News: Complex Materials and Processing

From lab to everyday life: Princeton accelerator fund supports promising innovations
Three technologies emerging from CBE that address some of society’s biggest challenges — from transparent solar cells to low-cost water purification — will receive support for research and development through Princeton’s Intellectual Property Accelerator Fund.
Researchers grow hair with this clever physics trick
A team of Princeton researchers found they could coat a liquid elastic on the outside of a disc and spin it to form useful, complex patterns. When spun just right, tiny spindles rise from the material as it cures. The spindles grow as the disc accelerates, forming a soft solid that resembles hairs.
"See-through soil" could help farmers deal with future drought

In research that may eventually help crops survive drought, scientists at Princeton University have uncovered a key reason that mixing material called hydrogels with soil has sometimes proven disappointing for farmers.

Hydrogel beads, tiny plastic blobs that can absorb a thousand times their weight in water…