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Feb 18, 2013

Researchers Coat Spinal Polymer Implants With Bioactive Film to Improve Bonding With Bone

Researchers from North Carolina State University have for the first time successfully coated polymer implants with a bioactive film. The discovery should improve the success rate of such implants – which are often used in spinal surgeries. 

Feb 15, 2013

Force is the Key to Granular State-Shifting

Ever wonder why sand can both run through an hourglass like a liquid and be solid enough to support buildings? It’s because granular materials – like sand or dirt – can change their behavior, or state. Researchers from North Carolina State University have found that the forces individual grains exert on one another are what… 

Feb 11, 2013

Researchers Find Asian Needle Ants Displacing Other Aggressive Invaders

Researchers from North Carolina State University have found that one of the most aggressive invasive ant species in the United States – the Argentine ant – appears to have met its match in the Asian needle ant. Specifically, the researchers have found that the Asian needle ant is successfully displacing Argentine ants in an urban… 

Old well at UNC Chapel Hill.

Feb 8, 2013

Wolfpack OKs Tar Heel Truce

NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill will set aside their historical rivalry to collaborate on research to solve the state's toughest challenges. 

Feb 5, 2013

Flexible Classroom Design Saves Money, Improves Flexibility, Accessibility of Instruction

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a classroom design that gives instructors increased flexibility in how to teach their courses and improves accessibility for students, while  slashing administrative costs. 

Jan 31, 2013

Researchers Find Evidence of Geological ‘Facelift’ in the Appalachians

How does a mountain range maintain its youthful, rugged appearance after 200 million years without tectonic activity? Try a geological facelift – courtesy of the earth’s mantle. Researchers from North Carolina State University noticed that a portion of the Appalachian Mountains in western North Carolina near the Cullasaja River basin was topographically quite different from… 

Jan 23, 2013

Researchers Create Self-Healing, Stretchable Wires Using Liquid Metal

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed elastic, self-healing wires in which both the liquid-metal core and the polymer sheath reconnect at the molecular level after being severed. 

Jan 15, 2013

Researchers Create Flexible, Nanoscale ‘Bed of Nails’ for Possible Drug Delivery

Researchers at North Carolina State University have come up with a technique to embed needle-like carbon nanofibers in an elastic membrane, creating a flexible “bed of nails” on the nanoscale that opens the door to development of new drug-delivery systems. 

Dec 19, 2012

‘Gold Standard’ Cotton Genome Sequenced

An international consortium with representatives from most of the world’s major cotton-producing countries, led by Regents Professor Andrew Paterson of the University of Georgia and including Candace Haigler, a North Carolina State University professor of crop science and plant biology, has described the first ‘gold-standard’ genome sequence for cotton. Published today in Nature, this is… 

Dec 18, 2012

Researchers Use Liquid Metal to Create Wires That Stretch Eight Times Their Original Length

Researchers from North Carolina State University have created conductive wires that can be stretched up to eight times their original length while still functioning. The wires can be used for everything from headphones to phone chargers, and hold potential for use in electronic textiles. To make the wires, researchers start with a thin tube made… 

Dec 13, 2012

NC State Study Offers Insight Into Converting Wood to Bio-Oil

New research from North Carolina State University provides molecular-level insights into how cellulose – the most common organic compound on Earth and the main structural component of plant cell walls – breaks down in wood to create “bio-oils” which can be refined into any number of useful products, including liquid transportation fuels to power a… 

Dec 11, 2012

5 Questions With Canopy Meg

Meg Lowman is the director of the Nature Research Center at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences and a research professor at NC State. She has conquered the canopy of the rainforest, and opened up an entirely new world to scientific discovery. She’s just published a textbook that will help future generations of canopy scientists get… 

Dec 10, 2012

Researchers Reveal Structure of Carbon’s ‘Hoyle State’

A North Carolina State University researcher has taken a “snapshot” of the way particles combine to form carbon-12, the element that makes all life on Earth possible.  And the picture looks like a bent arm. Carbon-12 can only exist when three alpha particles, or helium-4 nuclei, combine in a very specific way. This combination is… 

Dec 6, 2012

Researchers Craft Tool to Minimize Threat of Endocrine Disruptors in New Chemicals

Researchers from North Carolina State University, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and a host of other institutions have developed a safety testing system to help chemists design inherently safer chemicals and processes. 

Dec 4, 2012

Study: Parents Key to Preventing Alcohol, Marijuana Use by Kids

New research from North Carolina State University, Brigham Young University and the Pennsylvania State University finds that parental involvement is more important than the school environment when it comes to preventing or limiting alcohol and marijuana use by children.