"The previous cooling materials have been rigid and tough, which makes them unforgiving for athletes, occupational workers, soldiers, and so much more."

The new hydrogel is strong enough to stand up to stretching and squishing like real knee cartilage. A quarter-sized disc can handle a 100-pound kettlebell.

A new kind of bioink shows promise for bioprinting patient-specific bone grafts, or other body parts like ears, blood vessels, or cartilage.

Embedded "biofactories" in hydrogel could give people in remote places a portable way to produce hard-to-get medicines.

A "bio-ink" for 3D-printed materials could serve as scaffolds for growing human tissues to repair or replace damaged ones in the body, say bioengineers.

A set of injectable hydrogels can spur or stave off the body's inflammation response to speed up the healing process, a new study shows.

Scooping the guts out of bacteria and refilling the exoskeletons with an expansive fluid reveals if whether a microbe is structurally strong or weak.

A new "smart skin" can change colors just like a chameleons skin, but it also fixes a major problem with other color-changing materials—the way they shrink.

A new Rubik's Cube-like structure made of a self-healing hydrogel might one day lead to new ways to store data and monitor medical conditions.

Microparticles can monitor oxygen levels in hydrogels that one day could be used to regrow muscle, cartilage, or organs.