

Original Submission