New plastic material could solve energy storage challenge, researchers report
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 2-Apr-2026 17:15 ET (2-Apr-2026 21:15 GMT/UTC)
A team led by Penn State researchers reported a novel material made of cheap, commercially available plastics that can handle four times the energy of a typical capacitor at temperatures up to 482 F.
Technology impulse for the Lake Constance region: The new Single Cell Centre at the University of Konstanz offers technology and expertise to study cells individually and at high resolution – for applications in medical diagnostics, medication development and basic research at universities.
As universities increasingly adopt digital tools and automated analytics systems, attention often centers on these tools’ gains in accuracy and efficiency. Far less visible, however, is another critical dimension: the additional work students must do to produce, organize, and interpret their own data within these systems.
New research shows that small clusters of interacting units – “motifs” – can disproportionately trigger sudden changes in complex systems. In ecological networks, interactions among just two or three species can explain large, unexpected system responses. These motifs act as amplifiers, making minor disturbances cascade into major effects. Recognizing such critical clusters helps explain why ecosystems, power grids, supply chains, and social networks can collapse or surge unpredictably, offering a potential pathway to forecast and mitigate cascading failures across diverse networks.