Imagine pulling on the long ends of a rectangular piece of rubber. It should become narrower and thinner. But what if it instead became wider and fatter? Now, push in on those same ends. What if the ...

Auxetic materials are being of more and more interest to materials scientists and designers because of their ability to shrink when compressed and expand orthogonally to strain. These materials have a ...

Regardless of whether it is strained or compressed, the new material always expands. Copyright: Thomas Heine et al. Researchers have discovered a two-dimensional ...

If you stretch an elastic band, it becomes thinner - a physical behavior that applies to most "common" materials. Since the 20th century, an opposite behavior has been known in materials research: The ...

Most of us think we have a pretty solid grasp on basic physics, and one of the assumptions we've come to form is that any material gets thinner as it's stretched. It makes sense, since the same amount ...

New materials designed by artificial intelligence promise to provide stronger hip replacements and improve how fractures heal.

Auxetics defy common sense, widening when stretched and narrowing when compressed. NIST researchers have now made the process of using them much easier. Such common-sense-defying materials do exist.

Researchers have discovered a new two-dimensional material with unprecedented properties: regardless if it is strained or compressed, it always expands. This so-called half-auxetic behavior is ...

For example, if you punch a bag full of water (like you would carry for hiking), the water within it will flow away from the point of impact. If the bag were full of an auxetic foam when you punched ...

Such common-sense-defying materials do exist. They’re called auxetics, and they have a raft of unique properties that make them well-suited for sneaker insoles, bomb-resilient buildings, car bumpers ...