Do we get marks for participating after the exam? :)
I read about this in the National Geographic magazine for June: a group in the USA created 'ultralight metallic microlattices. 'Ultralight' refers to < 10 mg per cubic centimetre. Of course, styrofoam already exists, but it isn't particularly strong because of the rather disordered structure of the ultralight-version of the material.
These microlattices apparently overcome this weakness because they can be created using much more regular internal structures. The way they did this: a self-propagating photopolymer was grown as a template, the template was coated with nickel via 'electroless' plating (not sure what this is yet...) and then etching away the template.
Ultralight materials are useful because of their thermal and kinetic insulating abilities, and now because they can be used as light structural supports.
Here is the doi and other stuff:
Science 18 November 2011:
Vol. 334 no. 6058 pp. 962-965
DOI: 10.1126/science.1211649
Josh Harbort
PS: Has anyone though that doi would be pronounced "DOO-ee"? :)
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