Wood is already a pretty fantastic material, and it’s hard to imagine mankind getting to the point we are today without it, but it has some pretty serious drawbacks depending on the application. Its most notable shortcoming is strength, and engineers typically lean more heavily on metal when rigidity and toughness are the top priority. That could change, as researchers have developed a method that turns wood into a super-dense, incredibly strong “uber” version of itself, and it’s actually a pretty simple process. The work, led by scientists at the University of Maryland, College Park, was just published in Nature.
In order to produce this super wood, the team first boiled the wood in a mixture of sodium sulfite and sodium hydroxide, which helps to break up some of the natural bonds within the plant cells. Once that is done, the wood is heated and compressed, and its already weakened state leads to the “total collapse of cell walls and complete densification of the natural wood,” according to the researchers.
As the wood is compressed and heated, new bonds form within the super-dense wood, and the result is a material that is both lighter and stronger than most metal metals. Compared to regular, untreated wood, the new material is over 10 times stronger, and up to 20 times as rigid, making it a serious option for construction applications where metals are typically used. – READ MORE
[give_form id=”79809″] [divider][/divider]A new cancer vaccine that activates T cells in tumors was found to be incredibly effective in mice, completely eliminating tumors in 97% of the mice tested, Stanford University School of Medicine researchers found.
When researchers injected tiny amounts of two immune-stimulating agents into physical tumors, all traces of cancer, “including distant, untreated metastases,” were totally eliminated in 87 of the 90 mice tested, notes Stanford Medicine News Center.
“Our approach uses a one-time application of very small amounts of two agents to stimulate the immune cells only within the tumor itself. In the mice, we saw amazing, bodywide effects, including the elimination of tumors all over the animal,” said professor of oncology and senior author of the study Ronald Levy, MD.
“When we use these two agents together, we see the elimination of tumors all over the body,” Levy added. “This approach bypasses the need to identify tumor-specific immune targets and doesn’t require wholesale activation of the immune system or customization of a patient’s immune cells.” – READ MORE
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