Every evening during the summer of 2020, Xingyi Zhou went up to the roof of her lab building at the University of Texas at Austin to check on two plastic boxes containing radish plants. Plants in one ...

A diagram and a photograph of the water collection device. Credit: Guo, Y., Guan, W., Lei, C. et al./CC BY 4.0 You’ve probably seen a magic trick in which a performer makes a playing card, coin, or ...

Engineers find the hydrogel polyethylene glycol (PEG) doubles its water absorption as temperatures climb from 25 to 50 C, and could be useful for passive cooling or water harvesting in warm climates.

image: MIT engineers have synthesized a superabsorbent material that can soak up a record amount of moisture from the air, even in desert-like conditions. Pictured are the hydrogel discs swollen in ...