Snake skin

Snakeskin inspires new, friction-reducing material

March 2, 2021

A research team led by CU Boulder has designed a new kind of synthetic “skin” as slippery as the scales of a snake. The research, published recently in the American Chemical Society journal Applied Materials & Interfaces, addresses an under-appreciated problem in engineering: Friction.

Cross-sectional SEM image of the spin-coated MAPbI3 film processed from DMF precursor solution (annealed for 5 s at 100 °C) on a PTAA-covered ITO glass substrate.

Growing a better, more affordable solar cell from perovskite

March 2, 2021

While solar panels have traditionally used silicon-based cells, researchers are increasingly looking to perovskite-based solar cells to create panels that are more efficient, less expensive to produce and can be manufactured at the scale needed to power the world.

Image of complex interaction of proteins

Velcro-like cellular proteins key to tissue strength

March 1, 2021

Where do bodily tissues get their strength? New CU Boulder research provides important new clues to this long-standing mystery, identifying how specialized proteins called cadherins join forces to make cells stick—and stay stuck—together.

Very Large Array Satellite Dishes at Sunset in New Mexico

CU Boulder joins partnership to pursue NSF Spectrum Innovation Initiative center

Feb. 10, 2021

CU Boulder may soon be part of large-scale research into the electromagnetic spectrum that could define wireless innovation across everyday life for the next generation.

People walking across a bridge

Mortenson Center leading work to study trail bridge use in rural Rwanda

Dec. 10, 2020

A team from the center recently published results from a pilot impact evaluation of trail bridges in rural Rwanda in PLOS ONE. They installed sensors to monitor use at 12 bridge sites constructed by Denver-based nonprofit Bridges to Prosperity.

CU Boulder campus seen from the air

New healthcare-related grants enable research into pandemics, rheumatoid arthritis

Dec. 3, 2020

The AB Nexus Research Collaboration Grant program announced its inaugural round of grants totaling $625,000 for novel research projects integrating expertise from the CU Anschutz and CU Boulder campuses.

Michael F Toney

Toney and international team develop method for observing ion movement in batteries

Nov. 10, 2020

An international team of researchers including Professor Michael Toney has developed a new technique for precisely tracking the movement of ions within batteries, a discovery that may have far-reaching impacts on how safe and efficient batteries are developed. They published their findings in Energy and Environmental Science in September.

Students working in the lab

College research portfolio tops $134 million as part of four-year upward trend

Oct. 7, 2020

CU Engineering experienced another record-breaking year for research funding in 2020, receiving $134 million overall and dwarfing the 2019 total of $108 million.

J. Will Medlin in the lab wearing blue shirt and safety glasses

“Fine-tuning” catalyst performance for sustainable hydrogen peroxide synthesis

Sept. 17, 2020

New research from Professor J. Will Medlin and collaborators at three other institutions points to a new, inexpensive and sustainable method of synthesizing hydrogen peroxide.

Artist's depiction of the twin Janus spacecraft. (Credit: Lockheed Martin)

Where no spacecraft has gone before: A close encounter with binary asteroids

Sept. 10, 2020

CU Boulder and Lockheed Martin will lead a new space mission to capture the first-ever closeup look at a mysterious class of solar system objects: binary asteroids. These bodies are pairs of asteroids that orbit around each other in space, much like the Earth and moon. In a project review...

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