Scientific Highlights from Network Area 4 Archives

11th December 2025

Fig.1 Sketch of the damage mechanism. Copyright: Donghao Zhao. All right reserved.

11th December 2025

Why We Can Cut Rubber Easier Than We Tear It

Ever wonder why it's so much easier to cut a tough material like rubber or leather with a sharp knife than it is to rip or tear it with your hands? Researchers from... (Read more)

25th November 2025

Two charged rods in water and counterions, generated with AI, ChatGTP, by the authors of the paper

25th November 2025

Rod-Shaped Colloids Form Wigner Crystal

A long-standing scientific belief has been overturned: researchers from a SoftComp collaboration including Ca’ Foscari Univ. of Venice, Italy, and Univ. of Bordeaux, France, have observed a Wigner crystal forming in rod-like colloidal... (Read more)

10th February 2025

Fig. 2. Schematic illustration of the blending of humins and PLA, the production of humins from sugar-based feedstocks, and the production of PLA from sugar cane crop residues. Copyright: Dilhan Kandemir. All rights reserved.

10th February 2025

Upcycling Humins into Valuable Materials

Advancing sustainable materials development: Researchers from SoftComp partner KU Leuven, Belgium, have introduced a novel strategy to upcycle humins, a major by-product of biorefineries, into new materials , advancing materials development using sustainable... (Read more)

6th February 2025

Figure 1: Aspect ratio is a crucial network building block property, defining network formation, architecture, and mechanics in synthetic and living systems. (Left) Schematic representation of the aspect ratios (AR) of protein L polyprotein constructs and fibrin proto-fibers. (Middle) A schematic representation of the two dominated formation regimes: translation diffusion limited (TDL) where building blocks can only interact by translating their centre of mass; and rotationally diffusion limited (RDL) where building blocks are able to interact purely via rotation about their centre of mass. (Right) The fitted increase in mechanical rigidity as a function of aspect ratio with inserted schematics showing the change in structural topology as the system transitions from TDL to RDL formation above the critical aspect ratio, ARc. Copyright: Image partly published in Hughes M. D. G. et al., Nat. Commun. 14, 5593 (2023) under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

6th February 2025

Biology Exploits Geometry

Impact of Aspect Ratio on Protein Network Assembly: Scientists at SoftComp partner University of Leeds and STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK, have made an exciting discovery about the functional advantages of high aspect... (Read more)